Trump’s bigoted tweet on the Trail of Tears

Trump referred to the TRAIL in a tweet on Warren. Once again, he’s a bigot – and Trump, Jr. is proud of it.

Trump appears to mock “Trail of Tears” – Presidential historian @profdbrinkley says it’s “fair game” to criticize @SenWarren, but this went way too far: #TrailofTears #CNN pic.twitter.com/0fioqr4yms
— Brooke Baldwin (@BrookeBCNN) February 11, 2019

Trump's racist Elizabeth Warren taunts have entered a new phase | Analysis by CNN's Zachary B. Wolf https://t.co/sOsLfr2t1p pic.twitter.com/p0cFI38K1I
— CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) February 11, 2019

Trump will get real nasty for the 2020 election, especially if it appears he would be indicted once he is no longer president. There’s no bottom to his bigotry.

Jake Tapper calls out Trump Jr.’s "blatant racism" https://t.co/kgfyu0W7ME
— The Daily Beast (@thedailybeast) February 11, 2019

1) President makes joke about a time the US government killed thousands of Native Americans 2) People point out he did that 3) President’s son applauds president for doing that 4) Fox guy mocks people for suggesting president is knowledgeable enough to do that https://t.co/wTrx20X8Ll
— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) February 10, 2019

beyond base https://t.co/gT5FJbqNc9
— George Conway (@gtconway3d) February 11, 2019

There is no way that Donald Trump, who talks about how much he loves Andrew Jackson all the time, does not know about the Trail of Tears. There is no other interpretation of this tweet that I understand. He is making a joke about genocide against Native Americans. https://t.co/71DuX0mhy0
— Ben Dreyfuss (@bendreyfuss) February 9, 2019

The president's use of the word trail in all caps is a potential reference to the Trail of Tears, the forced relocation of Native Americans from their homelands to reservations in Oklahoma in the 1800s. https://t.co/TJ4mgmAvZY
— USA TODAY (@USATODAY) February 10, 2019

This is deliberate, not a potential mockery.

When high school kids taunt opponents with “Trail of Tears” references, they get suspended: https://t.co/sM3ME6FtQE

When the President of the United States does it, Republicans celebrate him.

We hold children to higher standards than we hold the President of the United States.
— Timothy Burke (@bubbaprog) February 10, 2019

How Fox News covered Trump's "Trail of Tears" genocide joke: “You can recognize a historical tragedy while at the same time also making fun of someone who misrepresented themselves.” https://t.co/Cp4zVnbEFS
— The Daily Beast (@thedailybeast) February 11, 2019

Trump appears to make Trail of Tears joke in tweet mocking Elizabeth Warren https://t.co/hJOw3cjYGz
— The Daily Beast (@thedailybeast) February 10, 2019

If you thought Trump was too historically ignorant to joke about genocide, think again. pic.twitter.com/OjHkg54VmJ
— Eric Columbus (@EricColumbus) February 10, 2019

That this racist joking about the Trail of Tears comes from the President is awful. That 66,000 people (and counting) liked it might be even more depressing. https://t.co/Av0p4HZTWN
— Christina Reynolds (@creynoldsnc) February 10, 2019

I try to never dignify this man’s tweets, but there is little doubt here that he uses “TRAIL” to evoke the genocidal Trail of Tears, and does so to land a political jab. Warren has taken justifiable heat on this issue—but he used the murders of Indigenous people as a punchline. https://t.co/LiyK2iruDF
— Jamil Smith (@JamilSmith) February 9, 2019

To conservatives defending Trump's Native American-themed taunts toward Elizabeth Warren as mockery of her shaky claims of being NA: If a candidate had misrepresented himself as Jewish, would you say it's fine to mockingly refer to him as "Shlomo" & make jokes about ovens?
— Cathy Young (@CathyYoung63) February 11, 2019

Trump and Iran

Ivanka claimed that she isn't worried about Mueller because the family never did business with Iran:https://t.co/1lRnMX55Yd

Let me explain how they did, in fact, almost certainly do business with Iran.

Everything I write here is acknowledged by the Trump Org.

