WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump won’t take responsibility for the consequences of an immigration policy that is separating children from parents who are arrested for illegally crossing the U.S.-Mexico border. He persists in blaming a “Democrat” law for driving families apart, though no such law exists.
In remarks to reporters and in an interview with Fox News, he held firm to a contention he’s made, falsely and for weeks, holding Democrats responsible for splitting up migrant families.
Trump on Friday:
“The Democrats forced that law upon our nation. I hate it. I hate to see separation of parents and children.”
“I hate the children being taken away. The Democrats have to change their law. That’s their law.”
WASHINGTON — A Justice Department watchdog report has turned into Washington’s latest Rorschach test: President Donald Trump and his critics are cherry-picking what they want from its findings to either discredit or defend investigators conducting a probe into his campaign and White House.
The report, 500 pages thick and more than a year in the making, offered a nuanced conclusion about the FBI’s handling of the Hillary Clinton email probe. It criticized the FBI and its former director, James Comey, personally but didn’t find evidence that political bias tainted the investigation in the months and days leading up to Trump’s election.
Instead, it said that in the final analysis the Clinton probers’ conclusions “were based on the prosecutors’ assessment of the facts, the law and past department practice.” Trump vigorously disagreed.
“The end result was wrong. There was total bias,” he declared Friday. “Comey was the ring leader of this whole, you know, den of thieves. It was a den of thieves.”
Trump wielded portions of the report as weapons on Friday, questioning the integrity of the Justice Department by pointing to politically charged communications among FBI employees as proof that the bureau was “plotting against my election.”
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump brought the world’s two biggest economies to the brink of a trade war Friday by announcing a 25 percent tariff on up to $50 billion in Chinese imports to take effect July 6.
Beijing quickly responded that it would retaliate with penalties of the same scale on American goods — and it spelled out details to impose tariffs on 545 U.S. exports, including farm products, autos and seafood, according to the Xinhua state news agency.
In announcing the U.S. tariffs, Trump said he was fulfilling a campaign pledge to crack down on what he contends are China’s unfair trade practices and its efforts to undermine U.S. technology and intellectual property.
“We have the great brain power in Silicon Valley, and China and others steal those secrets,” Trump said on “Fox & Friends.” “We’re going to protect those secrets. Those are crown jewels for this country.”
The prospect of a U.S.-China trade war weighed on financial markets Friday. The Dow Jones industrial average was down more than 220 points in mid-afternoon trading before recovering somewhat to finish down 84 points. Other stock averages also declined.
From Associated Press