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Ivanka Trump takes Donald Trump seat at G20 leaders' table BBC News In an unusual move Ivanka Trump briefly took her father Donald's seat at a summit of world leaders on Saturday. The US president had stepped away for a meeting with the Indonesian leader during the G20 meeting. Ms Trump is an adviser to her father, but ... Donald Trump: Ivanka's life would be easier if she wasn't my daughterAOL Donald Trump says he's made Ivanka's life harderNew York Post Opinion: Ivanka covers for Donald Trump at G20 meetingDeutsche Welle HuffPost -CNBC -CNN -Bloomberg all 198 news articles »

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Ivanka Trump takes Donald Trump seat at G20 leaders' table - BBC News

Poland's first lady Agata Kornhauser-Duda, second right, reaches her hand to U.S. First Lady Melania Trump as U.S. President Donald Trump reaches his hand for a handshake after his speech in Krasinski Square, with Polish President Andrzej Duda standing right, in Warsaw, Poland, Thursday, July 6, 2017. A video clip of the encounter prompted claims that Kornhauser-Duda snubbed Trump, but a longer video showed she shook Melania Trump's hand and then President Trump's.(Photo: Alik Keplicz, AP)

President Trump believes he has found an internationalally in his crusade against the media.

Via Twitter, he pledged Saturday to fight the #FakeNews with Polish President Andrzej Duda, whose right-wing party has been accused of a crackdown on a free press.

Last year, Duda signed a law putting state-owned media under government control because according to an aide he didnt believe they were objective.

Trump was responding to a Thursday tweet from Duda after a widely circulated video appeared to show Polish first lady Agata Kornhauser-Duda ignoring Trumps handshake, and shaking first lady Melania Trumps hand insteadduring the first couples trip to Poland.

Tweeting in English, Duda wrote:Contrary to some surprising reports my wife did shake hands with Mrs. and Mr. Trump @POTUS after a great visit. Let's FIGHT FAKE NEWS.

A longer video showed Kornhauser-Duda shaking Melania Trumps hand and then President Trumps.

At Trumps Warsaw speech, Duda loyalists shouted Fake News! in English at passing American reporters.

Trumps dissatisfaction with the media has been a conversation topic with other world leaders.

During a visit to Washington last week, South Korean President Moon Jae-in joked to Trump that he also suffers a bit from fake news.

And Russian President Vladimir Putin shared a laugh with Trump before their one-on-one meeting Friday when Putin pointed to journalists and asked, These are the ones who insulted you?

Trump responded, These are the ones, youre right about that.

Contributing: Gregory Korte

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Trump, Polish president bond over disdain for 'fake news' - USA TODAY

U.S. President-elect Donald Trump speaks with his son Donald Trump Jr. during a news conference in the lobby of Trump Tower in Manhattan, New York City, U.S., January 11, 2017.

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President Trump's oldest son, 39-year-old Donald Trump Jr., posted a doctored clip from the 1986 movie "Top Gun" to his social media accounts Saturday, in which his father is portrayed as a fighter pilot shooting down a jet emblazoned with the CNN logo.

"One of the best I've seen," the Trump son said, reposting the video to Twitter and Instagram from a user called @OldRowOfficial.

In the fake video, Mr. Trump is seen positioning his aircraft to aim at a fighter jet labeled "CNN." Mr. Trump pulls the trigger, and the target explodes mid-air.

This latest post from the Trump son comes as his father continues waging a war against "fake news," particularly CNN. Last week, the president shared an altered video of himself beating down a WWE wrestler with the "CNN" icon on his face.

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President Trump continued his escalating feud with the media over the weekend and White House advisers are defending him. On Sunday morning Mr. T...

Donald Trump Jr. has taken the role of defending his father and sister Ivanka Trump amid intense White House scrutiny.

The Trump son chimed in Saturday after Ivanka Trump sat in for her father at a G-20 meetingin Hamburg, Germany, sparking criticism that such a move could be inappropriate.

The eldest Trump son and his brother, Eric Trump, are running their father's vast business empire while Mr. Trump is in office.

Concerns over the Trump family's involvement in his presidency continue to lurk. Initially, Ivanka Trump said she would keep a private role apart from the White House, but she has since taken an official -- albeit unpaid -- position on staff, and continues to have an active role in White House policy discussions, such as at the G-20 meeting Saturday.

On Saturday, Mr. Trump said Ivanka's life would be easier if she wasn't his daughter.

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In her first interview since becoming assistant to the president, Ivanka Trump tells Gayle King about how she's managing the potential conflict o...

CBS News' Stefan Becket contributed to this report.

