Week 7 in Trump's America

Week 7, in one sentence: President Donald Trump got into a Twitter fight with top Democrats about who’s a Russian spy; accused Barack Obama, with zero evidence, of wiretapping Trump Tower, leading to mass confusion, even from members of his own party; called for a congressional investigation of the alleged wiretapping, again without providing any evidence; signed a new executive order that will ban travel to the U.S. from six Muslim-majority countries, an order that a top aide said in February was basically just like the last order; caused the Supreme Court to send Gavin Grimm’s landmark trans rights case back to a lower court; saw his nominee for deputy attorney general grilled about Russia; was preliminarily awarded more than three dozen Chinese trademarks, including one for “escort services,” potentially violating the Constitution; saw his EPA chief deny that humans were primarily responsible for global warming, contrary to the EPA’s own website and, well, science; was scolded by members of the House Oversight Committee about deleting tweets; and threw his full support behind the GOP Obamacare replacement plan, a bill that hospitals, doctors, nurses, old people, the insurance industry, and a significant portion of the president’s own party hates.

Day 43 — March 3: President Trump, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, and Sen. Chuck Schumer got into a Twitter fight over who’s a sleeper agent for Russia.

Also, it took Trump three tries to spell “hereby” correctly.

Day 44 — March 4: Trump started off Saturday morning with one of his most bizarre accusations yet — in a tweetstorm, of course. The president alleged that former President Barack Obama wiretapped his phones in Trump Tower during the election. No known evidence supports his claim. Trump went on to compare Obama to Richard Nixon, likening these baseless wiretap claims to the Watergate scandal.

An Obama spokesman called Trump’s allegations “simply false.” Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper flatly stated there was no wiretap of Trump Tower.

Day 45 — March 5: White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer, on behalf of Trump, called for a congressional investigation into the president’s wiretapping accusations “to determine whether the executive branch investigative powers were abused in 2016.”

FBI Director James Comey asked the Justice Department (now headed by Attorney General Jeff Sessions) to rebuke Trump’s claims about wiretapping, the New York Times reported. While the Justice Department never refuted Trump’s accusations, Comey believes they incorrectly insinuate that the FBI broke the law.

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VICE NEWS’ COVERAGE

America is about to find out what happens to the economy without undocumented immigrants

Trumpcare would cut premiums for the young by jacking them up for the old

The Republican replacement for Obamacare is bad for women in lots of ways

The Border Patrol may need to lower its hiring standards to satisfy Trump

The opioid crisis would probably get worse under Trumpcare

A notorious private prison may soon reopen under Trump

Why Donald Trump’s economic growth goals are a terrible idea

Trump’s anti-Muslim comments could come back to haunt his new travel ban

Trumpistan is India’s new cable news show all about Trump

Are Trump’s “unfiltered” remarks actually meticulously crafted propaganda? We asked a speech expert

Here are the Trump associates who have been linked to Russia
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Day 46 — March 6: Trump signed a much-anticipated new executive order that restricts travel to the U.S. from six Muslim-majority countries starting March 16. It’s the Trump administration’s second attempt at the controversial ban, which was temporarily halted by a federal judge in February.

The ban blocks individuals from Sudan, Syria, Iran, Libya, Somalia, and Yemen from entering the U.S. Iraq is notably absent from the order this time, and the restrictions no longer include people who already have valid visas or green cards.

House Republicans also finally unveiled their plan to replace Obamacare. The big changes are:

• eliminating the mandate that forced people to buy health insurance in favor of tax credits to incentivize buying into the market
• phasing out Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion
• allowing insurance companies to charge the elderly up to five times more than the young

Trumpcare — as it’s now known — is already controversial. Even a lot of Republicans hate the Republican-forged plan. The plan will help the wealthy and young while imposing a lot more costs on the poor, the elderly, and women. Here’s a detailed list of winners and losers. In light of the Trump administration rescinding Obama-era protections for transgender students, the Supreme Court declined to hear the case of Gavin Grimm, a transgender teen fighting for the right to use the bathroom associated with his gender identity.

Day 47 — March 7: The Senate grilled Jeff Sessions’ would-be deputy, Rod Rosenstein, about Russia. Democrats say they’ll vote to confirm Rosenstein only if he vows to appoint a special prosecutor to handle the investigation into the Trump campaign’s ties to Russia.

President Trump tweeted at “Fox & Friends” and accused the Obama administration of releasing 122 Guantanamo Bay prisoners

He’s incorrect; 113 of them were released under the Bush administration.

Day 48 — March 8: China granted preliminary approval to 38 trademarks Donald Trump applied for in April 2016, the Associated Press reported. Ethics experts worry the speed and volume of the process violates the Emoluments Clause of the U.S. Constitution, which prohibits government employees from financial gain at the hands of foreign countries. China, however, has denied giving Trump any special treatment.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions hinted in a memo that he wanted to fight violent crime by strengthening the wildly unpopular war on drugs. Women across the world participated in a global strike called “A Day Without a Woman.” An ambitious follow-up to the Women’s March — the record-breaking protest of Trump the day after his inauguration, the strike urged women to opt out of their jobs and the global economy in general for the day.

Day 49 — March 9: The House Oversight Committee gently suggested that Trump, prone to spelling and grammar errors, stop deleting his tweets to fix them.

“Many of the messages sent from [@POTUS and @realDonaldTrump] are likely to be presidential records and therefore must be preserved,” committee members warned in a letter.

Trump’s EPA chief, Scott Pruitt, told CNBC that he doesn’t believe “human activity” is a primary contributor to global warming, breaking with a majority of scientists worldwide, including those at federal agencies like NASA and the National Oceanic Atmospheric Association. He also called the Paris Climate agreement a “bad deal.” Speaker of the House Paul Ryan gave a PowerPoint presentation during a televised press conference that attempted to explain why repealing Obamacare was necessary. He argued the current healthcare plan is fatally flawed because it uses money from healthy people to pay for sick people — or in other words, how insurance works.

For his part, President Trump has no thrown his full support behind the GOP healthcare bill.