1/
— Adam Davidson (@adamdavidson) February 9, 2019

Trump campaign paying Jared/Ivanka legal fees

Trump’s campaign is asking his working class base to pay the legal fees of his millionaire dilettante son in law https://t.co/7hAS3FDQtD
— Dan Pfeiffer (@danpfeiffer) February 8, 2019

Trump, Jr’s calls with blocked numbers

It turns out that Trump, Jr.’s calls to a blocked number were to family friends and not to Trump. That still leaves lots of questions:

Did Trump know about the meeting? He says he didn’t but he lies all the time. If he got the calls, this would have proven he knew but it still doesn’t put him in the clear.
Why did they lie about the meeting? Trump prepared a false statement saying it was about adoptions.
If the calls were to business associates, why didn’t Trump, Jr. just provide that information?

NEWS: Senate investigators have obtained information that shows Donald Trump Jr.'s calls with a blocked number surrounding the Trump Tower meeting were NOT with his father, but with two business associates. W/ @PamelaBrownCNN @mkraju https://t.co/IGZFmZnNPS
— Jeremy Herb (@jeremyherb) January 31, 2019

Trump Jr.'s calls ahead of 2016 Trump Tower meeting weren’t with his father

"[This] new information doesn't change the fundamental concern about what the President knew. It just means he wasn't those blocked numbers — not that he didn't know about the meeting." – @ChrisCuomo pic.twitter.com/52wgF7bW1Q
— Cuomo Prime Time (@CuomoPrimeTime) February 1, 2019

.@DonaldJTrumpJr on the speculation the blocked numbers had belonged to his father: “After a year of hearing about this one ad nauseam, yet another left-wing narrative officially bites the dust.” https://t.co/Fh6Z3BWeqU
— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) February 1, 2019

He could have just told us who he called.

Didn’t say it exonerated Trump. Just said it undermined the case because there had been widespread suspicion that Don Jr had called the old man prior to meeting. https://t.co/5OLRgNicN3
— Max Boot (@MaxBoot) February 1, 2019

“I believe that there are serious questions about Donald Trump Jr.’s appearance before our committee … I’m suggesting there are serious questions. He needs to come back before the committee. He ought to be subpoenaed,” says Dem @SenBlumenthal of the Senate Judiciary Committee. pic.twitter.com/e1p3jppEtZ
— The Situation Room (@CNNSitRoom) January 31, 2019

As investigators learn Trump Jr.'s blocked calls weren't w/ his father, Rep @GerryConnolly notes theirs is a relationship where "son really wants to make daddy happy," adding it "stretches credulity to believe he never told" his dad about the 2016 meeting.https://t.co/VnqsQ77xjX pic.twitter.com/2OAn3H96sk
— OutFrontCNN (@OutFrontCNN) February 1, 2019

The fact that Trump Jr’s phone calls to blocked numbers around the time he set up the Trump Tower meeting weren’t with his Dad is not proof the two didn’t discuss the meeting in some other setting. https://t.co/EqviGVLHzF
— Joyce Alene (@JoyceWhiteVance) February 1, 2019

Per CNN and ABC: Don Jr.'s blocked phone calls before Russia meeting weren't to Trump. These are the calls Adam Schiff considered suspicious and planned to probe. https://t.co/8JwPYUZmuw
— Jonathan Swan (@jonathanvswan) February 1, 2019

Kushner shouldn’t have a Top Secret security clearance

Two House Democrats asked acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney to immediately revoke senior White House adviser Jared Kushner's security clearance https://t.co/tIuSNoSXEf pic.twitter.com/FSBctIXFr9
— CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) January 31, 2019

If you’re not paying attention to this story, you should be. Our intelligence and national security professionals recommended that Kushner and others should not receive a Top Secret clearance and they were overruled by the White House.