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Donald Trump Jr. shares fake clip of president shooting "CNN" out of the sky - CBS News

More than five months into Donald Trump's presidency, American adversaries and allies alike are adjusting to a new era in which Washington seeks its own idiosyncratic and unpredictable "America First" path.

In Europe, Asia, and the Middle East, governments are assessing shifting US priorities and in some cases seeking alternative sources of leadership and partnership in the belief that America has stepped back.

Trump's unpopularity abroad is forcing leaders to consider their own political positions, before getting too close to the American President -- even if they seek to preserve Washington's still vital global role as the guarantor of liberal market economics and democracy.

That dynamic will be on display during Trump's second visit to Europe this week, just weeks after his first transcontinental trip opened new gaps between Washington and some longtime allies.

Trump starts in Poland, which is hoping for his strongest affirmation yet of NATO security guarantees. Then he will head to the G20 summit in Germany, where he may confront hostility deepened by his decision to exit the Paris climate accord.

The Trump administration refutes the notion that it has downgraded American leadership, arguing that Trump's foreign trips, flurry of meetings and frequent calls with foreign presidents and prime ministers shows intense engagement.

But increasingly, top foreign policymakers from Germany to Iraq and Canada to Asia are contemplating a period when US leadership that many took for granted may be less evident in global affairs, after Trump turned his back on multilateral trade deals and downplayed multinational institutions and agreements.

"Whoever believes the problems of this world can be solved by isolationism and protectionism is making a tremendous error," German Chancellor Angela Merkel told parliament last week, in a clear shot across Trump's bow.

It was not the first time the German leader, running for a fourth term in September's election, had rebuked the President.

After Trump visited Europe in May, and declined to reaffirm NATO's Article 5 principle of mutual self defense during a visit to the Western alliance headquarters, Merkel said US allies needed to rethink their place in the world.

"We Europeans truly have to take our fate into our own hands," she said.

Canada, America's closest geographical ally, is also watching.

Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland profoundly thanked the United States for being "truly the indispensable nation" that had ensured 70 years of peace and prosperity in a speech to parliament last month.

But she acknowledged that halcyon period was ending.

"The fact that our friend and ally has come to question the very worth of its mantle of global leadership, puts into sharper focus the need for the rest of us to set our own clear and sovereign course," Freeland said.

"For Canada that course must be the renewal, indeed the strengthening, of the postwar multilateral order."

It is not just America's most traditional allies that sense that America is pulling back from the world, amid a perception that diplomacy has been de-emphasized and the State Department downgraded in a Trump administration more respectful of military leadership.

Iraqi Vice President Ayad Allawi told CNN's Christiane Amanpour last week that the United States was "absent" in maintaining global security and that there was a "vacuum in the overall leadership in the world."

"The Americans need to ... get back to their role as an international power, an important international power." Allawi said.

Despite an impending victory over ISIS by Iraqi forces in western Mosul, with US support, Allawi argued that Washington lacked "clear cut policies" for tackling extremism and a future strategy for the Middle East.

Some American competitors see an opening.

At the Global Economic Forum in Davos, a few days before Trump was inaugurated, China's President Xi Jinping, offered a vision of a world turned on its head when he offered his own nation as a guardian of free trade, globalization and efforts to combat climate change -- areas where the United States had formerly taken the leadership role.

"Whether you like it or not, the global economy is the big ocean you cannot escape from," Xi told delegates at the Swiss mountain resort.

Over the last few days, Trump has spoken to leaders of US allies in the Gulf, amid a showdown over terrorist financing that has led to the isolation of Qatar, and has also had conversations with counterparts in Germany and Italy.

In contrast to the way Trump's first trip to Europe was seen across the Atlantic, national security adviser H.R. McMaster argued that the President had reinvigorated US alliances which Republicans believed eroded under the Obama administration.

"America First ... does not mean America alone. President Trump has demonstrated a commitment to American alliances because strong alliances further American security and American interests," McMaster told reporters last week.

While much of America's future foreign policy course remains uncertain to foreign states, Washington has made some clear moves.

It significantly stiffened resistance to Iran in the Middle East, a reorientation that was the underlying theme of Trump's first stops in Saudi Arabia and Israel.

But at the same time, there is no real clarity on the Trump administration's strategy on Syria following the apparently imminent eradication of ISIS strongholds. Iran envisages a future Shiite crescent of influence, that would stretch from Tehran through Iraq, Syria and into Lebanon, backed by Russia, and would change the balance of power in the region.

It is unclear how actively the Trump administration plans to resist such a scenario, in concert with allies like Saudi Arabia, the Gulf States, Egypt and Jordan.

In Afghanistan, the Pentagon dropped its largest non-nuclear bomb on ISIS targets and plans to use its new autonomy under Trump to send more troops to train and assist Afghan soldiers.

