Donald Trump book 'will end his presidency', says author of explosive Fire and Fury exposé- Independent

6/1/2018

Donald Trump book 'will end his presidency', says author of explosive Fire and Fury exposé

Michael Wolff says book has exposed a 'very clear emperor-has-no-clothes effect' that will lead to US President's downfall

Lucy Pasha-Robinson @lucypasha

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A tell-all book on Donald Trump's first year in the White House will be the final nail in the coffin for his presidency, according to its author.

Michael Wolff said his revelations about the US President were filtering into the public consciousness and would result in his term coming to an end.

Allegations that the former real estate mogul acts like a "child" and has "less credibility than perhaps anybody who has ever walked on Earth at this point" have already made global headlines since excerpts emerged this week.

The new Trump book isn't really about Trump at all

White House says Michael Wolff 'made up facts to sell a lot of books'

Who is Michael Wolff, author of the explosive new Trump book?

Michael Wolff: Trump acts 'like a child' and has no credibility

“I think one of the interesting effects of the book so far is a very clear emperor-has-no-clothes effect,” Mr Wolff told BBC Radio 4.

“The story that I have told seems to present this presidency in such a way that it says he can’t do his job."

He added: “Suddenly everywhere people are going ‘oh my God, it’s true, he has no clothes’. That’s the background to the perception and the understanding that will finally end ... this presidency.”

Trump 'did not know what Brexit was' two weeks before EU referendum

Mr Trump has repeatedly dismissed the book as "full of lies". It depicts a chaotic White House, a president who was ill-prepared to win office in 2016, and Trump aides who scorned his abilities.

The President renewed his attacks on Mr Wolff on Twitter on Friday, and on his former top aide Steve Bannon who was quoted in the book.

“Michael Wolff is a total loser who made up stories in order to sell this really boring and untruthful book,” he said. “He used Sloppy Steve Bannon, who cried when he got fired and begged for his job. Now Sloppy Steve has been dumped like a dog by almost everyone. Too bad!”

In his interview with the BBC, Mr Wolff was asked if he believed that Mr Bannon felt Mr Trump was unfit to serve as president and would try to bring him down. “Yes,” Wolff replied.

Mr Trump, up until Wednesday, had been complimentary of his former strategist, saying in October that the two “have a very good relationship” and had been friends for “a long time.”

In the book, Mr Bannon also speaks critically of Mr Trump’s daughter and White House adviser, Ivanka, calling her “dumb as a brick.”

“A little marketing savvy and has a look but as far as understanding actually how the world works and what politics is and what it means – nothing,” he is quoted saying.

Michael Wolff: Trump did not know what Brexit was two weeks before EU referendum

Mr Wolff also hit back at claims that the book was untruthful in the interview.

“This is what’s called reporting. This is how you do it.” he said. “You ask people, you get as close as you can to the event, you interview the people who were privy to the event, you interview other people who were privy to the event, you come to know the circumstance as well as anybody and then you report it.”

He also suggested the leader was unaware what the term Brexit meant, two weeks before the UK's referendum on leaving European Union.

President Trump finally made a briefing room appearance. Sort of. - NBC News

JAN 4 2018, 4:15 PM ET

President Trump finally made a briefing room appearance. Sort of.

by ALI VITALI

WASHINGTON — More than a few D.C. residents opted to work remotely Thursday, looking to dodge potential commuting headaches as one of the strongest winter storms in recent history hit the East Coast.

The president of the United States did the same — even though his commute would have been just a few dozen feet. And completely indoors.

Instead of making the walk from the Oval Office to the press briefing room to speak to reporters in person Thursday afternoon, President Donald Trump appeared via a taped video instead.

Trump makes big screen appearance at White House briefing

The message, which touted the purported impact of recently passed tax cuts and other elements of the Trump White House agenda, was projected on two flatscreen televisions flanking Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders at the lectern.

With the briefing broadcast on most cable news networks, using the video message to start off the session meant the president could celebrate his agenda at the daily press briefing without taking questions from the press.

"Thank you, Mister President," Sanders said to the screen when the taped message concluded. The display prompted a range of reactions from briefing watchers.