Our national security is at stake. https://t.co/L26eNwrV40
— Renato Mariotti (@renato_mariotti) January 29, 2019

Officials rejected Jared Kushner for top secret security clearance, but were overruled https://t.co/4afEJbyEig
— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) January 25, 2019

In May 2018, Kushner’s criminal defense lawyer said he’d received permanent clearance. What he didn’t say was that a Trump hire overruled two career adjudicators to grant the clearance & the CIA denied him a higher level clearance. https://t.co/QHL6mSYzue
— Joyce Alene (@JoyceWhiteVance) January 25, 2019

Agreed. Anyone familiar with the process knows it's virtually impossibly Jared—or Ivanka for that matter—would be approved for a TS/SCI considering the known issues. To have it confirmed is still the makings of a massive scandal.

Get them out of the White House, immediately. https://t.co/tXfQwfUUOL
— Susan Hennessey (@Susan_Hennessey) January 25, 2019

1/ Having worked on security clearance issues at the White House, this story is terrifying. It is not normal for the head of the Personal Security Office to ever overrule the career employees who adjudicate clearances. This says it's happened 30 times in the last 1.5 years! https://t.co/aO3hF9LDwZ
— Daniel Jacobson (@Dan_F_Jacobson) January 25, 2019

In other words, they got overrruled on determining Kushner was denied clearance. https://t.co/yCCJ01t6M8
— Juliette Kayyem (@juliettekayyem) January 29, 2019

Trump organization fired undocumented workers who worked at Trump golf club for years

.@realDonaldTrump's golf club in NY state employed undocumented workers for years — then fired 12 of them, en masse, during the shutdown.
Trump Org. said it had just discovered their papers were fake.https://t.co/skvSEuGwRe

— David Fahrenthold (@Fahrenthold) January 28, 2019

Hear from Margarita Cruz, who was fired for being undocumented after working for Trump's Westchester golf course for eight years. And hear the audio she recorded of her own firing, in this amazing video from @DDaltonBennett and @jnebraska https://t.co/PCBUyxe88d

— Rosalind Helderman (@PostRoz) January 26, 2019

He could have joined e-verify. But he didn’t. https://t.co/gQgKDAkN82 https://t.co/9VFgKD6Qif

— Maria Sacchetti (@mariasacchetti) January 29, 2019

Trump has described them as rapists and thugs, but his golf courses have relied on undocumented migrants for years. "I'd never done anything wrong, only work and work," said one who worked 15 yrs at NJ course — until he was fired amid wall showdown. "I started to cry." @partlowj https://t.co/eJblLwCA1E

— Greg Miller (@gregpmiller) January 27, 2019

7 questions about Trump’s use of undocumented workers at his golf courses, answered by the reporters who broke the story, @fahrenthold and @partlowj. Starting with, "How did The Post find these workers?" https://t.co/gemX4OQ9BJ

— Peter Wallsten (@peterwallsten) January 28, 2019

Until Trump’s NY golf course fired a dozen undocumented workers in recent days, the odds of encountering an illegal immigrant there were much greater than at the one on the border https://t.co/5FDxKCk9FU

— The Daily Beast (@thedailybeast) January 29, 2019

Undocumented workers get no gov’t benefits, yet many pay taxes. Today I met some of the undocumented women you hired at your golf club in my district. Your people arranged their fake papers and then withheld their Social Security taxes. https://t.co/bwbSCGhcv8

— Tom Malinowski (@Malinowski) January 29, 2019

Um….?

Eric Trump: It’s ‘truly heartbreaking’ that NBC made Trump golf course look bad for firing undocumented workershttps://t.co/255S3lVltz

— Raw Story (@RawStory) January 29, 2019

Ross is clueless

Billionaire Trump cabinet member Ross doesn’t have any idea what the unpaid federal workers are going through. Neither does Trump’s daughter-in-law or Kudlow. Many people live paycheck to paycheck.

