Trump: This is the calm before the storm - BBC News

Trump: This is the calm before the storm

Media captionDonald Trump poses with US military leaders before making the cryptic comments

US President Donald Trump has said it is the "calm before the storm" as he met military leaders, without giving further details.

The cryptic comments came hours after reports he was planning to withhold support for the Iran nuclear deal.

But the "storm" could also refer to heightened tensions with North Korea.

He had earlier told his top defence officials he expected them to provide "a broad range of military options... at a much faster pace" in future.

Mr Trump posed in the White House with his wife Melania as well as military leaders and their wives, after Thursday's meetings but before dinner together. Gesturing at the people around him, he asked the waiting press if they knew "what this represents".

"Maybe it's the calm before the storm," he said.

When reporters pressed him on what storm he was referring to, he would only say: "You'll find out."

What storm?

The Trump administration's sights appear to be set on two countries in particular currently: North Korea and Iran. Both involve nuclear programmes, and both were touched on during Thursday's talks with US military leaders.

Mr Trump accused Iran of having "not lived up to the spirit of the agreement" brokered with Iran under his predecessor, Barack Obama.

Media captionPresident Trump and Iran's President Rouhani traded insults at the UN

The 2015 accord was designed to prevent Iran developing a nuclear weapon, with the president's administration having to certify to Congress that Iran is upholding its part of the deal every 90 days.

Trump extends 'worst' Iran nuclear deal

Mr Trump has previously described the deal signed by Iran, the US, the UK, France, China, Russia and Germany as "one of the worst deals I've seen".

US media say the president will announce next Thursday that he would not be certifying the deal on the grounds it does not serve US security interests.

This would leave Congress sixty days to decide whether to re-impose sanctions on Iran.

But some of his top advisers, such as Defence Secretary James Mattis, appear to back the deal.

Speaking in the White House's Cabinet Room, President Trump said: "The Iranian regime supports terrorism and exports violence and chaos across the Middle East."

"That is why we must put an end to Iran's continued aggression and nuclear ambitions. You will be hearing about Iran very shortly."

However, Mr Trump's "storm" could also refer to North Korea, which the US wants to halt its weapons programme.

Media captionTrump is making the US an "inevitable target" - North Korea's foreign minister

Mr Trump has engaged in a war of words with the country's leader, Kim Jong-un, in recent months, threatening to "totally destroy" North Korea during a speech at the UN General Assembly in September.

The US wants Pyongyang to halt its weapons programme, which has seen it perform repeated missile tests, as well as claim to have successfully tested a miniaturised hydrogen bomb which could be loaded on to a long-range missile.

Trump to Tillerson: N Korea negotiations a waste of time

Inside the world's most secretive country

Where is the war of words heading?

On Thursday, Mr Trump's words were more measured.

"In North Korea, our goal is denuclearisation," he said. "We cannot allow this dictatorship to threaten our nation or our allies with unimaginable loss of life."

"We will do what we must do to prevent that from happening. And it will be done, if necessary, believe me."

Beyond Trump’s Daily Skirmishes, Two Huge Problems Loom - NBC News

Beyond Trump’s Daily Skirmishes, Two Huge Problems Loom

by CHUCK TODD, MARK MURRAY and CARRIE DANN

First Read is your briefing from Meet the Press and the NBC Political Unit on the day's most important political stories and why they matter.

Rex Tillerson: I 'never considered leaving' State Department

Rex Tillerson: I 'never considered leaving' State Department

Many of the recent controversies that have surrounded the Trump administration have been stories that have lasted only a few days. Think of Trump criticizing NFL players who take a knee, or San Juan’s mayor or Steph Curry.

But Wednesday revealed two stories that create longer-term problems for the Trump White House. The first is the overall chaos and dysfunction inside the administration — underscored by the NBC News scoop on Secretary of State Rex Tillerson calling the president a “moron.” (The State Department denied that Tillerson ever said that, but Tillerson himself didn’t deny it, and NBC News stands by its story.)

The longer-term problem isn’t the name-calling; it’s that there is so much dysfunction within the administration. If you don’t take our word for it, here’s Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., from yesterday: “I think Secretary Tillerson, Secretary Mattis and Chief of Staff Kelly are those people that help separate our country from chaos.”

Or here's the Washington Post: "[A]s Tillerson has traveled the globe, Trump believes his top diplomat often seems more concerned with what the world thinks of the United States than with tending to the president’s personal image."

