For those who thought Donald Trump would morph into a more conventional kind of president once the gravity of the job sank in, for those who kept telling themselves he would surround himself with old hands and tilt toward consensus, these can’t be reassuring days. Instead, Trump tweets about imagined voter fraud, berates federal judges and department stores, thunders at allies on the phone and entrusts national security to an alt-right provocateur. In one very important respect, Trump is behaving entirely like those who came before him.
As the cities — or at least the mayors — of blue America vie for the mantle of resistance to the Trump administration’s domestic, foreign, environmental and labor policies, Seattle seized an early lead with a decision Tuesday to stop doing business with Wells Fargo over the bank’s role in funding the Dakota Access pipeline. Mayor Ed Murray has already defied President Trump’s threat to withhold aid to “sanctuary cities,” having vowed he will oppose it even if it costs “every single penny” in federal funds.
At his daily briefing on Wednesday, White House press secretary Sean Spicer did not rule out the possibility that President Trump could have federal officials begin proactively deporting undocumented immigrants with criminal records. Trump gave a speech earlier in the day in which he asked local law enforcement officials to assist with deportations by alerting the Department of Homeland Security about “who the illegal immigrant gang members are.” In light of the president’s remarks, Yahoo News asked Spicer whether the president would consider having the DHS or Customs and Border Control agents proactively begin deporting undocumented immigrants with criminal records, if he doesn’t get the cooperation he wants from local police.
For Pete Souza, who served as the chief White House photographer during former President Barack Obama’s eight years in office, every day is throwback Thursday — and, increasingly, an opportunity to slam President Trump. Since Trump’s inauguration, Souza has been posting vintage images from Obama’s two terms on Instagram while subtly throwing barbs at the new commander in chief. Last month, amid Trump’s war of words with Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto over the president’s vow that Mexico will pay for his proposed wall along the U.S. southern border, Souza posted a photo of then-President Obama sampling tequila with Peña Nieto in 2013.
State Sen. Daylin Leach of Pennsylvania, a Philadelphia-area Democrat, posted a Politico report on Facebook about the president’s recent White House meeting with county sheriffs from across the country and challenged the president to "come after me."
Republicans invoked an obscure Senate rule to silence Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., while she was delivering a scathing critique of her colleague Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala. Warren quoted a letter by the late Coretta Scott King, the widow of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., and the late Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., opposing Sessions’ nomination to a federal judgeship in 1986. King had said that Sessions used his power as an acting federal prosecutor in Alabama to “chill the free exercise of the vote by black citizens,” and Kennedy had called him a “disgrace to the Justice Department.” Sessions’ nomination was voted down in committee.
White House press secretary Sean Spicer defended President Trump’s Wednesday tweet lashing out at Nordstrom after the department store announced that it would no longer carry his daughter Ivanka Trump’s clothing line. As many critics noted, it appeared that Trump was using his presidential office to boost his daughter’s company.
President Trump told a Wednesday gathering of police chiefs and sheriffs that he wants their help identifying and deporting criminals who illegally immigrated to the U.S. “I want you to turn in the bad ones,” Trump said in a speech at the winter conference of the Major Cities Chiefs Association.
Evelyn Lyles, a longtime volunteer with Amarillo’s refugee community, poses inside a community center she established at the Astoria Park Apartments. AMARILLO, Texas — Evelyn Lyles has been retired for four years, but she’s never worked harder.
President Trump attacked what he described as the “disgraceful” hearing on his refugee and travel ban in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit. Speaking Wednesday to the winter conference of the Major Cities Chiefs Association, a group of police chiefs and sheriffs, Trump expressed dismay that the court case is “going on for so long” and argued that even people without knowledge of the law can see that his ban is legal. On Jan. 27, Trump signed an executive order blocking citizens from seven predominantly Muslim nations from entering the U.S. The order largely affected citizens from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen.
If Republicans were hoping to silence her, the move appears to have backfired as Democrats rally around the progressive firebrand — and “she persisted” becomes a battle cry.
