Week 23 in Trump's America: the face-lift feud begins

Week 23, in one sentence: President Donald Trump finally acknowledged that Russia meddled in the 2016 election — while insulting how Barack Obama handled it; accused Obama of breaking the law to help Hillary Clinton win the presidency; became the first president in 20 years not to host a White House dinner to celebrate the end of Ramadan; applauded the return of his travel ban after it was partially reinstated by the Supreme Court, which will officially review the executive order in October; attempted to rally support for the Senate’s Obamacare replacement plan when its vote was postponed due to a dismal CBO score and lack of support; confirmed that he told senators to make a less “mean” healthcare bill; warned Syrian President Bashar Assad that he would pay a “heavy price” if he used chemical weapons against the Syrian people; interrupted an Oval Office phone call with Ireland’s prime minister to tell a female reporter she had a “nice smile on her face”; called six news organizations “fake news” after CNN retracted one story; began dismantling part of the Clean Water Act; reportedly didn’t understand basic healthcare concepts in an all-hands meeting with Republicans; sent 20 federal agents to crack down on crime in Chicago; applauded the House’s passage of two bills targeting undocumented immigrants; and drew widespread condemnation over a tweet about an MSNBC host’s “badly bleeding” face-lift.

Trump finally acknowledged the legitimacy of Russian meddling in the U.S. election (in an attack on Barack Obama).

“Just out: The Obama Administration knew far in advance of November 8th about election meddling by Russia,” Trump tweeted. “Did nothing about it. WHY?”

Trump was presumably referring to a Washington Post report detailing the Obama administration’s decision to stay mostly quiet about Russia’s actions until after the election, which one former senior Obama administration official called “the hardest thing about [their] entire time in government to defend.”

Obama and top aides were concerned that strong action could further provoke Russia and invite criticism that Obama was intervening in an already ugly election cycle, according to the Post. The general assumption that Hillary Clinton would emerge victorious in the presidential election also contributed to the administration’s lack of action.

Confused by all the alleged connections swirling between the Trump administration and Russia? Catch up on the entire scandal in just 6 minutes here.

The Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington and the National Security Archive announced a lawsuit against Trump. The groups said that White House officials’ use of confidential messaging apps and deletion of Trump’s tweets are violations of the Presidential Records Act, which requires certain information be preserved so that it can eventually be made available to the public.

In an interview with Fox News, President Trump said it was “bothersome” that special counsel Robert Mueller was “very, very good friends” with former FBI Director James Comey, whom Trump fired in May.

Trump used his Saturday afternoon to tweet another attack about the Obama administration’s handling of Russian interference in the U.S. election, as well as prod Republicans in the Senate to vote in favor of the GOP’s bill to repeal and replace Obamacare.

Trump, who famously lambasted Obama’s frequent golf outings, spent the day at his own Virginia club, though the White House said he was taking meetings there and, as usual, wouldn’t confirm if he’d be on the green.

Trump capped off his weekend with a favorite pastime: attacking failed presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. He also adopted the word “collusion” — a word often used in accusations against him and his allies — to go after his opponents.

“Hillary Clinton colluded with the Democratic Party in order to beat Crazy Bernie Sanders,” the president tweeted. “Is she allowed to so collude? Unfair to Bernie!”

Trump was the first president in 20 years not to host an Eid al-Fitr dinner at the White House to celebrate the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. Instead, the president went golfing.

The Washington Post reported that Jared Kushner’s real estate company finalized a $285 million loan from Deutsche Bank — an institution charged by New York regulators with aiding a potential Russian money-laundering scheme — just one month before Election Day.

The Supreme Court brought Trump’s travel ban back from the dead by agreeing to review it, as well as partially reversing lower-court rulings that blocked its implementation.

Trump’s travel restrictions on people from six Muslim-majority nations can be applied to individuals “who lack any bona fide relationship with a person or entity in the United States,” the high court ruled.

Senate Republicans’ latest attempt at overhauling Obamacare received a dismal analysis from the Congressional Budget Office: 22 million fewer Americans with health insurance by 2026, as well as a $772 billion cut to Medicaid spending. The bill would cut the federal deficit by $321 billion over a decade. The president tweeted in defense of the legislation: “Republican Senators are working very hard to get there, with no help from the Democrats. Not easy! Perhaps just let OCare crash & burn!”