It's also the fact that the Trump administration — more than eight months in — is (mostly) running on empty. Only 160 members of the Trump administration have won Senate confirmation, according to the Partnership for Public Service. That’s less than half of what the Obama (337) and Bush (358) administrations had at this same point in time.

The second long-term problem that Wednesday revealed was the Senate Intelligence Committee saying that Trump-Russia collusion from the 2016 campaign is still an open question.

NBC’s Ken Dilanian: “After interviewing more than 100 witnesses and reviewing a thousand times as many pages of documents, the Senate Intelligence Committee has not ruled out that the Trump campaign colluded with Russia to interfere in the 2016 election and has a lot more probing to do, committee leaders said Wednesday. ‘The issue of collusion is still open,’ the committee's Republican chairman, Richard Burr of North Carolina, told a room full of reporters in the Capitol.”

More: “In a noteworthy aside, Burr also suggested that Senate investigators had corroborated some parts of a dossier written by a former British intelligence agent that makes damaging allegations against President Donald Trump and his campaign. Burr did not say which aspects of the dossier the committee may have verified or how much.”

This morning, President Trump tweeted, “Why Isn't the Senate Intel Committee looking into the Fake News Networks in OUR country to see why so much of our news is just made up-FAKE!”

But that the Republican chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Richard Burr, still believes that collusion is a legitimate topic for his committee to pursue — and we’re not even talking about Special Counsel Robert Mueller — is a significant story.

In this Trump Era, it’s easy to lose sight of the news that will continue to play out months (if not years) from now. But these stories — chaos and Russia — aren’t going away.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is up with their first TV and radio campaign of the 2018 cycle. It’s a six-figure buy — so not big — and the ads hit Republicans on health care.

And these are the radio spots the DCCC is running in these 11 congressional districts:

French Hill (AR-2)

Martha McSally (AZ-2)

Jeff Denham (CA-10)

David Valadao (CA-21)

Brian Mast (FL-18)

Mike Bost (IL-12)

Kevin Yoder (KS-3)

Andy Barr (KY-6)

Bruce Poliquin (ME-2)

Don Bacon (NE-2)

Will Hurd (TX-23)

Americans for Prosperity calls on three Democratic senators to back Republicans on tax reform

Meanwhile, the Koch Brothers-backed Americans for Prosperity is up with a $4.5 million advertising campaign that calls on three Democratic senators — Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., and Joe Donnelly, D-Ind. — to support the GOP effort on tax reform. Here’s one of the ads aimed at Baldwin.

Mr. Moore comes to Washington

Roy Moore, the Republican nominee in the Alabama Senate race who beat out Trump’s pick Sen Luther Strange, met with the National Republican Senatorial Committee Wednesday evening to discuss the December 12 race, a Republican familiar with the meeting tells NBC's Frank Thorp and Leigh Ann Caldwell.

Moore’s visit to DC was notable because of the people he met with — and those he didn’t meet. Moore had meetings with some of the Alabama House delegation, but did not have plans to meet with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. Asked earlier today if Moore planned to meet with Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., during his visit to DC, Shelby’s spokeswoman told NBC, “Roy Moore has not yet reached out with a time for the two of them to meet; however, Senator Shelby is happy to meet with the Republican nominee.”

WaPo poll shows Northam up 13 points in Virginia (but observers don’t believe his lead is that high)

Lastly, a Washington Post-Schar School poll shows Democrat Ralph Northam with a 13-point lead over Republican Ed Gillespie in Virginia’s gubernatorial race, 53 percent to 40 percent.

That 13-point margin is MUCH higher than we’ve seen in other polls, and strategists on both sides believe the race is MUCH closer than that. Still, we haven’t seen a poll showing Gillespie ahead.

Las Vegas wasn't the deadliest mass shooting in United States history - Independent

Las Vegas wasn't the deadliest mass shooting in United States history. Here's why

Posted 10 minutes ago by Louis Doré in news

The mass shooting in Las Vegas on Sunday night, which left 59 people dead and more than 520 injured, was the deadliest mass shooting in the modern history of the United States.

This phrasing is important and omnipresent in articles reporting on the shooting, to give scale to the attack and give weight to the significance, especially as it has renewed a conversation about gun control in the country.

There are also a number of other mass killings in America's history which were on a far greater scale than the one in Las Vegas.

For example, historians believe that more than 300 people died in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in 1921 when white people torched the area's African American neighbourhoods.

Victims described fleeing with their families "amidst showers of bullets from the machine gun".

In addition, U.S. Army soldiers killed 200 Native Americans with machine guns at South Dakota's Wounded Knee Creek on 29 December 1890.

