What Americans and others say about Trump

4. The following are excerpts from the August 18, 2018 AFP news report headlined "Ex CIA directors issue unprecedented Trump condemnation".

(Begin excerpts)
Washington (AFP) - Former CIA directors and another half dozen of America's most senior spies have issued an unprecedented condemnation of President Donald Trump, after his decision to blacklist their colleague John Brennan.

In a statement, ex-CIA bosses appointed by Republican and Democratic presidents -- including Robert Gates, George Tenet, Porter Goss, Leon Panetta and David Petraeus -- denounced Trump's decision to strip Brennan of his security clearance.

"The president's action regarding John Brennan and the threats of similar action against other former officials has nothing to do with who should and should not hold security clearances -- and everything to do with an attempt to stifle free speech," the statement read.

Describing Trump's move as "inappropriate and deeply regrettable," they insisted "we have never before seen the approval or removal of security clearances used as a political tool, as was done in this case."

Two of those who signed the statement -- former director of national intelligence James Clapper and former CIA director Michael Hayden -- have been cited by Trump as on a list of people who could lose their clearance....

After the White House said Brennan -- a notable Trump critic -- had been stripped of clearance due to his "erratic" behavior, Trump admitted it was because of his criticism and comments on the Trump campaign's ties with Russia.

In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, admitted his decision on Brennan's clearance was linked to the ongoing federal probe into possible collusion between his campaign and Russia to influence the 2016 election.

"I call it the rigged witch hunt, [it] is a sham," was quoted as saying in the interview. "And these people led it!"

"So I think it's something that had to be done," he added.

Trump's actions have been widely condemned, including by respected former admiral William McRaven, the commander of the US Navy SEAL raid that killed Osama bin Laden.
"Through your actions, you have embarrassed us in the eyes of our children, humiliated us on the world stage and, worst of all, divided us as a nation," he said....

On Friday, Trump said he would likely remove the security clearance of Justice Department official Bruce Ohr, who has been targeted by Trump supporters, in part because his wife worked for a company that produced a dossier alleging Russia had incriminating evidence against the now president.

"Bruce Ohr is a disgrace. I suspect I'll be taking it away very quickly," Trump told journalists. (End excerpts)

Source: https://www.yahoo.com/news/ex-cia-directors-issue-unprecedented-trump-condemnation-142601454.html

5. David A. Graham is a staff writer at The Atlantic, where he covers U.S. politics and global news. He previously edited The Atlantic's politics section and has reported for Newsweek, The Wall Street Journal, and The National. He lives in Durham, North Carolina.

The following are excerpts from his August 10, 2018 article headlined "Why the Space Force Is Just Like Trump University" with the subheading "The gap between the hype and the reality of the proposed new branch of the military makes the project almost entirely an exercise in misleading branding".

(Begin excerpts)
....The Space Force and the White House’s rollout for it are the most focused exercises in Trumpian branding the nation has seen since the president took office, a project reminiscent of Trump University. Trump is selling the public one idea—a glitzy, pathbreaking new wing of government—and giving it instead a potentially kludgy reorganization of existing government functions.

Trump first announced the Space Force, which he says will be a sixth, co-equal branch of the military, in June, when he signed a space-policy directive. But that directive didn’t even mention the Space Force, nor was it totally clear how it would work. As my colleague Marina Koren has reported, many top commanders in the military (including Secretary of Defense James Mattis) opposed the plan, arguing that the Pentagon already had the right infrastructure in place to achieve what Trump wanted: the ability to defend American interests in space. There’s even an existing Air Force Space Command....

When Pence complained Thursday that “while our adversaries have been busy weaponizing space, too often we have bureaucratized it,” he was protesting too much. Even though what Trump is proposing is basically a reorganization of existing systems, he has treated it as if he is launching something unprecedented. (The Space Force also can’t go forward unless Congress authorizes it.)

Later on Thursday, the Trump reelection campaign sent an email inviting supporters to vote on a logo for the Space Force...

Once people have voted in the poll, naturally, they are invited to donate to Trump’s reelection. That leads to a natural complaint: The Trump campaign appears to be selling the logo rights to the Space Force in exchange for campaign donations, turning the government into a tool for Trump’s own political enrichment.

The reality is much more pedestrian, and more characteristically Trump-y. What the campaign email is selling is not access and influence, but the illusion of access and influence—an even better scheme, since it demands nothing real in return. The vote will likely have no effect on the eventual logo of the Space Force, should Congress approve it. That’s only fitting for a president who campaigned as a populist but has governed by, and to the benefit of, the wealthy and powerful.

Such salesmanship is not new for Trump. The branding of the Space Force resembles nothing so much as Trump University. In that program, Trump gussied up a series of drab, clichéd get-rich-quick real-estate seminars by giving it the name and crest of a full-fledged university and promising “handpicked” instructors. It was not a university, nor were the instructors handpicked. In depositions about the project, Trump proved far removed from any of the actual operations, repeatedly saying lieutenants had dealt with this or that matter.

Overpromising and underdelivering were staples of Trump’s business career—see all the allegedly sold-out luxury buildings that turned out to be undersubscribed or dubiously constructed. Those have become signature moves during his presidency, too. Take his summit with Kim Jong Un in Singapore, which produced tremendous fanfare but, as becomes clearer each day, little in the way of concrete agreements, despite the president’s claims. The same goes for Trump’s border wall, which is the subject of repeated announcements of new construction, even though none has started.

But the Space Force is the purest expression of the branding maneuver, given the mismatch between the hype (“Mars Awaits”) and the reality (“It is imperative that the United States adapts its policies, doctrine, and capabilities to protect our interests,” as the new report put it). Anyone tempted to get excited about the Space Force would be well advised to keep the Trump University precedent in mind. The seminars were a short-term success: Thousands of people signed up, creating a new revenue stream for Trump. But they eventually wised up that they weren’t buying real-estate secrets so much as a bill of goods, and some of them sued him, resulting in a $25 million settlement. Eventually, misleading branding schemes have a tendency to fall back down to Earth. (End excerpts)

Source: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/08/the-space-force-branding-trump-logos/567173/