But the administration has yet to lay out a detailed vision of how it sees Afghanistan's future or long-term US war aims.

In Asia, Trump dropped his hostility toward China in an effort to convince Beijing to do more to rein in its volatile ally North Korea amid a nuclear and missile crisis. But he now seems to have concluded the effort failed, and imposed sanctions against a Chinese bank with links to the pariah state, and approved a $1.4 billion arms package to Taiwan, heightening tensions with Beijing.

But Trump, despite saber rattling, has yet to explain to Americans any new approaches on how he will thwart Pyongyang's bid to put a nuclear warhead onto a weapon that could reach the US mainland.

It's not just uncertainty about American global strategy that is convincing some allied leaders to look past the United States.

Trump's unpopularity makes it much more difficult for them politically to support him. The recent Pew Global Attitudes poll showed Trump with rock bottom approval ratings across the world. Only in Russia and Israel did more people trust him to do the right thing than former President Barack Obama.

The former President, meanwhile, has stayed mostly out of the limelight. But Monday, Obama couldn't resist during a Seoul conference organized by South Korea's Chosun Ilbo media group, saying the Paris climate accord won't vanish despite the "temporary absence" of American leadership.

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The world looks past Donald Trump - CNN

A former GOP congressman who voted to impeach then-President Bill Clinton in 1998 has hit out at what he labeled theDonald Trumpshow.

On Monday, former Rep. Bob Inglis (R-S.C.) told CNN International host Christiane Amanpourthat the current presidents situation involving the investigations into his associates alleged ties to Russia ismuch more serious than the scandal that ended up engulfing Clintons administration.

Inglis made his comments after Amanpour played out an interview from 1998 in which he explained just why Clinton should be impeached.

There are issues around the world that require American leadership, Inglis said in the archive clip. The leader of the free world needs moral authority. And weve got a president who is sorely lacking in that regard.

Amanpour asked Inglis how he measured Clintons lack of moral authority in the run up to his impeachment with what Trump currently has or doesnt have.

Well, I guess that young guy you were just playing there apparently hadnt seen something called the Donald Trump show, said Inglis of his younger self, before adding that Trumps behavior is much more serious than anything we ever accused Bill Clinton of.

Inglis noted how Clintons impeachment involved perjury with the underlying matter being a sexual affair. Trumps situation, however, was something quite different.

Particularly when it gets into the Russia investigation and the firing of (former FBI Director) James Comey, he added. These are very serious matters.

Check out the full interview in the clip above.

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GOPer Who Voted To Impeach Bill Clinton: Donald Trump Situation Is 'Much More Serious' - HuffPost

Trump, beginning around 2011, seized on the issue -- which had been percolating in the fever swamps on the far right since Obama won -- and used it to cast himself as the lone voice among conservatives willing to stand up to Obama (and political correctness).

That the whole thing was, wait for it, a totally false conspiracy theory was beside the point for Trump. It proved useful to him, so he used it.

Given that origin story, we shouldn't be terribly surprised that Trump's willingness to engage in conspiracy theories as a candidate has continued since he entered the White House.

Take Trump's tweets on Saturday alone. They amounted to a conspiracy theorist's dream.

Let's take these one by one.

The first tweet deals with MSNBC parting ways with host Greta van Susteren. Van Susteren, in a series of tweets, offered no evidence that she left because of any pressure from the bosses that she be more anti-Trump.

In each of these examples, what Trump does is similar: He takes something that's happened and insists (or insinuates) that there's something more to the story. Something people aren't telling you. Something the "elites" are covering up.

He, of course, provides no evidence to back up those claims. That's because there isn't any evidence. What Trump is doing in each of these three tweets is throwing just enough red meat to the conspiracy-minded to keep them coming back for more (and more)(and more).

What Trump is relying on is the self-fulfilling prophecy that drives all good conspiracy theorists. He knows more than "they" will let him say! Anyone who doubts Trump is part of the conspiracy! And so on and so forth.

Now, Trump didn't create conspiracy theories. He is just taking advantage of their rise, a rise fueled by the NSA's massive program of personal data collection exposed by Edward Snowden, Trump backer Alex Jones and a thousand and one Reddit sub-Reddits that bring together like-minded conspiracy theorists to prove that they can't all be wrong.

What Trump has done is mainstream conspiracy theories for his own political purposes. Much more so than any other past presidential candidate or president, Trump is willing to indulge conspiracy theories that fit his political purposes.

There's LOTS more examples. (Millions of people voted illegally in the 2016 election! Muslims were celebrating on the rooftops in New Jersey on 9/11! Etc. Etc. Etc.)

