Dissolving Stars And Stripes
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In a memo released on the same day as the report, the president and the Pentagon announced that the military publication Stars and Stripes was going to be defunded. A few hours later, Trump tweeted that the decision was reversed, but the damage was already done.
Stars and Stripes has been a publication meant for the members of the armed services for over a hundred years.
Trump folds like a cheap suit and reverses decision to close Stars and Stripes, the military’s historic independent newspaper.
Trumps Foreign Policy Moments
Donald J. Trumps presidency marked a profound departure from U.S. leadership in areas such as trade and diplomacy, as well as an across-the-board toughening of immigration policies.
In his inaugural address, President Donald J. Trump announces an America First approach to foreign policy and trade, which centers on reducing U.S. trade deficits and rebalancing burden sharing within alliances. Trump promises to unite the civilized world against radical Islamic terrorism and emphasizes that it is the right of all nations to put their own interests first.
Trump directs the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative to withdraw the United States from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a twelve-country, Asia-focused trade agreement the United States had championed under the Barack Obama administration.
The president signs an executive order banning nationals of six Muslim-majority countries from traveling to the United States for ninety days. The order, later amended to include an additional two countries, also indefinitely freezes refugee intake from Syria. Days later, a federal judge in Washington State blocks part of the order, beginning a series of judicial challenges. That same week, Trump signs two other executive orders concerning immigration. One directs federal funds to the construction of a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, and the other bars so-called sanctuary cities from receiving federal grants.
He Once Said Transgender Citizens Should Use The Bathroom Of Their Choice
Shortly after North Carolina enacted HB2, a sweeping law banning people from using bathrooms that dont match the sex indicated on their birth certificate, Trump said the state had made a mistake.
Transgender people should use the bathroom they feel is appropriate, Trump, then the GOP presidential frontrunner, said on the Today show in April.
Theres a big move to create new bathrooms for transgender people alone, Trump continued. First of all, I think that would be discriminatory in a certain way. It would be unbelievably expensive for businesses and for the country. Leave it the way it is There have been very few complaints the way it is.
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Trump quickly backtracked after facing criticism from social conservatives I think that local communities and states should make the decision, he said. And I feel very strongly about that. The federal government should not be involved.
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Legal Affairs And Bankruptcies
Fixer Roy Cohn served as Trump’s lawyer and mentor for 13 years in the 1970s and 1980s. According to Trump, Cohn sometimes waived fees due to their friendship. In 1973, Cohn helped Trump countersue the United States government for $100 million over its charges that Trump’s properties had racial discriminatory practices. Trump and Cohn lost that case when the countersuit was dismissed and the government’s case went forward. In 1975, an agreement was struck requiring Trump’s properties to furnish the New York Urban League with a list of all apartment vacancies, every week for two years, among other things. Cohn introduced political consultant Roger Stone to Trump, who enlisted Stone’s services to deal with the federal government.
As of November 2016, Trump and his businesses had been involved in more than 4,000 state and federal legal actions, according to a running tally by USA Today.
While Trump has not filed for personal bankruptcy, his over-leveraged hotel and casino businesses in Atlantic City and New York filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection six times between 1991 and 2009. They continued to operate while the banks restructured debt and reduced Trump’s shares in the properties.
Transgender Drill Sergeant In Limbo After Policy Change
The Human Rights Campaign, a prominent gay rights group, has estimated that there are more than 15,000 active serving transgender troops.
Lawmakers including Republicans blasted Trumps sudden policy reversal.
“No American, no matter their sexual orientation or gender identity, should be prohibited from honor + privilege of serving our nation #LGBT,” tweeted Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Fla., who has a transgender son and is retiring from Congress next year.
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who chairs the Senate Armed Services Committee, said Trump’s tweets were “yet another example of why major policy announcements should not be made via Twitter.”
“The Department of Defense has already decided to allow currently-serving transgender individuals to stay in the military, and many are serving honorably today,” he said. “Any American who meets current medical and readiness standards should be allowed to continue serving. There is no reason to force service members who are able to fight, train, and deploy to leave the military regardless of their gender identity.”
Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, who served in the Iowa Army National Guard for 23 years, with deployments to Kuwait and Iraq, also criticized the measure.
Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, said he did “not think we should be discriminating against anyone” and that “transgender people are people, and deserve the best we can do for them.” Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., added that he wanted “a hearing about” the issue, “not a tweet.”
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Ap Fact Check: Trump Distorts Military Role In Vaccines
WASHINGTON From the get-go, President Donald Trump has miscast or exaggerated the militarys role in his administrations crash program to accelerate the development, production and eventual distribution of COVID-19 vaccines.