Trump levied some more accusations against Obama, this time saying the former president “colluded” and “obstructed” to do nothing about Russian meddling in the election because he was certain Clinton would win.

“The real story is that President Obama did NOTHING after being informed in August about Russian meddling,” Trump tweeted. “With 4 months looking at Russia under a magnifying glass, they have zero “tapes” of T [Trump] people colluding. There is no collusion & no obstruction. I should be given apology!”

Remember the photos comparing Obama’s inauguration crowd to Trump’s much smaller crowd? Investigators officially cleared the National Park Service of wrongdoing after an unidentified complainant accused the organization of altering records of the crowd sizes.

Ivanka Trump, who has an office in the White House’s West Wing and an official government job as assistant to the president, said in an interview with Fox News that she tries “to stay out of politics.”

Trump confirmed reports that he told senators to make a less “mean” version of the Obamacare replacement bill he’d championed. Asked about a Facebook post from Barack Obama — which said the bill had a “fundamental meanness at the core” — Trump said he was actually the first person to use the word “mean.”

Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell suddenly decided to delay the Senate vote on the GOP’s plan to repeal and replace Obamacare until after July 4. Six dissenting Republicans had publicly opposed the bill, and two more joined them after the vote delay was announced. The delay will theoretically give McConnell and his allies time to tweak the bill and boost its dreary CBO assessment.

The president came to the defense of his Republican colleagues and blasted his Democratic opponents. The Republicans are “working hard” with “ZERO Democrats to help,” the president tweeted, after meeting with GOP senators about the bill.

The Trump administration is set to deem China one of the world’s worst offenders in human trafficking — downgrading it to be in the company of countries like Iran, Syria, and North Korea — when Secretary of State Rex Tillerson delivers the State Department’s annual Trafficking in Person Report to Congress, according to multiple reports.

The White House warned Syrian President Bashar Assad that he would pay a “heavy price” if he carried out a suspected chemical attack on Syria’s people. There’s just one problem  with Trump’s strongman-ing: Some U.S. defense officials were unaware of any attack and were caught off guard by Trump’s statement. One official said he had “no idea” what triggered Trump’s grave warning.

The U.S.’ reputation — while plummeting globally — is dramatically improving in one noteworthy place, according to a new poll. That place is Russia.

Deputy Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders urged Americans to watch out for fake news by promoting news that’s probably fake. “There’s a video circulating now, whether it’s accurate or not I don’t know, but I would encourage everyone in this room and frankly, everybody across the country, to take a look at it,” Sanders said of an unverified video showing CNN producer John Bonfield criticizing the network’s coverage of Trump.

The Washington Post reported that a framed copy of Time magazine with Trump on the cover, which is hanging in five of the president’s resort clubs, is a fake. The cover, dated March 1, 2009, includes splashy cover lines like, “TRUMP IS HITTING ON ALL FRONTS … EVEN TV!” But there’s no such March 1, 2009, issue of Time magazine. The issue appears to be a doctored version of a March 2, 2009, edition that features actress Kate Winslet on the cover. Time has asked the Trump Organization to remove the fake magazines.

Trump interrupted a call with Ireland’s prime minister to invite RTÉ News reporter Caitriona Perry over to his desk to say she had a “nice smile on her face.” The Oval Office moment was caught on camera and Perry herself called it “bizarre.”

But that was about as far as Trump’s admiration — misplaced or not — went for media personalities that day. CNN retracted a story that cited one anonymous source who said Congress was investigating a “Russian investment fund with ties to Trump officials.” Three high-ranking CNN employees also resigned. The president responded with characteristic humility by calling not just CNN but also NBC, CBS, ABC, the New York Times, and the Washington Post as “all Fake News.”
Trump’s administration took steps to eliminate an Obama-era initiative that aimed to protect one-third of U.S. drinking water — and openly admitted it was a business decision. The Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers announced Tuesday that they’re beginning to dismantle part of the the Clean Water Act that created protections for an additional 2 million miles of streams and 20 million acres of wetlands.

