So many underlings doing their jobs, so much disloyalty.
Mr. Trump first expressed his dismay about Michael Atkinson around the time the whistle-blower’s complaint became public in September. In recent weeks, he has continued to raise with aides the possibility of firing him, one of the people said.
The president has said he does not understand why Mr. Atkinson shared the complaint, which outlined how Mr. Trump asked the Ukrainian president to investigate Mr. Trump’s political rivals at the same time he was withholding military aid from the country. He has said he believes Mr. Atkinson, whom he appointed in 2017, has been disloyal, one of the people said.
Mr. Trump’s private complaints about Mr. Atkinson have come as he has publicly questioned his integrity and accused him of working with the Democrats to sabotage his presidency.
.@maggieNYT & @nytmike report Trump has discussed firing the IC IG over his conclusion that the whistleblower’s complaint was urgent and credible, which triggered the notification to Congress that started the impeachment inquiry.https://t.co/hOdygJE7ST
Prior to returning to DC to trial balloon a firing of the IC Inspector-General who handled the whistleblower complaint, Trump tried to divert attention in NYC.
President Trump told a crowd gathered Tuesday at the Economic Club of New York that he’s “very much into climate” and argued that Democrats’ environmental policies will help him win reelection.
[…]
He also called environmentalists “loco,” the Spanish word for crazy.
Trump’s comments follow a move just last week to formally exit the Paris Climate Accord, one of the latest developments in an administration that has been focused on rolling back numerous environmental regulations.
Daniel Dale did the thread on a Trump speech probably more notable for claiming that Ivanka Trump created 14 million jobs.
Struggling a bit with his prepared text, Trump tells the Economic Club of New York that he knew "that we could choose to reject a future of America." He adds, "And really, look at a future of American decline, unacceptable, and to build a future of American dominance."
Trump boasts as usual about economic growth. To this New York business audience, he adds the following: “I did this despite a near-record number of rate increases and quantitative tightening by the Federal Reserve since I won the election.”
Trump calls for the Fed to do something like the negative interest rate some other countries have. There is some applause; Trump says, “Only the smart people are clapping.” He adds that he won’t say that’d be good for the world, “but I’m not president of the world.”
Trump claims he has brought back “over 600,000 manufacturing jobs as of today.” Even if you go back to Nov. 2016, it’s 470,000 manufacturing jobs added through October. (It’s just over 500,000 if you use Sept.; there was a significant strike in Oct.)
Trump touts big increases in stock markets under him, then says that if the Fed was better, “You could’ve added another 25% to each one of those numbers, I guarantee you that. That doesn’t happen. But we all make mistakes, don’t we. Not too often. We do make them on occasion.”
Trump cites income-growth figures from research firm Sentier that show a gain of more than $5,000 under him, then claims you have to add $2,200 for his tax cuts and then $2,000 to $3,000 “for regulatory and energy cuts” (energy prices have increased), so it’s really like $10,000.
Trump does his usual exaggerating about Democrats, claiming that they “so far…have not found any form of energy that’s acceptable to them.” He says he won’t bash them too much over this yet, since it’s going to help him in his campaign.
Trump on Democrats and energy: “Every time they talk, I say, boy, this looks like it might be easier than I anticipated.”
Trump tells his usual tale about how he’s cut environmental impact approval statement approval time to “close to one year.” Here are the numbers from the Federal Highway Administration. environment.fhwa.dot.gov/nepa/timelines….
(These figures are in months)
Trump tells his story about how the first thing nearly every leader says to him is “congratulations on your economy.” He says this includes prime ministers and presidents, kings and queens, dictators. “Dictators, it’s okay, come on in, whatever’s good for the United States.”
“Nobody’s cheated better than China. But I will not say that,” Trump says, doing the thing where he says a thing while saying he won’t say it.
Trump says China, which has reported its lowest GDP growth in 27 years, is having its worst year is “more than 57 years.” He’d been consistently saying “57” for a while after starting with the correct figure and then going all the way up to “61.”
Trump says the US had a $500 billion trade deficit with China for “many years” before he came along, though there has never once been a $500 billion trade deficit with China and though the deficit has set a new record under him.
Trump says as usual that the Obama administration said the trade deal with South Korea would create 250,000 jobs. Obama said it would support 70,000 jobs.
Trump tells his usual story about how Obama is indeed more popular than him in polls of Germans but that’s only because he is doing his job of fighting for a fairer relationship.
Trump exaggerates the number of Mexican soldiers on the US border, then says, approvingly, “They play by different rules than our people.” He adds, “If our people speak rudely to a person coming in, it means they get the electric chair. It’s a very unfair situation.”
Trump falsely/nonsensically claims Ivanka Trump has “created 14 million jobs” through the Pledge to America’s Workers. These are education and training opportunities, many of them for existing employees and many planned before/entirely independent of the Pledge.
Trump is taking questions. Told that the trade war is hurting various sectors, Trump says, “They haven’t been hurt. You know they were totally down. Now they’re a little bit down. Because a little bit, perhaps, the uncertainty of trade wars – but there is no uncertainty.”
Trump somehow turned this critical question about his trade war into the raid on Baghdadi, how the US military “didn’t have ammunition” (false), “radical Islamic terrorism,” and how the US “kept the oil.”
Asked about how he thinks about risk that comes from climate change, Trump says, “Well, you know, climate change is a very complex issue. I consider myself to be, in many ways, an environmentalist, believe it or not…I did the best environmental impact statements.”
Trump says US air is now the cleanest it has been in 40 years (by some measures, it has worsened since he took office) — maybe ever. He notes that 200 years ago, there wasn’t much around, so it had to be cleaner then. Then he adds, “I’m not sure that it was much cleaner.”
Donald Trump: “I’m very much into climate.”
After pronouncing himself “very much into climate,” Trump says the US is a “relatively small piece of land” and countries like China aren’t doing anything to help. He then bashes Los Angeles. He then talks about a “central casting” Democrat with “white hair.”
Trump on the election and people who dislike him but have to vote for him anyway: “You have no choice. Because the people we’re running against are crazy.” Laughter and applause from the New York business crowd.