In 1873, Easter Sunday, white people gunned down and hanged as many as 150 African Americans in Colfax, Louisiana.

The reason the term "modern American history" is often used in articles is possibly because accurate death tolls around mass killings only became common in the 20th century, and Historians still debate the exact number of victims in earlier tragedies.

There is also an issue of determining whether historical events fit present definitions of a mass shooting. We still struggle today to affix labels to mass killings.

The FBI defined it in 2013 as follows:

the term `mass killings' means three or more killings in a single incident in a place of public use.

People have also observed a racially-charged element to this separation of timelines - that American society likes to think of those mass murders as belonging to a historical timeline that has not continued to the present day.

However, prejudice still drives these events - you only have to look to the Orlando nightclub shooting as recently as last year to see evidence of this.

Recent efforts to more accurately track mass shootings have been seen online, in the Gun Violence Archive, and MassShootingTracker.org.

HT Time

Bob Corker just told the world what he really thinks of Donald Trump - CNN News

Bob Corker just told the world what he really thinks of Donald Trump

Analysis by Chris Cillizza, CNN Editor-at-large

Updated 0551 GMT (1351 HKT) October 5, 2017

HAMBURG, GERMANY -

Tillerson voices frustration with White House

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson takes part in a press conference after a meeting with the Russian Foreign Minister in Moscow on April 12, 2017.

Russian President Vladimir Putin on April 11, 2017 met US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson after complaining of worsening ties with Donald Trump's administration as the two sides spar over Syria. Putin received Tillerson at the Kremlin along with Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov after the top diplomats held several hours of talks dominated by the fallout of an alleged chemical attack in Syria.

Former ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson, U.S. President-elect Donald Trump's nominee for Secretary of State, testifies during his confirmation hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee January 11, 2017 on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC. Tillerson is expected to face tough questions regarding his ties with Russian President Vladimir Putin. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)

Tillerson avoids calling Putin war criminal

Former ExxonMobil executive Rex Tillerson testifies during his confirmation hearing for secretary of state before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Capitol Hill on January 11, 2017.

Tillerson and Rubio spar on human rights

rex tillerson non answers origwx bw_00000000.jpg

Rex Tillerson perfects the non-answer

Corker: Tillerson not getting support he needs

Trump: Total confidence in Rex Tillerson

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson arrives at the Royal Malaysian Air Force base in Subang on August 8, 2017.

Tillerson arrived in Malaysia on August 8 following a brief stop in Bangkok after attending the 50th Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) regional security forum in Manila. )

Tillerson says sanctions to remain on Russia

HAMBURG, GERMANY - JULY 07: In this photo provided by the German Government Press Office (BPA) Donald Trump, President of the USA (left), meets Vladimir Putin, President of Russia (right), at the opening of the G20 summit on July 7, 2017 in Hamburg, Germany. The G20 group of nations are meeting July 7-8 and major topics will include climate change and migration. (Photo by Steffen Kugler/BPA via Getty Images)

Tillerson: Trump, Putin talked 2016 election

rex tillerson north korea nuclear weapons program sot_00004203

Tillerson: N. Korea a 'threat to entire world'

tillerson statement on russia sot_00001222.jpg

Tillerson on improving relations with Russia

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson talks with Russian Foreign Minister (unseen) during their meeting in Moscow on April 12, 2017.

Tillerson voices frustration with White House

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson takes part in a press conference after a meeting with the Russian Foreign Minister in Moscow on April 12, 2017.

Russian President Vladimir Putin on April 11, 2017 met US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson after complaining of worsening ties with Donald Trump's administration as the two sides spar over Syria. Putin received Tillerson at the Kremlin along with Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov after the top diplomats held several hours of talks dominated by the fallout of an alleged chemical attack in Syria.

Former ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson, U.S. President-elect Donald Trump's nominee for Secretary of State, testifies during his confirmation hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee January 11, 2017 on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC. Tillerson is expected to face tough questions regarding his ties with Russian President Vladimir Putin. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)

Tillerson avoids calling Putin war criminal

Former ExxonMobil executive Rex Tillerson testifies during his confirmation hearing for secretary of state before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Capitol Hill on January 11, 2017.

Tillerson and Rubio spar on human rights

rex tillerson non answers origwx bw_00000000.jpg

Rex Tillerson perfects the non-answer

Trump: Total confidence in Rex Tillerson

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson arrives at the Royal Malaysian Air Force base in Subang on August 8, 2017.