The Trump administration defined what it considers a “bona fide relationship,” for the purposes of enforcing its travel ban as permitted by the Supreme Court. The administration’s interpretation of “relationship” is pretty narrow: someone from one of the six banned countries who wants to travel to the U.S. must have a parent, spouse, child, adult son or daughter, son-in-law, daughter-in-law, or sibling already here. That means grandparents, grandchildren, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, cousins, brothers-in-law and sisters-in-law, fiancees, and other extended family members are not considered close relations and can be barred from traveling to the U.S.

The New York Times reported that Trump’s all-hands meeting with Republican senators about the healthcare bill didn’t go quite as well as he’d have you believe. One senator who supports the GOP plan told the Times that he left the meeting with the impression that Trump didn’t understand basic elements of the Obamacare replacement legislation.

Trump, as he is wont to do, decried the “Fake News Media” and assured his Twitter followers that he is “totally engaged in” healthcare and knows “the subject well.”

It turns out Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort, who finally registered as a foreign agent months after his attorney said he would, made millions more from his work in Ukraine than previously thought. Although Manafort initially called reports that he’d received more than $12 million for work done as a pro-Russian lobbyist in Ukraine “unfounded, silly, and nonsensical” — only to step down from the Trump campaign days later — his consulting firm made more than $17 million for the work, according to Department of Justice filings published by the Washington Post.

The Department of Homeland Security gave a general idea of new U.S. flight security rules, which seem to eliminate plans for a universal laptop ban.

Trump drew widespread condemnation after he posted tweets that insulted “Morning Joe” co-hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski. In particular, the president’s remarks about Brzezinski “bleeding badly from a face-lift” shocked both critics and supporters of Trump.

A handful of top Republicans — including House Speaker Paul Ryan and Sen. Lindsey Graham — scolded the president for his remarks. Brzezinski herself responded with a tongue-in-cheek photo of a Cheerios box “made for small hands.” (The president is famously self-conscious about the size of his hands.) The following day, Brzezinski expressed that she was “fine.” Scarborough, who is also Brzezinksi’s fiancé, added: “We’re fine; our country is not.” The “Morning Joe” hosts also accused the president and his top aides of blackmail: White House staffers allegedly called the couple and threatened to publish a negative National Enquirer piece about them unless they begged the president to tell the magazine to chuck the story.

While the president was starting a Twitter feud about face-lifts, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell was wheeling and dealing on the Hill to get Trumpcare to the president’s desk. McConnell dangled a $45 billion fund dedicated to fighting the U.S. opioid crisis in an effort to lure senators from the Rust Belt and New England to vote for the GOP Obamacare replacement.

Trump tweeted that senators should merely repeal Obamacare (and replace it later) if the current healthcare bill can’t get the votes to pass.

Trump announced he was sending “federal help” to Chicago to combat crime. The Chicago Sun-Times confirmed that the White House had sent 20 agents from the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives to Chicago. The agents are working with local cops to track down gun trafficking rings and solve gun murder cases.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions promised to “aggressively” investigate and prosecute hate crimes. Sessions notoriously fought the passage of the 2009 Matthew Shepard Act, which expanded federal laws that protect gay and transgender Americans. But earlier this year,  the Justice Department under Sessions secured its first federal conviction in a case involving the murder of a transgender person — a holdover case from the Obama administration.

Trump applauded the House’s passage of two bills targeting undocumented immigrants: “Kate’s Law” and the “No Sanctuary for Criminals Act.” Kate’s Law is named for Kate Steinle, who was allegedly murdered in San Francisco by an undocumented immigrant. The bill would increase maximum penalties for undocumented immigrants who repeatedly enter the country after deportation. The “No Sanctuary for Criminals Act” would eliminate federal grant money for so-called sanctuary cities and let victims of crimes perpetrated by undocumented immigrants sue those cities for liability.

The White House finished up another themed policy week: Energy Week. Trump delivered a speech about U.S. “energy dominance” and highlighted his hope to create jobs by developing American energy resources — such as fossil fuel reserves — though his speech was light on specifics.