[Special] NPR: Can Trump Take The Money?

By Planet Money (Episode 758):

In 1776, just after the U.S. declared independence, Benjamin Franklin traveled to France to serve as an ambassador. Franklin was a hit in Paris. When he returned home, King Louis XVI gave Franklin an extravagant gift - a portrait of the king ringed by 408 fine diamonds.

This gift from kicked off a conversation among the Founding Fathers as as they were drafting the constitution: Should politicians be able to benefit from their offices? How would we ensure elected officials stay independent? How do we prevent them from being influenced by foreign governments?

The founders wrote the Emoluments Clause into the U.S. Constitution.

It reads:

"No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States: And no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State."

Now, these 49 words have been thrust into the spotlight.

A group of lawyers filed a suit against President Trump, days after he took office. They claim he is violating the Emoluments Clause. That he's profiting from his office: foreign diplomats are paying to stay in his hotels, the Apprentice airs on state-owned networks abroad, and China just granted the Trump name trademark protection.

We've never had a president like Donald Trump, and so we're only now testing the limits of the emoluments clause.

Today on the show: profits, diplomacy, ancient Rome, and a lawsuit against the president.

The Full Podcast (March 10, 2017)

NPR: Trump Denies Allegations Of Secret Ties, Collusion Between Campaign And Russia

By Philip Ewing:

Top U.S. intelligence officials have briefed leaders in Washington about an explosive — but unverified — document that alleges collusion between Russia and President-elect Donald Trump, NPR has learned.

The brief, which NPR has seen but not independently verified, was given by Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain to FBI Director James Comey on Dec. 9. Details from it have been part of presentations by Comey and other intelligence leaders to Trump, President Obama and key leaders in Congress.

* * *

NPR is not detailing the contents of the brief because it remains unverified, but it describes a concerted effort by Russian President Vladimir Putin to cultivate a relationship with Trump and his camp. The document, which describes information provided by Russian government and other sources, details behavior by Trump that could leave him open to blackmail, as well as alleged secret meetings between Trump aides and Russian officials called to discuss the campaign against Clinton and potential new business relationships.

The Full Story (January 10, 2017)

NPR: Ethics Office Warns Confirmations For Trump Nominees Are Moving Too Fast

By Jessica Taylor:

The Office of Government Ethics is raising alarm over the pace of confirmation hearings for President-elect Donald Trump's nominees, saying Saturday that they have yet to receive required financial disclosures for some picks set to come before Congress next week.

In a letter to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., released Saturday, OGE Director Walter Shaub wrote that "the announced hearing schedule for several nominees who have not completed the ethics review process is of great concern to me" and that the current schedule "has created undue pressure on OGE's staff and agency ethics officials to rush through these important reviews.

"More significantly, it has left some of the nominees with potentially unknown or unresolved ethics issues shortly before their scheduled hearings," Shaub continued. "I am not aware of any occasion in the four decades since OGE was established when the Senate held a confirmation hearing before the nominee had completed the ethics review process."

Shaub explains in the letter that the Ethics in Government Act requires that presidential appointments confirmed by the Senate obtain OGE certification of their financial disclosures prior to any congressional hearings. Such a process is "complex" and "labor-intensive," he notes, and takes "weeks, not days" to ensure that the Senate has a clear picture of any possible conflicts of interest.

The Full Story (January 7, 2017)

NPR: 'We're Not Going Away' - Alt-Right Leader On Voice In Trump Administration

By All Things Considered:

MCEVERS: So you ride the subway in New York City. And you're sitting in a subway car, and you're looking at people from all over everywhere. And nobody's punching each other. Nobody's stabbing anyone. Everyone's going about their life, going to work, you know? You don't see that as, like, a way where people are getting along?

SPENCER: Do we really like each other? Do we really love each other? Do we really have a sense of community in that subway car? What I see are a lot of...

MCEVERS: Or a cul-de-sac or in kindergarten.