The point here is that Trump knows exactly what he's doing. It's not important whether he believes all the conspiracy theories he helps churn up and push into the mainstream. What's important is that by doing so he benefits politically.

The result? Conspiracy theories -- and the people who spout them -- have never been more prevalent.

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Donald Trump has made conspiracy theories great again - CNN

This story was updated on Monday, July 3 at 12:53pm.

Charlie Gard was born with a rare genetic condition and has suffered from brain damage and loss of muscle function. After British doctors advised his parents, Connie Yates and Chris Gard, that they should end life support for the terminally ill 10-month-old, they raised nearly 2 million dollars to transfer Charlie to the U.S. for experimental treatment. But three separate British courts intervened, siding with medical specialists who said that further prolonging treatment would cause the baby significant harm. In June, the European Court of Human Rights weighed in on the parents final appeal. They lost. Charlie would be taken off of life support.

Since then, the global reaction has been chaotic, with leaders from the pope to the president of the United States weighing in on the case.

First, the Vaticans Pontifical Academy for Life issued a statement, seeming to side with the European courts. We must also accept the limits of medicine and avoid aggressive medical procedures that are disproportionate to any expected results or excessively burdensome to the patient or the family, wrote Vincenzo Paglia, the bodys president. While people should never deliberately end a human life, he added, sometimes we ... have to recognize the limitations of what can be done.

Then the pope weighed inand said almost exactly the opposite. Francis is following with affection and sadness the case of little Charlie Gard and expresses his closeness to his parents, a Vatican press office statement said. For this he prays that their wish to accompany and treat their child until the end is not neglected.

On Monday, President Trump added his support with a tweet supporting Charlie and his family.

Charlies case touches on some of the most sensitive moral and political questions about the role of the state at the end of life. The decisions of the European courts represented the final word on whether Charlies parents could pursue treatment in the U.S., and after the ruling, Yates and Gard claimed the hospital had denied permission for them to take Charlie back to their home to die. Yates and Gard have framed the medical dispute as Charlies fight, developing a large social-media following as they chronicled their effort to pursue further treatment for their son. The case also has religious dimensions: On their instagram page, Yates and Gard documented their celebration of their sons baptism and showed him clutching a pendant of St. Jude, the Catholic figure most often associated with hospitals and medical care. Media in the U.K. have followed the Gard familys case closely and the court orders to end Charlies life have been fiercely criticized by conservatives in the U.S. and abroad.

With the Church weighing in, the case took on a whole new dimension. The competing statements seemed to reveal an internal dispute over end-of-life issues within the Vatican. But they also teed up Trumps intervention. Religious conservatives in the U.S. were outraged over the Pontifical Academy for Lifes original statement: Besides being patronizing, the Vaticans statement is a gross distortion of the situation, wrote Michael Brendan Dougherty at National Review. It portrays the Gards as acting alongside the doctors, but subject to outside manipulation. The Gards are resisting the doctors. The Gards are not facing their decisions. They are facing authorities that have overridden them.

Trump, who has consistently expressed his verbal support for religious freedom, has now stepped in, cementing the issue as an international cause for conservatives. Upon learning of baby Charlie Gard's situation, President Trump has offered to help the family in this heartbreaking situation, the White House said in a statement issued on Monday afternoon. Although the President himself has not spoken to the family, he does not want to pressure them in any way, members of the administration have spoken to the family in calls facilitated by the British government. The President is just trying to be helpful if at all possible.

Its not clear how the presidents statement would change the Gard familys situation: They already had the money for Charlies treatment and had sought to bring him to the U.S. The American president cant change the way European courts work, or annul their authority. But Trump has marked a difference in orientation between at least one part of Europe and the United States. While the high courts of Europe have asserted their authority and doctors right to decide when and how Charlie dies, the president of the United States has decided he will champion the familys choice to decideno matter whether or not he actually has the ability to intervene in one British babys life.

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Donald Trump Offers to Help Charlie Gard - The Atlantic

Late last month, President Trump touted his legislative prowess, boasting, "I will say that never has there been a president with few exceptions, in the case of FDR he had a major Depression to handle who's passed more legislation, who's done more things than what we've done."

And he tweeted about signing 38 bills (he's now up to 41).

The president isn't the only one who's talking about how much legislation has been enacted during his young presidency. On Mr. Trump's 150th day in office, House Intelligence Chairman Rep. Devin Nunes claimed on a radio show KMJ radio that Mr. Trump "got more bills signed into law...this Congress working with this president, than any president previously before at this stage in the game."

As the president conceded in his tweet, there are "a few exceptions." Politifact pointed out that "not only did Roosevelt and Truman sign more bills through 150 days, so did Presidents Jimmy Carter, 48, and Bill Clinton with 41. President George H. W. Bush signed the same number as Trump, 39."