@davidmackau

what is happening

6:17 AM - Jan 5, 2018

@bterris

Live from the White House press briefing:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VtvjbmoDx-I …

6:18 AM - Jan 5, 2018

@IsaacDovere

interesting turn for the briefing room Skype seat https://twitter.com/jcartillier/status/948997197609226240 …

6:30 AM - Jan 5, 2018

As president, Trump has not appeared in the briefing room to take questions from journalists, something his predecessors did from time to time.

Trump has been known to entertain questions from a small pool of reporters at photo opportunities and other events, but has avoided more traditional exchanges with the White House press corps — including bucking precedent by not holding an end-of-year news conference last month.

These are the Best Cities for College Students - Fortune

These are the Best Cities for College Students

San Francisco

By CLAIRE ZILLMAN November 23, 2015

When high school seniors decide which college to attend, the academic and extracurricular offerings of certain universities are usually their top consideration. On Monday, the American Institute for Economic Research released another set of criteria that they may want to contemplate: the best cities for college students.

Despite its extraordinarily high rent, San Francisco was the top city for college students among “major metro” areas—those with 2.5 million residents or more. It secured that spot thanks in part to ranking No. 1 in bars and restaurants and diversity and No. 2 in city accessibility, share of college-education population, and economic activity.

While some college listings rank universities by prestige, academics, and financial aid, the AIER data is intended to help students “weigh the value of the wider community” when choosing a college, Rosalind Greenstein, director of research and education at AIER, said in a statement.

In compiling its list, AIER weighed 11 different of criteria: youth unemployment rate, share of college-educated population, economic vitality, STEM workers, the price of rent, public transportation, availability of arts and entertainment, employees in cultural institutions, clubs and restaurants, cost of living minus rent, and diversity. The Institute also filtered its results by the size of the city.

Among midsize metro areas with populations between 1 million and 2.5 million, San Jose, California came out on top. For small metros—250,000 to 1 million residents—Boulder, Colorado was the winner, and Ames, Iowa was No. 1 for college towns with fewer than 250,000 people.

New Philadelphia DA shakes up office, firing 31 on 4th day in job- Fox News

6/1/2018

New Philadelphia DA shakes up office, firing 31 on 4th day in job

By Bradford Betz | Fox News

Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner's campaign platform included reducing incarceration rates, ending cash bail and favoring lighter punishments for gun and drug offenders.

Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner's campaign platform included reducing incarceration rates, ending cash bail and favoring lighter punishments for gun and drug offenders. (Philadelphia District Attorney's Office)

Philadelphia's new district attorney fired 31 staffers Friday as part of a promised shakeup of an office tarnished by scandal.

DA Larry Krasner, 56, made the personnel moves on only his fourth day on the job.

Spokesman Ben Waxman said the changes shouldn’t be surprising, given that Krasner, a longtime civil rights lawyer, campaigned on a promise to clean up the DA’s office, which he previously called "off the rails," the Philadelphia Inquirer reported.

“Reorganization and a change in some key personnel are necessary to fulfill that promise,” Waxman said.

@NotesFromHeL

Hearing from several families of homicide victims who are very concerned about how these firings will affect their upcoming cases. Many have waited a long time for their cases to go to court, others have bonded with the ADA’s on cases. http://www.philly.com/philly/news/crime/larry-krasner-philly-da-firing-prosecutors-20180105.html …

9:27 AM - Jan 6, 2018

Krasner fires 31 from Philly DA's Office in dramatic first-week shakeup

Dozens of prosecutors have been asked to leave the Philadelphia District Attorney's Office, according to sources, the first major office shake-up engineered by new top prosecutor Larry Krasner.

philly.com

Krasner's campaign platform included reducing incarceration rates, ending cash bail and favoring lighter punishments for gun and drug offenders.

His disgraced predecessor, Seth Williams, was sentenced to five years in prison for accepting bribes.

Assistant DAs fired Friday included some veterans of the office.

The head of the Republican Party of Philadelphia said the firings were “what we might expect from a defense attorney who made a career out of suing the police. Krasner places victims on the back burner from day one.”

“Change is never easy," spokesman Waxner said. "But DA Krasner was given a clear mandate from the voters for transformational change.”