The military theme originated in the May 15 announcement of the creation of Operation Warp Speed. Speaking from the Rose Garden, Trump likened the effort to the Manhattan Project, the militarys successful World War II program to engineer and build in secret the worlds first atomic bombs.
That means the full power and strength of the military, Trump said, referring to the project as a partnership that would combine the full resources of the Pentagon and the Health and Human Services Department. He added: We have the mightiest military in the long history of humankind.
Indeed, the military has contributed mightily to the project. It has provided a range of assistance in the form of planning, program management, logistics expertise and other efforts. The accelerated work on COVID-19 vaccines also has benefitted from past investments by the Pentagons Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency in science and technologies related to infectious diseases.
This mission is about defeating the enemy, Perna said at the Rose Garden announcement with Trump. We will defeat the enemy.
Gen Mark Milley’s Condition For His Job
When Gen. Mark Milley accepted Trump’s offer to serve as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, he told Trump he would do whatever Trump asked of him and would back him, but with a condition, according to the book.
“I’ll give you an honest answer on everything I can. And you’re going to make the decisions, and as long they’re legal I’ll support it,” the excerpt quotes Milley as saying in November 2018.
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Trump Said Wounded Veterans In Military Parades Didnt ‘look Good’ For Him: Book
A new book claims that former President Donald Trump verbalized his disdain for wounded veterans early on in his presidency.
The authors of The Divider: Trump in the White House, 2017-2021, The New York Times Peter Baker and The New Yorkers Susan B. Glasser, detailed an exchange Trump had with his then-chief of staff John Kelly in which the former president expressed interest in copying the grandeur he witnessed during a French military parade. He just wanted to make one key tweak, according to an excerpt published by The New Yorker.
Former President Donald Trump salutes during a Change of Command ceremony in 2018.
In 2017, Trump flew to Paris for Bastille Day celebrations held by Emmanuel Macron, the then-new French president. The celebration was also meant to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the American entrance into the WWI. Due to this, Macron apparently wanted to appeal to Trumps love for opulence with a grandiose military display, which included vintage tanks rolling down the Champs-Élysées as fighter jets flew overhead.
When Trump returned to Washington, D.C., he asked his generals to throw him an even showier military parade for July 4. Part of his vision for improving on Frances spectacular martial display was apparently by barring veterans who were wounded or used a wheelchair from his parade.
Kelly a retired Marine Corps general was apparently flabbergasted by the idea.
I dont want them, Trump apparently repeated. It doesnt look good for me.
He Vowed During His Rnc Speech To Protect Lgbtq Citizens
One month after the June 2016 shooting at the gay nightclub Pulse, Trump promised during his lengthy speech at the Republican National Convention to protect the targeted LGBTQ community from Islamic Terrorism.
Only weeks ago, in Orlando, Florida, 49 wonderful Americans were savagely murdered by an Islamic terrorist, Trump said as he accepted his partys nomination for president. This time, the terrorist targeted LGBTQ community. No good. And were going to stop it.
As your president, I will do everything in my power to protect our LGBTQ citizens from the violence and oppression of a hateful foreign ideology. Believe me! he continued.
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‘a Military Coup’: Trump Describes Mar
Former President Donald Trump is a very dramatic guy. The twice-impeached one-termer will tell you that he’s being treated worse than anyone in the world. Case in point: Trump did a call-in interview with Newsmax host Rob Finnerty and claimed that the feds searching his Florida resort for stolen top secret documents was akin to a “military coup” even though does not hold office.
He’s good at projection. I’ll give him that. I don’t think choosing the word ‘coup’ is not a very good idea for him right now.
“They would rather have me not do it because of the safety of the FBI agents that swarmed the place,” Lumpy said. “And I don’t think they wanted to swarm it if you want to know the truth.”
“It’s not a pretty picture,” he continued. “It looks like a military coup. It’s not a pretty picture.”
What is a coup:
A sudden decisive exercise of force in politics and especially the violent overthrow or alteration of an existing government by a small group.
Wait a second here. That’s what he did on January 6 when he incited his supporters to storm the Capitol. NARA requested that Trump send the documents back. He refused. They are the property of the United States.
Trump Bans Transgender People Serving In The Military
President Donald Trump announced Wednesday a ban on transgender people serving in the military, reversing U.S. policy in a series of tweets.
“After consultation with my Generals and military experts, please be advised that the United States Government will not accept or allow……Transgender individuals to serve in any capacity in the U.S. Military. Our military must be focused on decisive and overwhelming…..victory and cannot be burdened with the tremendous medical costs and disruption that transgender in the military would entail. Thank you,” Trump wrote in a trio of consecutive tweets.
The abrupt policy shift will affect thousands of transgender troops in the military.