And nearing six months into his presidency, none of those dozens of measures include any of Mr. Trump's major campaign promises. He has not repealed and replaced Obamacare, nor has he delivered the biggest tax cut since Ronald Reagan. He has not secured funding to build a "big, beautiful wall" on the Mexican border -- which would need to have funds appropriated for it (even if Mexico were to agree to pay for it).

The House has passed a version of the health care bill, but the Senate has not yet reached an agreement on a version of its own. It postponed a vote that had been scheduled just before the July 4 recess, and it's not yet evident that Senate Republicans will be able to settle on a plan that 50 of them can agree upon, which is the number they'll need for passage. Should they pass a bill, it would also have to be reconciled with the House version passed in May.

The tax legislation was supposed to follow the passage of the health care bill, and the White House has said it expects to have a bill before Congress by early September.

As for Mr. Trump's oft-mentioned southern border wall, Congress did not include money for the wall it its 2017 budget, and it remains to be seenwhether the wall will ever be funded.

The largest number of bills Mr. Trump has signed -- 15 -- roll back Obama administration regulations.

Here's a list of the bills signed by the president, courtesy of CBS News' in-house presidential tracker, White House correspondent Mark Knoller. The bill text is from Congress.gov.:

1) Jan. 20, 2017: In the Capitol after his swearing-in, the president signed a bill to waive a restriction that would have kept Gen. James Mattis, (USMC ret) from serve as Secretary of Defense. The law prohibits former military personnel from serving as defense secretary within seven years of retirement. Mattis retired in 2013.

2) Jan. 20, 2017: H.R.72. This bill authorizes the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to obtain federal agency records required to discharge the GAO's duties (including audit, evaluation, and investigative duties), including through bringing civil actions to require an agency to produce a record. No provision of the Social Security Act shall be construed to limit, amend, or supersede the GAO's authority to: (1) obtain information or inspect records about an agency's duties, powers, activities, organization, or financial transactions; or (2) obtain other agency records that the GAO requires to discharge its duties.

3) Feb. 14, 2017: H. J. Res. 41: This joint resolution nullifies the "Disclosure of Payments by Resource Extraction Issuers" rule finalized by the Securities and Exchange Commission on July 27, 2016. (The rule, mandated under the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, requires resource extraction issuers to disclose payments made to governments for the commercial development of oil, natural gas, or minerals.)

4) Feb. 16, 2017: H.J.Res 38: To repeal Obama Admin rule barring dumping of surface mining waste into streams.

5) Feb. 28, 2017: H.R.321 Inspiring the Next Space Pioneers, Innovators, Researchers, and Explorers (INSPIRE) Women Act. The bill directs NASA "to encourage women and girls to study science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), pursue careers in aerospace," by supporting NASA programs: NASA GIRLS and NASA BOYS, Aspire to Inspire, and Summer Institute in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Research.

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NASA video shows the launch of a Terrier-Improved Malemute suborbital sounding rocket from the Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. The rocket di...

6) Feb. 28, 2017: H.R.255 "Promoting Women in Entrepreneurship Act" authorizes the National Science Foundation" to encourage its entrepreneurial programs to recruit and support women to extend their focus beyond the laboratory and into the commercial world."

7) Feb. 28, 2017: H.J.Res. 40, "nullifies the Social Security Administration's rule implementing the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) Improvement Amendments Act of 2007." The measure blocks an Obama Administration rule providing Social Security information for gun buyer background checks.

8) Feb. 28, 2017: H.R.609 designates the Department of Veterans Affairs health care center in Center Township, Butler County, Pennsylvania, as the "Abie Abraham VA Clinic".

9) Feb. 28, 2017: S.442 - National Aeronautics and Space Administration Transition Authorization Act of 2017, the first NASA budget authorization in six years. The measure calls for a $19.5 billion budget for the agency for fiscal year 2017.

10) Feb 28, 2017: H.J. Res. 37: This joint resolution nullifies the rule finalized by the Department of Defense, the General Services Administration, and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) on August 25, 2016, relating to revising the Federal Acquisition Regulation to implement Executive Order 13673 concerning contractor compliance with labor laws.

11) H.J. Res. 44: This joint resolution nullifies the rule finalized by the Department of the Interior on December 12, 2016, relating to revising regulations that establish the procedures used to prepare, revise, or amend land use plans pursuant to the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976.

12) H.J. Res. 57: This joint resolution nullifies the rule finalized by the Department of Education on November 29, 2016, relating to accountability and state plans under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965.