Here Are The People Closest To Trump Who Might Doubt His Mental Fitness - NDTV

Here Are The People Closest To Trump Who Might Doubt His Mental Fitness

The president tweeted about his mental prowess on Saturday, but there is a short list of people near Trump's inner circle who have voiced doubts.

World | (c) 2018, The Washington Post | Avi Selk, The Washington Post | Updated: January 07, 2018 13:23 IST

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Here Are The People Closest To Trump Who Might Doubt His Mental Fitness

Many in Donald Trump's inner circle have voiced doubts about his competence (reuters)

President Donald Trump just dove headfirst into a question that many won't go near: Is he OK?

"The Democrats and their lapdogs, the Fake News Mainstream Media are taking out the old Ronald Reagan playbook and screaming mental stability and intelligence," he wrote on Twitter on Saturday. "Actually, throughout my life, my two greatest assets have been mental stability and being, like, really smart."

So more than OK, in his opinion.

But as Trump noted, others have expressed doubts. His tweet may have been in reaction to a new book, "Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House," which claims that some of the president's advisers have privately belittled his sanity and intelligence.

Or he may have been thinking of Politico's report that a Yale University psychiatrist met last month with a more than a dozen members of Congress - including an unnamed Republican senator - to discuss concerns that Trump was unstable. (He is, the psychiatrist said.)

But the book's accuracy is in some doubt, and the Yale psychiatrist, Bandy X. Lee, shared her concerns despite the American Psychiatric Foundation's ban on diagnosing people who have not been personally evaluated.

And as Trump noted, the politicians who most commonly go on record to question his mental fitness tend to be his enemies.

But there is a short list of people in or near Trump's inner circle who have voiced doubts about his competence, or who have been reported to have done so, even if some denied it later.

At the top of the list is Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., who in 2016 was considered a front-runner to become Trump's running mate, and later was a candidate for secretary of state, according to CNN. As chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, he called Trump's foreign policy ideas "very thoughtful," and even met with the candidate in May.

But Corker's high opinion did not survive the first year of Trump's presidency.

He called reports that Trump had blurted out state secrets to Russia "worrisome" in May, as CNN noted. A few months later, Trump appeared to praise marchers at a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, and Corker used the S word:

"The president has not yet been able to demonstrate the stability nor some of the competence that he needs to demonstrate to be successful," he said in August.

His words shocked some in Washington. As the New York Times notes, Republican senators had called Trump unstable before - but they did so when they were running against him in the GOP primary. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., called Trump a "kook" in 2016, for example, but now chides others for doing the same.

And yet Corker has shown no sign of improving his opinion on Trump.

In October, he called the White House "an adult day care center" on Twitter, and told reporters: "I've seen no evolution in an upward way. As a matter of fact, it seems to me it's almost devolving."

Barely two months into his presidency, Trump accused former president Barack Obama of wiretapping him during the election.

Trump has offered no evidence, and among those disturbed by the claim was his FBI director, James Comey, according to the New York Times.

Comey told associates that Trump was "outside the realm of normal," the Times reported, and "crazy." The president fired him a few weeks later.

The former FBI director has not commented publicly on his opinion of Trump's mental capacity. But Comey didn't trust Trump, he later testified, and took notes on every conversation he had with him in case the president turned out to be a liar.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was so frustrated with Trump by the summer that he insulted the president in front of other cabinet officials, according to NBC News, and called him a "moron."

A spokeswoman for the State Department denied that Tillerson used the word, but the secretary initially did not. Instead, Tillerson refused to "dignify" questions from CNN about his alleged remark, and called Trump "the most unique president we have ever seen in modern history."

Months later - on Friday, hours before Trump tweeted about his mental abilities - Tillerson denied calling him a moron.

"I've never questioned his mental fitness," he told CNN. "I have no reason to question his mental fitness."

While it wasn't intended to be public, a conversation last summer between Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., ended up in the news after someone left a microphone switched on after a subcommittee hearing.

The two senators were complaining about the budget process and Trump's ignorance of governance, as The Washington Post wrote at the time.

"I think - I think he's crazy," Reed said. "I mean, I don't say that lightly and as a kind of a goofy guy."