Tillerson: Pyongyang has shown restraint

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Spain's

Sources: Tillerson thinking about early exit

Tillerson says sanctions to remain on Russia

Tillerson: Trump, Putin talked 2016 election

(CNN)Tennessee Republican Sen. Bob Corker suggested Wednesday that Gens. John Kelly and James Mattis, as well as Secretary of State Rex Tillerson are the "people that help separate our country from chaos," a stinging criticism of President Donald Trump from a man once considered an ally in Washington.

Asked directly by a reporter whether he was referring to Trump in using the word "chaos," Corker, who announced last month he would retire in 2018, responded: "(Mattis, Kelly and Tillerson) work very well together to make sure the policies we put forth around the world are sound and coherent. There are other people within the administration that don't. I hope they stay because they're valuable to the national security of our nation."

Stop for a second and re-read that last paragraph. The sitting Republican chairman of the Senate foreign relations committee is suggesting that if Tillerson was removed from office (or quit), the national security of the country would potentially be in danger. And he's refusing to knock down -- and thereby affirming -- the idea that Trump is an agent of chaos who pushes policies that are not always "sound" or "coherent."

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That. Is. Stunning.

Corker also blasted Trump for undermining Tillerson -- most recently with a weekend tweet suggesting that the secretary of state's diplomatic work to solve the North Korea crisis would fail.

"I told Rex Tillerson, our wonderful Secretary of State, that he is wasting his time trying to negotiate with Little Rocket Man," Trump tweeted Sunday morning.

Corker said that Tillerson is "in an incredibly frustrating place," adding: "He ends up not being supported in the way I would hope a secretary of state would be supported. ... He's in a very trying situation -- trying to solve many of the world's problems without the support and help I'd like to see him have."

Those comments land amid reports that tensions between Trump and Tillerson are worse than ever. They also come on the same day Tillerson held an impromptu press conference to dismiss that he has ever considered resigning his post, but also refused to deny that he had called the President a "moron" during a moment of pique over the summer.

Rex Tillerson kind of, sort of just admitted he called Trump a 'moron'

Rex Tillerson kind of, sort of just admitted he called Trump a 'moron'

This is also not the first time that Corker, who was once mentioned as a possible vice presidential pick and was on the short list for secretary of state, has been overtly and harshly critical of Trump. Corker drew national headlines in August when he suggested that Trump "has not yet been able to demonstrate the stability nor some of the competence that he needs to demonstrate in order to be successful."

Trump responded back via Twitter: "Strange statement by Bob Corker considering that he is constantly asking me whether or not he should run again in '18. Tennessee not happy!"

Trump and Corker eventually huddled at the White House to make amends and, according to reports, Trump asked Corker to run for a third term. Less than two weeks later, Corker announced he was retiring.

Corker's comments Wednesday are rightly read as a continuation of his August remarks. Then, he openly questioned Trump's stability and competence. Now he is making clear that if not for Tillerson, Mattis and Kelly, Trump would be leading the nation -- and the world -- into chaos.

There's no question that Corker feels freer to speak his mind without the worry of angering the President and potentially stirring up a serious primary challenge. But what's even more important/scary to contemplate: If this is Corker saying what he really thinks about Trump, what must the rest of Republicans in the Senate and House think of their President? And when will they speak out?

Russia Needed Help Targeting U.S. Voters, Two Ex-CIA Chiefs Say - Bloomberg

Russia Needed Help Targeting U.S. Voters, Two Ex-CIA Chiefs Say

By Chris Strohm

October 5, 2017, 7:46 AM GMT+1

Facebook's Zuckerberg Asks Forgiveness Amid Russia Probe

Facebook's Zuckerberg Asks Forgiveness Amid Russia Probe

Two former heads of the Central Intelligence Agency said Russia probably didn’t have the ability to microtarget U.S. voters and districts in the 2016 presidential campaign on its own, meaning some sort of assistance would have been necessary.

"It is not intuitively obvious that they could have done this themselves," former CIA director Michael Hayden said in an interview Wednesday in Washington.

Michael Morell, who spent his career at the CIA including a stint as acting director of the agency, said in a separate interview that Russia either needed someone to help give it information on microtargeting or stole the necessary information, such as through hacking.

"They do not have the analytic capability to do that themselves," Morell said.

The two former directors said they based their comments on knowledge they have of Russia’s capabilities.

Faebook Inc. said Monday it provided information on about 3,000 suspect ads posted during the campaign to congressional investigators. In September, the social media giant disclosed that accounts affiliated with Russia bought more than $100,000 in election-related ads. Social media company executives are expected to testify before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Nov. 1 as part of the panel’s inquiry into Moscow’s meddling in the election.