SPENCER: Whenever many different races are in the same school, what will happen is that there'll be a natural segregation at lunchtime, at PE, at - in terms of after-school play.

MCEVERS: Richard Spencer's views are obviously not easy to hear, but we do think they're important to hear because of the link between the alt-right and Donald Trump's team. I asked Richard Spencer what policies he's pushing for - natural conservation, he said, a foreign policy that's friendlier to Russia and this.

SPENCER: Immigration is the most obvious one. And I think we need to get beyond thinking about immigration just in terms of illegal immigration. Illegal immigration is not nearly as damaging as legal immigration. Legal immigration - they're here to stay. Their children are here and so on.

And I think a really reasonable and I think palatable policy proposal would be for Donald Trump to say, look; we've had immigration in the past. It's brought some fragmentation. It's brought division. But we need to become a people again. And for us to do that, we're going to need to take a break from mass immigration. And we're going to need to preference people who are going to fit in, who are more like us. That is European immigration.

The Full Story (November 17, 2016)

NPR: Trump Taps Reince Priebus as Chief of Staff, Steve Bannon as Chief Strategist

By Colin Dwyer:

Less than a week after his election, Donald Trump has begun to fill out the team he plans to bring with him to the White House. The president-elect announced Sunday that he has selected Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus to serve as chief of staff in his incoming administration.

In the same announcement, Priebus' appointment shared top billing with the news that Trump campaign CEO Stephen K. Bannon will serve as chief strategist and senior counselor to the president.

* * *

Meanwhile, the inclusion of Bannon, the former head of the far-right outlet Breitbart News, suggests another direction entirely. Rumored to be have been considered for chief of staff himself, Bannon "would have been the insurgent choice" for the top aide job, Eyder says. He is "known for his no-holds-barred approach to politics and his popularity among the alt-right," as NPR's Sarah McCammon reported last week.
The Full Story (November 13, 2016)

[Special] Editorial: Donald Trump Explores The Mysteries of Pregnancy at the Third Debate

The third and final debate on October 19 was something else. The biggest headline was Trump's refusal to accept the results of the election, which I am sure I'll share here at some point. If you cannot wait, you can always review the Washington Post's third debate recap.

Despite this being Trump's best presidential debate performance (in my opinion), he still managed to litter the stage with examples of projecting his own insecurities and displaying his total incompetence. For now, we'll focus on his abortion comments.

From NPR's October 19, 2016, full transcript and fact check:


CHRIS WALLACE

Mr. Trump your reaction and particularly on this issue of life term partial-birth abortion.

Trump’s views on this have changed with time. In a 1999 interview, Trump said that he “hates abortion” but that he didn’t want to ban late abortion.

Danielle KurtzlebenNPR Politics Reporter

DONALD TRUMP

I think it's terrible if you go with what Hillary is saying in the ninth month you can take the baby and rip the baby out of the womb of the mother just prior to the birth of the baby. Now you can say that that's okay and Hillary can say that that's okay, but it's not okay with me. Because based on what she's saying and based on where she's going and where she's been, you can take the baby and rip the baby out of the womb on the ninth month on the final day. And that's not acceptable.

Very few of the millions of abortions performed each year involve dilation and extraction, which is called "partial-birth abortion" by opponents. These are abortions performed after 20 weeks. It would be extremely unusual, if it is done at all, for this kind of abortion to be done only a few days before a nine-month term is reached. Very few providers in the country still perform D&X; abortions. For more background on this type of abortion, click here.

Joe NeelNPR Science Desk Editor and Correspondent

From the Washington Post's own fact check article of October 20, here is Glenn Kessler and Michelle Ye Hee Lee explaining Trump's inaccuracies:

Trump asserted that abortions can take place just one day before birth. This doesn’t really happen.

Most abortions take place early in the pregnancy. One-third take place at six weeks of pregnancy or earlier; 89 percent occur in the first 12 weeks, according to the Guttmacher Institute, which supports abortion rights. Only 1.2 percent of abortions — about 12,000 a year — take place after 21 weeks. (The Supreme Court has held that states may not prohibit abortions “necessary to preserve the life or health” of the mother.)