13) H.J. Res. 58: This joint resolution nullifies the "Teacher Preparation Issues" rule finalized by the Department of Education on October 31, 2016. The rule implements requirements related to assessing the quality of teacher preparation programs under title II (Teacher Quality Enhancement) of the Higher Education Act of 1965.

14) March 28, 2017 S. 305, the "Vietnam War Veterans Recognition Act of 2017," which encourages the display of the U.S. flag on March 29, National Vietnam War Veterans Day.

15) March 31, 2017: H.J.Res. 42, which nullifies the Department of Labor's Federal-State Unemployment Compensation Program; Middle Class Tax Relief and Job Creation Act of 2012 Provision on Establishing Appropriate Occupations for Drug Testing of Unemployment Compensation Applicants;

16) March 31, 2017: H.R. 1362, which designates the Department of Veterans Affairs community-based outpatient clinic in Pago Pago, American Samoa, the Faleomavaega Eni Fa'aua'a Hunkin VA Clinic; and

17) March 31, 2017: S.J.Res. 1, which approves the location of a memorial to commemorate and honor the members of the Armed Forces who served on active duty in support of Operation Desert Storm or Operation Desert Shield.

18) April 3, 2017: H.J.Res. 69, which nullifies the Department of the Interior's Fish and Wildlife Service's final rule relating to non-subsistence takings of wildlife on National Wildlife Refuges in Alaska;

19) April 3, 2017: H.J.Res. 83: which nullifies the Department of Labor's rule titled Clarification of Employer's Continuing Obligation to Make and Maintain an Accurate Record of Each Recordable Injury and Illness; and

20) April 3, 2017: H.R. 1228, which provides for the appointment of members of the Board of Directors of the Office of Compliance to replace members whose terms expire during March and May of 2017; and

21) April 3, 2017: S.J.Res. 34, which nullifies the Federal Communications Commission's rule on privacy of customers of broadband and other telecommunications services.

22) April 13, 2017: H.J.Res. 67, which nullifies the Department of Labor's rule on Savings Arrangements Established by Qualified State Political Subdivisions for Non-Governmental Employees. This means that the bill rolls back the HHS regulation that barred states from blocking federal funds to family planning providers that perform abortions. They can now block those funds.

23) April 13, 2017: H.J.Res. 43, which nullifies the Department of Health and Human Services rule prohibiting recipients of Title X grants for the provision of family planning services from excluding a subgrantee from participating for reasons other than its ability to provide Title X services. This bill, along with H.J. Res. 67, were the 12th and 13th bills signed by President Trump to nullify regulations issued in the last months of the Obama administration.

24) April 18, 2017: H.R. 353, the "Weather Research and Forecasting Innovation Act of 2017," which reauthorizes and modifies the Department of Commerce's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's: (1) weather research and forecasting programs; and (2) tsunami detection, forecast, warning, research and mitigation programs.

25) April 19, 2017: S. 544, A bill to amend the Veterans Access, Choice, and Accountability Act of 2014 to modify the termination date for the Veterans Choice Program, and for other purposes. Bill eliminates August 7 termination date of the Veterans Choice Program; to modify reimbursement and cost-recovery procedures for care provided under the Program; and to authorize the sharing of certain veterans' medical records with medical service providers outside the Department of Veterans Affairs.

26) April 19, 2017: S.J.Res. 30 reappoints Steve Case as a citizen regent of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution;

27) April 19, 2017: S.J.Res. 35 appoints Michael Govan as a citizen regent of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution; and

28) April 19, 2017: S.J.Res. 36 appoints Roger W. Ferguson as a citizen regent of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution.

29) April 28, 2017: H.J.Res. 99 is the continuing resolution to fund the government with appropriations for fiscal year 2017, and for other purposes.

30) May 05, 2017: H.R. 244: Spending bill to avert government shutdown. It provides fiscal year (FY) 2017 full-year appropriations through September 30, 2017, for all agencies except those covered by division A of the Continuing Appropriations and Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act 2017, and Zika Response and Preparedness Act (Public Law 114-223). Division A provided full-year funding through September 30, 2017, for projects and activities of the Federal Government included in the Military Construction and Veterans Affairs and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2017.

31) May 8, 2017: H.R. 534, the "U.S. Wants to Compete for a World Expo Act," which authorizes the Secretary of State to take such actions as necessary for the United States to rejoin the Bureau of International Expositions.

32) May 12, 2017: S. 496, which nullifies the rule issued by the Federal Highway Administration and the Federal Transit Administration entitled "Metropolitan Planning Organization Coordination and Planning Area Reform".

33) May 16, 2017: The "Modernizing Government Travel Act" requires the General Services Administration to prescribe regulations to provide for the reimbursement for the use of a transportation network company or innovative mobility technology company by any Federal employee traveling on official business.