Conservative lawyer Chuck Cooper has emerged as Donald Trump’s likely pick to be the nation’s next solicitor general, three sources say. As the nation’s top advocate, Cooper would be charged with defending legal challenges to U.S. laws and Trump’s executive orders, such as the suit against Trump’s travel ban that is currently wending its way through the courts. Cooper is a longtime friend of Trump’s attorney general nominee, Sen. Jeff Sessions.
During the Senate confirmation hearing Tuesday for Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., to become attorney general, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., was stopped by Republicans from reading a nine-page letter written by the late Coretta Scott King, Martin Luther King’s widow. In the 1986 letter, addressed to Strom Thurmond, then the Senate Judiciary committee chairman, King expressed her opposition to Sessions, who had been nominated for a federal judgeship in Alabama.
President Trump formally announced late Tuesday that his Cabinet will consist of 24 different roles. A Trump administration source provided Yahoo News with a copy of the announcement, which will be published on the White House website shortly.
A government lawyer urged a federal appellate panel not to consider comments by Donald Trump and his advisers about wanting to ban the entry of Muslims into the United States, arguing that they should only look at the text of his executive order banning travel from seven majority Muslim nations in considering its legality under the Constitution.
Top White House adviser Kellyanne Conway appeared on CNN Tuesday afternoon, hours after the network doubled down on reports that it declined to have her on-air last weekend due to questions about her credibility.
Scientists are organizing a march on Washington for Earth Day, April 22, to protest an “alarming trend” of discrediting scientific consensus and hampering scientific discovery. Thought up in the aftermath of the Women’s March on Washington, the March for Science has been described as a nonpartisan “celebration of science” that opposes anti-science agendas on both sides of the aisle. Organizers say scientists and their supporters can no longer afford to stay silent while scientific inquiry is denigrated and sidelined.
President Trump’s contentious immigration ban faces another legal hurdle Tuesday in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, which will hear arguments on a motion to vacate the stay issued by Judge James Robart last week. The case bears the momentous name of State of Washington v. Trump. Last month’s order to block immigration from seven majority-Muslim countries was challenged successfully by the states of Washington and Minnesota.
If you liked Melissa McCarthy as Sean Spicer, how would you feel about Rosie O’Donnell playing Steve Bannon? (Trump, who frequently tweets about the show to criticize Alec Baldwin’s portrayal of him on it, has so far not publicly commented on the Spicer skewering.
The White House released a list of terrorist attacks to bolster President Trump’s claim that the press does not report on them.
Hillary Clinton may have lost the presidential election, but she’s still advocating for one of her campaign’s core tenets — increasing opportunities for women and girls. “Despite all the challenges we face, I remain convinced that yes, the future is female,” Clinton said.
In the third week of his post-presidential life, Barack Obama picked up a new skill: kitesurfing. The 44th president of the United States and his wife are staying in the British Virgin Islands at the invitation of billionaire Richard Branson, who challenged Obama to a competition: kitesurfing vs. foilboarding. “One of the first stories Barack told me when he and Michelle arrived on Moskito Island,” wrote Branson, “was how, just before he became president, he had been surfing on a dangerous break in Hawaii."
President Trump’s first speech to active duty troops since taking office went much the same way his first speech to CIA officers went. Speaking at MacDill Air Force Base in Florida on Monday, Trump gave an abbreviated history of terrorist attacks, from 9/11 to the Paris nightclub attacks to the truck massacre in Nice.
Black History Month is a time for the United States to remember and honor the plentiful and rich contributions of African-Americans to the nation. The civil rights movement of the ’50s and ’60s helped define an era of incredible change, as leaders like the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. led the fight against racial segregation and discrimination. It was a time that transformed the United States forever.
John Yoo, left, law professor at the University of California at Berkeley, and President Trump. John Yoo, the constitutional scholar who wrote a controversial opinion backing President George W. Bush’s authority to torture terror suspects, now believes President Trump is overstepping his authority in numerous areas of foreign policy. Yoo’s assessment, in an op-ed in Monday’s New York Times, is not particularly novel or unique in the current political climate, with tremendous resistance to the Trump administration throughout the country.