On top of that, Guttmacher says that 43 states already prohibit some abortions after a certain point in pregnancy, such as fetal viability, in the third trimester or after a certain number of weeks. So this is already a rare procedure that is prohibited in much of the country. In fact, there are only four doctors left in the United States who are even willing to perform third trimester abortions.

At the end of the day, Trump seems to be clueless about women's body. We can surmise that he at least knows how to make a baby, you know, after the pussy grab.

 

NPR: With Donald Trump's Birther Spin, He's Crossed A Line

By Ron Elving:

Trump spent five years as the indisputable point of the spear for the "birther" movement. That means he transitioned from reality TV star to presidential candidate largely by questioning President Obama's birth certificate — asserting that the first black president was really born overseas and therefore ineligible for the Oval Office.

After all that, and after keeping his actual views on the subject a secret as late as Thursday, Trump reversed himself overnight. He said the president was born in the U.S., that he had been the one to lay the matter to rest, and that the whole controversy had begun with — wait for it — the Hillary Clinton campaign.

If you are a fan of Bible stories, you might expect at this point that the earth itself would open, and Donald Trump would be swallowed up. (Check out the fate of some false witnesses in the book of Numbers 16:31.)

The Full Story (September 20, 2016)

[Special] NPR: Fact Check - Clinton And Trump Debate For The 2nd Time

By NPR Staff:

MARTHA RADDATZ

10:19 PM

What do you think will happen if Aleppo falls?

DONALD TRUMP

10:19 PM

I think Aleppo is a disaster humanitarian-wise.

MARTHA RADDATZ

10:19 PM

What do you think it will happen if it falls?

DONALD TRUMP

10:19 PM

I think that it basically has fallen. OK? It basically has fallen.

Aleppo has not fallen to the Syrian government. It has been a divided city for years and rebels control the eastern side. The Syrian government and its Russian allies have increased airstrikes on the eastern side lately. The U.N. warned last week that more than 200,000 civilians live there and thousands could die if the Syrian regime tries to take it over.

Larry KaplowNPR Middle East Editor

The Full Story (October 9, 2016)

[Special] NPR: Fact Check - Trump And Clinton Debate For The First Time

By NPR Staff:

DONALD TRUMP

Well, for one thing and before we start on that my father gave me a very small loan in 1975 and I built into a company that's worth many many billions of dollars with some of the greatest assets in the world and I say that only because that's the kind of thinking that our country needs.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Trump's father came to his rescue repeatedly with multiple loans.

Scott HorsleyWhite House Correspondent

[...]

DONALD TRUMP

I did not -- I do not say that.

Actually, Trump has called climate change a "hoax" on several occasions. He said on Meet the Press that he was joking about China's role. As PolitiFact noted: "On Dec. 30, 2015, Trump told the crowd at a rally in Hilton Head, S.C., 'Obama's talking about all of this with the global warming and … a lot of it's a hoax. It's a hoax. I mean, it's a moneymaking industry, OK? It's a hoax, a lot of it.' "

Domenico MontanaroLead Editor, Politics & Digital Audience

The original source for the “hoax” quote was a tweet Trump sent in 2012. He said the concept of global warming was created by the Chinese to make U.S. manufacturing noncompetitive.

Chris JoyceScience Desk Correspondent/Covers Energy & The Environment

[...]

DONALD TRUMP

No wonder you’ve been fighting ISIS your entire adult life.

Clinton has not been fighting ISIS her entire adult life as it has existed in its present form only since 2013-2014.

Phil EwingNational Security Editor

 Hillary Clinton was born in 1947. The roots of ISIS arguably go back to the late 1990s, but the rise of ISIS in its present form followed the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq in 2011. Either way, the terrorist group was long after Clinton became an adult.

Sarah McCammonPolitics Reporter/Covers Trump

The Full Story (September 26, 2016)