34) May 17, 2017: H.J.Res. 66 nullifies the Department of Labor's rule on Savings Arrangements Established by States for Non-Governmental Employees.

35) June 2, 2017: The "Public Safety Officers' Benefits Improvement Act of 2017" was a bipartisan bill that would help speed which modifies eligibility requirements for the Public Safety Officers' Benefits (PSOB) program administered by the Department of Justice; and requires the Department to exercise due diligence, and transparency, to expeditiously adjudicate PSOB claims; and

36) June 2, 2017: The "American Law Enforcement Heroes Act of 2017" authorizes the Department of Justice to award community oriented policing services grants for the purpose of prioritizing the hiring and training of veterans as career law enforcement officers.

37) June 6, 2017: An act naming a federal building and U.S. courthouse the "Fred D. Thompson Federal Building and United States Courthouse."

38) June 6, 2017: The "DHS Stop Asset and Vehicle Excess Act or the DHS SAVE Act," which requires the Under Secretary for Management of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to oversee and manage vehicle fleets throughout DHS; and imposes new requirements on DHS components regarding the management of those fleets.

39) June 14, 2017: The "Follow the Rules Act," which gives whistleblower protections to federal employees who refuse to violate federal rules and regulations. A federal court had issued a ruling protecting federal workers from employer retaliation if they refused to violate federal law, but it did not apply the same safeguards for those who refuse to obey an order that would violate a rule or regulation.

40) June 23, 2017: The VA Accountability and Whistleblower Protection Act, which aims tomake it easier to fire bad employees at the Department of Veterans Affairs, and give more protection to employees who bring misconduct to light. It gives VA Secretary David Shulkin more authority to fire misbehaving or underperforming employees, shorten the appeals process for that firing, and prohibits employees from being paid while they pursue the appeals process. It also includes new protections againstretaliation for workerswho file complaints with the VA general counsel's office, and shortens the process for hiring new employees to fill a workforce shortage at the VA.

41) June 30, 2017: H.R. 1238, the "Securing our Agriculture and Food Act," requires the Assistant Secretary for Health Affairs of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to carry out a program to coordinate DHS efforts related to defending the food, agriculture, and veterinary systems of the United States against terrorism and other threats.

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What are the bills Donald Trump has signed? - CBS News

A majority of AmericansclaimPresident Donald Trump should continue with his often provocative tweets, with a new poll showing more than 75 percentof respondents want him to remain on social media.Thesurvey from The Drudge Report found just 22.3 percentof people would like to see the president step back from social media, while 77.7 percentthink he should continue tweeting.

The poll on the right-wing website asked respondents if they believed Trump should use socials.About524,420 peopleanswered the unofficial poll as of Monday afternoon.

During his election campaign, Trump utilized social media to great effect but provoked criticism for his divisivestatements, with many wondering whether he would relinquish his social media habit once elected. Since moving to the White House, Trump has in fact continued using social media to make announcements, criticize peopleand hit out at the mainstream media, which he frequently refers to as fake news, apparently preferring to reach out to his followers directly rather than engaging with news outlets he dislikes.

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In the past 24 hours, Trump has lashed out at the media on several occasions, stating in a tweet on Sunday: The dishonest media will NEVER keep us from accomplishing our objectives on behalf of our GREAT AMERICAN PEOPLE! #AmericaFirst.

He added in a tweet Monday: At some point the Fake News will be forced to discuss our great jobs numbers, strong economy, success with ISIS, the border & so much else!

The president is also very proud of his social media use, stating during a meeting with Indias prime minister, Narendra Modi, at the White House on June 26 that the pair were both world leaders in social media.

I am proud to announce to the media, to the American people and to the Indian people that Prime Minister Modi and I are world leaders in social media. We're believers, Trump said.

Giving the citizens of our countries the opportunity to hear directly from their elected officials and for us to hear directly from them, Trump added. I guess it's worked very well in both cases.

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Most People Actually Want Donald Trump to Keep on Tweeting, Drudge Report Poll Shows - Newsweek

The rules are simple, okay? No threats of violence. No targeted abuse or harassment. No inciting anybody else to engage in targeted abuse or harassment. No hateful conduct.

Now think about Donald Trumps tweeting habits. Is he breaking those rules, which come from Twitters terms of service?

Trump has long been criticized for his impulsiveness, but less than six months into his presidency, alarm over his Twitter conduct has hit fever pitch.

On Sunday morning, Trump tweeted a short video clip showing him pummeling another person outside of a wrestling ringwith the other persons face blocked out by the CNN logo. If thats not a direct threat of violence against the American citizens who work for CNN, its certainly a celebration of violence.