After consultation with my Generals and military experts, please be advised that the United States Government will not accept or allow……
Donald J. Trump
….Transgender individuals to serve in any capacity in the U.S. Military. Our military must be focused on decisive and overwhelming…..
Donald J. Trump
….victory and cannot be burdened with the tremendous medical costs and disruption that transgender in the military would entail. Thank you
Donald J. Trump
Trumps announcement came just over a year after former President Barack Obamas then-Secretary of Defense Ash Carter lifted a ban on transgender military service a move that allowed active-duty troops to come out of the closet as transgender people.
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Trump: Americans Who Died In War Are Losers And Suckers
The president has repeatedly disparaged the intelligence of service members, and asked that wounded veterans be kept out of military parades, multiple sources tell The Atlantic.
When President Donald Trump canceled a visit to the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery near Paris in 2018, he blamed rain for the last-minute decision, saying that the helicopter couldnt fly and that the Secret Service wouldnt drive him there. Neither claim was true.
Trump rejected the idea of the visit because he feared his hair would become disheveled in the rain, and because he did not believe it important to honor American war dead, according to four people with firsthand knowledge of the discussion that day. In a conversation with senior staff members on the morning of the scheduled visit, Trump said, Why should I go to that cemetery? Its filled with losers. In a separate conversation on the same trip, Trump referred to the more than 1,800 marines who lost their lives at Belleau Wood as suckers for getting killed.
Trumps understanding of concepts such as patriotism, service, and sacrifice has interested me since he expressed contempt for the war record of the late Senator John McCain, who spent more than five years as a prisoner of the North Vietnamese. Hes not a war hero, Trump said in 2015 while running for the Republican nomination for president. I like people who werent captured.
His Team Removed The Lgbtq Rights Page From The White House Website
The moment Trump was sworn in as president in January, the LGBT page along with the climate change, health care, and civil liberties pages disappeared from the website of the brand new Trump White House.
The White Houses official LGBT page, WhiteHouse.gov/LGBT, now shows only a simple message: Thank you for your interest in the subject. Stay tuned as we continue to update whitehouse.gov.
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Love Him Or Hate Him President Trumps Defense Legacy Is Profound
Donald Trump is the most controversial U.S. president in modern times. Some have seen him as the salvation of a faltering democracy, others as an existential threat to that democracy.
It will be a long time before historians arrive at any kind of consensus concerning the significance of the Trump presidency. However, some consequences of his tenure are already apparent. One of those is the impact he has had on the nations defense posture.
Trump has done more in four years to shift the vector of U.S. military preparations than most presidents accomplish in eight. The fact that he did this while the nation was at peace is remarkable. The fact that he often did not know the details of how his defense strategy was being implemented is beside the point .
As President Trump prepares to exit the White House, it is important to see his military legacy clearly, because for better or worse, it is the foundation on which his successor will have to build.
Loren Thompson
Poll: Trump Backed By Majority Of Veterans But Not Younger Ones
Older veterans are overwhelmingly backing President Donald Trump in the upcoming election while younger veterans significantly prefer former Vice President Joe Biden as the next commander in chief, according to the results of a recent Military Times poll of veterans.
Altogether, about 52 percent of veterans surveyed said they plan to back Trump in his reelection campaign this year. About 42 percent said they have voted or plan to vote for Biden instead, with the remainder split between third-party candidates and sitting out the election.
The findings which overall echo other public polls of veterans’ voting preferences show a stark divide among different age, race and gender groups within the veterans community, even as most share broader views on national security and dissatisfaction with the countrys political environment.
The poll was conducted in partnership with the Institute for Veterans and Military Families at Syracuse University between Oct. 1 and Oct. 13. More than 1,700 veterans, whose prior military service was verified through past interaction with Military Times, took part in the survey.
Like past polls of active-duty personnel, the results of the veterans poll represent a segment of the community that spent more time in the military than the average service member and generally was more focused on the military as a career than other peers.
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Approval Ratings And Scholar Surveys
Trump was the only president to never reach a 50% approval rating in the Gallup poll dating to 1938. The approval ratings showed a record partisan gap: 88 percent among Republicans, 7 percent among Democrats. Until September 2020, the ratings were unusually stable, reaching a high of 49 percent and a low of 35 percent. Trump finished his term with a record-low approval rating of between 29 percent and 34 percent and a record-low average of 41 percent throughout his presidency.
In Gallup’s annual poll asking Americans to name the man they admire the most, Trump placed second to Obama in 2017 and 2018, tied with Obama for most admired man in 2019, and was named most admired in 2020. Since Gallup started conducting the poll in 1948, Trump is the first elected president not to be named most admired in his first year in office.