"I'm worried," Collins replied.

As we said, it's a short list.

Others have said far worse about Trump's mental abilities, but they had obvious political motivations. Hillary Clinton called him "dangerously incoherent," for example, before he beat her in the presidential election.

And some of the most dramatic reports questioning Trump's sanity and intelligence are also the shakiest. The president's friend, Thomas Barrack, is quoted in "Fire and Fury" as calling him "not only crazy but stupid."

But Barrack denied saying any such thing, and compared Trump to Socrates in an interview with the New York Times.

In the same article, the newspaper reported that Trump's son-in-law and adviser, Jared Kushner, has his own take on the president's mental competence.

Trump is "crazy," Kushner said, according to the Times, "but he's a genius."

Germany coalition: Merkel courts SPD as pivotal talks begin - BBC News

7/1/2018

Germany coalition: Merkel courts SPD as pivotal talks begin

How a woman from East Germany became one of the world's most powerful figures

German Chancellor Angela Merkel will launch a new round of coalition talks on Sunday in a bid to end the country's political stalemate.

More than three months after its election, Germany is still without a new government.

The five-day talks will include Mrs Merkel's Christian Democrats (CDU), its sister party the Christian Social Union (CSU), and the Social Democrats (SPD).

Many see this as her last chance to form a stable coalition.

Why is there still deadlock?

The centre-left SPD has governed jointly with the chancellor's centre-right party for eight of the last 12 years. But a historically poor poll result in September saw SPD leader Martin Schulz vow to take the Social Democrats into opposition.

Pressure has mounted on the SPD since November, when Mrs Merkel failed to cobble together a coalition with the liberal FDP and the Greens.

The chancellor must now convince SPD leaders that they have enough common goals to start formal coalition negotiations by March or April.

As he arrived at the talks, Mr Schulz said he would not draw any red lines and that "new times call for new politics".

Will this be Merkel's last chance to form a government?

European Union allies, such as France, see Germany as a pillar of stability in the bloc and will be hoping she succeeds.

According to one opinion poll on Sunday, one in three voters thought Sunday's talks would fail, although 54% said a revived "grand coalition" of the big parties would be positive for Germany.

What are the sticking points?

Immigration, Europe, tax, and healthcare could all become points of contention.

Within the SPD, there are fears that rejoining a grand coalition would cost the party yet more support. The party's poll ratings are down and some centre-left critics argue the SPD has given up its core principles to cling to power with Mrs Merkel.

The SPD's Martin Schulz will have to convince party members that an alliance with Mrs Merkel would not betray their principles

The chancellor faces similar censure from conservatives, who say she has abandoned traditional values and driven voters towards the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), which is now represented in the federal parliament for the first time.

In depth: Angela Merkel's quiet power

Just how far to the right is AfD?

Presentational grey line

Analysis: A government by Easter?

By Damien McGuinness, BBC Berlin correspondent

More than three months have passed since the elections - the longest period of coalition-building Germany has ever known.

It's not a crisis. And there is a caretaker government. But it does mean that important decisions about the future of Germany, and the EU, are on hold.

So pressure is building to form a coalition. If talks go well, a government could be in place by Easter.

There will be disagreements, such as on refugees or taxation. But there are also common interests. And none of the parties like the idea of the alternatives to a coalition deal: either an unstable minority government, or fresh elections - which would mean a long period of uncertainty.

Will the talks succeed?

Top leaders from the three potential allies met on 3 January to discuss preliminary issues, and have sounded an optimistic note since then.

"Confidence has grown, and we go into the talks with optimism," a joint declaration said.

SPD Chairman Mr Schulz spoke of a "very focused, meaningful debate".

Horst Seehofer of the CSU said he felt the parties would probably agree to govern together, saying: "I think we'll manage it."

Horst Seehofer (L) leader of the CSU, is giving confident soundbites

The parties have agreed to a media blackout during the talks, which will finish on 11 January.

If they prove successful - and the SPD's members vote to proceed - full-blown coalition talks will follow.

What happens if they fail?

If talks fail, Mrs Merkel could form a less stable minority government with the Greens, with SPD support.

However, she has previously said she would prefer a fresh election to that eventuality.