The president is not only aware of the firestorm hes ignited, he appears to be relishing it. My use of social media is not Presidential, Trump tweeted on Saturday. its MODERN DAY PRESIDENTIAL.

These latest messages came came on the heels of a bizarre barrage of tweetsodd even by the presidents standardsthat set off a new round of scrutiny of his use of social media. Beginning on June 29, Trump began tweeting repeated insults at Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski, the hosts of the MSNBC talk show, Morning Joe. Trumps treatment of Brzezinski was particularly strange. In addition to calling her dumb, crazy, and low I.Q. in three separate tweets, he claimed that she and Scarborough traveled to Mar-a-Lago for New Years Eve and insisted on seeing Trump while Brzezinski was bleeding badly from a face-lift. (Brzezinski and Scarborough published a rebuke in The Washington Post, calling the presidents claim a lie.)

In true Trump fashion, the president doubled down, calling Scarborough crazy and Brzezinski dumb as a rock.

Does that constitute targeted harassment? And given Trumps huge followingmore than 33.1 million Twitter followers on his primary accountdoes a string of attacks against the same two individuals constitute inciting harassment? We dont comment on individual accounts, for privacy and security reasons, a Twitter spokesperson told me on Saturday. Twitter also declined to tell me whether, when considering the question of a user inciting harassment, it takes into consideration that persons number of followers or public statusa movie star or politician, for example.

Twitters website does offer some clarification on how it assesses abusive behavior. The company says it assesses whether the primary purpose of an account is to harass or send abusive messages; and it looks at whether the reported behavior is one-sided.Setting aside Twitters notoriously bad track record for actually enforcing its own standards on harassment, the question of one-sidedness poses an interesting problem here.

When one of the people involved in a Twitter fight isnt just a public official but also the president of the United States, is it fair to consider anyone hes attacking an equal player in a fight?

We know what Trump would say. This is a man whose 2007 book Never Give Up has multiple chapters dedicated to the subject of fighting with people. Theres Chapter 5 (I Love a Good Fight) and Chapter 29 (You Will Be Attacked For Trying to Change Anything) and Chapter 38 (When Youre Attacked, Bite Back). If Trump doesnt like what a person says about him, he attacks them. Period.

But Trumps Twitter conduct also raises a question about what Twitter is, and what it should be. Often, the service is treated as a new kind of public square, a place for the unfiltered exchange of ideas (and, clearly, hurling of insults). Silicon Valley has rarely stepped in to correct the persistent cultural conflation between the actual right to free speechthat is, the constitutionally protected right that says the government cannot make a law that inhibits peoples freedom of expressionand the idea that people should get to say whatever they want wherever they want to without consequence. (Complicating things further, Twitter must answer to its shareholders, and having the president use its service so routinelyand so bombasticallycertainly keeps the service relevant.)

In reality, though, Twitter is a media company. Just like CNN and The New York Times are media companies. Except, unlike in a traditional model where publishers and readers are distinct groups, everyone can be both on Twitter. So whats a company like Twitter to do when one of its userswho is also the president of the United States, by the wayincessantly publishes attacks against individuals? Nothing, apparently. At least nothing yet. The thornier question is: What should it do? Only rarely would any news organization turn down the opportunity to exclusively print or broadcast a message from the president. (U.S. senators and presidential candidates, however, are another story.) Though its not like the president doesnt have plenty of opportunities for his voice to be amplified. He has said he likes Twitter because its a direct channel to the American people, but he has his own website where he could be live-streaming or blogging, for instance. He is also a constant subject of media attention; his press conferenceswhen the White House permits itare broadcast over cable and network television.

Presidents have historically made good use of new media platforms. Franklin Roosevelts fireside chats may seem quaint to us now, but they were a revolutionary experiment with a nascent media platform when they began in the 1930s. But, as with all things Trump-related, looking to norms and historic conventions can only get you so far. Imagine if Roosevelt had used his radio access to relentlessly criticize individual Americans by name. Trump knows that his critics are disgusted by the way he represents the country on Twitter, and he trusts that his supporters delight in their disgust.

It never stops, and I wouldnt have it any other way, he wrote in The Art of the Deal. I try to learn from the past, but I plan for the future by focusing exclusively on the present. Thats where the fun is. And if it cant be fun, whats the point?

If Twitter were to suspend or even outright ban Trump, his most fervent left-wing critics would surely rejoice. His supporters would likely boycott Twitter. Their outrage could help him keep their support. And in Trumps worldview, this may well look like a win-win.

Originally posted here:

Donald Trump Is Testing Twitter's Harassment Policy - The Atlantic