Trump has referred to the shutdown as a "strike." He has complained that furloughed workers could hurt his economic numbers. He he groused that many are Democrats and part of the "deep state." And he has made comments seen by many as out-of-touch. https://t.co/jY5UZyr9o6

— Josh Dawsey (@jdawsey1) January 25, 2019

So a few things:
1) This isn’t remotely what Wilbur Ross was saying;
2) The world Trump describes sounds surreal; and
3) It’s amazing that Trump is this bad at offering advice at the one thing he is an expert on: indebtedness. https://t.co/sf5O2KnDj7

— Daniel W. Drezner (@dandrezner) January 24, 2019

What Wilbur Ross and the Trump team’s tone-deaf shutdown comments really say https://t.co/S8am6D3O8z

— Post Politics (@postpolitics) January 24, 2019

Yesterday, Trump’s wealthy daughter-in-law Lara Trump said the #TrumpShutdown was just a “little bit of pain” for 800,000 federal workers. Today Trump’s wealthy Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross says he doesn’t understand why unpaid federal workers would go to a food bank for help. pic.twitter.com/CvGRbvef7O

— Keith Boykin (@keithboykin) January 24, 2019

Today in billionaire cabinet secretaries https://t.co/a3AeYh1bmv

— Abby D. Phillip (@abbydphillip) January 24, 2019

It's called "hunger" Wilbur. https://t.co/e2DyaCt3Vg

— Rick Wilson (@TheRickWilson) January 24, 2019

Thoughts on unpaid federal workers:

"In some sense they're better off."
– Kevin Hassett

"It is a little bit of pain but it's going to be for the future of our country."
– Lara Trump

"There’s no real reason why they shouldn’t be able to get a loan."
– Wilbur Ross

— Binyamin Appelbaum (@BCAppelbaum) January 24, 2019

Hey Wilbur Ross: Let me explain this to you:

1. @realDonaldTrump shut down the government;
2. That means many federal workers, such as FBI agents & Coast Guard personnel, are working without pay;
3. Food is not free.

Get it @SecretaryRoss? https://t.co/SkqEJ8741o

— Ted Lieu (@tedlieu) January 24, 2019

If you live paycheck to paycheck, ‘eventually’ can be devastating. https://t.co/8bwgIWVIUf

— Juana Summers Markland (@jmsummers) January 24, 2019

Wilbur Ross is @realDonaldTrump’s Secretary of Commerce.

Wilbur Ross is a billionaire.

And this is billionaire Wilbur Ross saying he doesn’t understand why federal workers not getting paid during the #TrumpShutdown don’t just take out loans *to feed their families*.

Unreal. pic.twitter.com/YHHZqKa8sx

— Chuck Schumer (@SenSchumer) January 24, 2019

Sen. Schumer calls Wilbur Ross comments "appalling" and "the 21st century equivalent of 'let them eat cake.'"

"Secretary Ross, they just can't call their stock broker and ask them to sell some of their shares." https://t.co/5OkzsDv0CV pic.twitter.com/zT3ErjyBiN

— ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) January 24, 2019

54% of people say they could only miss 2 paychecks before they wouldn't be able to pay their bills, per a Fox News poll.

Federal workers are about to miss their 2nd paycheck. pic.twitter.com/6vRKXSatBI

— Aaron Blake (@AaronBlake) January 24, 2019

Because they need food? Because they are not getting paid? And many live paycheck to paycheck? https://t.co/5jF0uNgoFA

— Seung Min Kim (@seungminkim) January 24, 2019

Paul Krugman points out that the US has started a trade war over fewer employees than the number affected by the shutdown.

Wilbur Ross, who has been leading us into a trade war on behalf of the steel industry, says that the number of workers affected by the shutdown is small, so it's no big deal. A useful chart pic.twitter.com/5sWkjtwug8

— Paul Krugman (@paulkrugman) January 24, 2019

Actually primary metals is just 0.3% of GDP, and a lot of that is stuff that uses the output from steel mills. The industry being protected is much smaller. https://t.co/FZ4OjlvmqU

— Paul Krugman (@paulkrugman) January 24, 2019

After telling the press that federal workers are "volunteering" by continuing to come to work without pay, a reporter calls out Larry Kudlow's incorrect assessment and he fumbles further, saying they are working without pay out of respect for the presidency and Trump. pic.twitter.com/ofN3unRVSY

— Amee Vanderpool (@girlsreallyrule) January 24, 2019

Open this tweet to get the thread of reactions from federal employees:

Feds working unpaid: I will anonymously tweet out any reactions I get to Kudlow's assessment. DMs are open. https://t.co/aOJiAGEvgW

— Dara Lind (@DLind) January 24, 2019