It has now been a full week since Trump received an intelligence briefing
By Tommy Christopher | February 20, 2017



(AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

From the “Bowling Green Massacre” to “Atlanta” to the “Sweden Incident,” no terrorist attack is too fictional for Donald Trump and his administration to use in order to frighten Americans into supporting their the Muslim ban or “Deportation Force.”

When it comes to actually doing the job of keeping Americans safe, though, Trump is very publicly leaving the country vulnerable.

Last week, we reported that Trump had not received an intelligence briefing since the resignation and/or firing of disgraced National Security Advisor Michael Flynn. A review of Trump’s daily schedules shows that there were no intelligence briefings scheduled for Friday, Saturday, Sunday, or Monday, either.

As we have also previously reported, the value of Trump’s re-branded intel briefings was already suspect, but now it has been a full week since Trump has received even that meager offering. Since Trump’s schedules are public, this also means that our enemies may be aware that Trump is not being briefed.

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A federal judge ruled Tuesday that Texas can't cut off Medicaid dollars to Planned Parenthood over secretly recorded videos taken by antiabortion activists in 2015 that launched Republican efforts across the U.S. to defund the women’s health services provider.

An injunction issued by U.S. District Judge Sam Sparks of Austin comes after he delayed making decision in January and essentially bought Planned Parenthood an extra month in the state's Medicaid program.

Texas is now at least the sixth state where federal courts have kept Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion provider, eligible for Medicaid reimbursements for nonabortion services. However, a bigger question remains over whether President Trump will federally defund the organization.

Sparks' decision preserves Planned Parenthood’s cancer screenings, birth control access and other health services it provides for nearly 11,000 low-income women. Texas originally intended to boot Planned Parenthood in January, but Sparks told the state to wait pending his ruling.
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While many Americans are worried about the odd moves made by Donald Trump since he took the oath of office, it turns out that Russian officials are also starting to get jittery about how tenuous a grip on reality and power the so-called president seems to have a month into his administration.

Former Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Andrei Fedorov told NBC News that the Kremlin thinks that Trump’s repeated attacks on the news media and slurs against American intelligence agencies have left him “dancing on thin ice,” and could lead to him being removed from office.

In addition to Fedorov, former Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov said the Russians do not view Trump’s stumbles in a humorous light at all:

“Absolutely not — not laughing. The situation is very serious and the whole of [Putin’s] team, they are nervous.”

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Fedorov says the ultimate goal for Russia is to help Trump avoid looking like a Russian puppet but also securing his support for several important Russian policy goals. Fedorov added:

“We should avoid any kind of step that could damage Trump. Trump cannot come to a meeting with Putin as a loser — he must sort out his domestic problems first.”

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Donald Trump claims that he was left a mess by his predecessor and is in control of a “fine-tuned machine” remaking the government in his own image. But the reality is a deadly proposition for American citizens.

There was already a huge gap between open federal positions and the amount of nominations Trump has made, but his poor management in the first month of his presidency has made the situation even worse. Of the 549 key positions in the government requiring appointees to be nominated by Trump for Senate confirmation, so far only 34 people have been nominated, with only 14 of those confirmed.

There currently is no deputy Secretary of State, and the same vacancy exists at the Treasury and Education departments. Trump has only nominated 3 of the 15 nominees needed at that level.

Trump recently fired an official at Housing and Urban Development, along with a top official dealing with Latin American issues on the National Security Council for the sins of saying critical things about him. So instead of the amount of vacancies going down, as with his predecessors in their first year, with Trump it has gone up.

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There is something happening here, as demonstrated by the massive resistance being organized at Republican town halls recently.

Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) found that out when folks lined up out the door for his Iowa Falls event that started at 7:45 in the morning:

[blockquote style="border: solid #000000 1px; padding:10px;"] Lines outside of Grassley town hall. Started at 7:45 am; half of crowd can't get in pic.twitter.com/jdu6bfUsCA

— Dave Weigel (@daveweigel) February 21, 2017

Among the constituents that Grassley met was 62 year-old pig farmer Chris Peterson, who powerfully encapsulated the catastrophic consequences of destroying the Affordable Care Act, in language that Republicans like Grassley can clearly understand:

(go to article to see video of confrontation with Grassley)

GRASSLEY: I haven’t see you for a long time. How are you doing?

PETERSEN: I’ve been busy.

I am on Obamacare. If it wasn’t for Obamacare we wouldn’t be able to afford insurance.

With all due respect, sir, you’re the man that talked about the death panels.

We’re gonna create one great big death panel in this country that people can’t afford to get insurance. Don’t repeal Obamacare. Improve it, for God’s sakes. (cheers and applause)

A study released prior to the enactment of the Affordable Care Act showed that about 45,000 Americans were dying annually due to a lack of health coverage. The CBO recently reported that repealing Obamacare would eventually increase the number of uninsured Americans by 32 million, so Peterson’s statement is backed up by the facts.

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How far is President Trump willing to go in directing that the government’s investigative machinery be used to go after his opponents, real or perceived?

Charlie Savage and Eric Lichtblau have a good piece this morning that raises this question, by seizing on an important passage from Trump’s unhinged press conference on Thursday. Trump said this:

“I’ve actually called the Justice Department to look into the leaks. Those are criminal leaks….It’s a criminal act.”

This came in response to questions about Trump’s tweets on Thursday morning, in which he lashed out at the media and at “low-life leakers” and vowed that the latter would be “caught.” The leakers were responsible for recent revelations that have rocked his administration politically. Among them: The news that our intelligence services have established contacts between Russia and the Trump campaign and that the Justice Department warned that former national security adviser Michael Flynn misrepresented his contacts with the Russian ambassador, making him vulnerable to blackmail.

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Moments after President Donald Trump concluded a press conference at which he unleashed numerous attacks on the press, his fundraising committee circulated a “Mainstream Media Accountability Survey” urging supporters to “do your part to fight back against the media’s attacks and deceptions.”

Trump and his administration have engaged in an unprecedented war on the press. The president routinely singles out legitimate outlets and reporters as “fake news,” and his chief strategist has labeled the press the “opposition party.” During his February 16 press conference, Trump was particularly "combative" with reporters, turning the event -- which was ostensibly to announce a new labor secretary nominee -- into a “screed against the media.”

The email blast from the Trump Make America Great Again Committee, which presumably is also an attempt to build its email list, calls his supporters “our last line of defense against the media’s hit jobs” and urges readers to fill out a “Mainstream Media Accountability Survey” in order to “do your part to fight back against the media’s attacks and deceptions”:




The survey asks respondents whether they “trust” CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC to “report fairly on Trump's presidency” and asks, “On which issues does the mainstream media do the worst job of representing Republicans”:



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[font size="+1"] Then they ask for donations to fund their campaign against the media:[/font]



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We knew it would be bad. But it’s even worse than we thought.

People are hitting the streets to protest by the hundreds of thousands, and ThinkProgress is working tirelessly to provide them with accurate, uncompromised information about the actions of this administration.

Our work was cited in the first lawsuit filed against Trump.

We set an initial goal of $250,000 for the Trump Investigative Fund. With the help of thousands of people, we reached that goal. It has allowed us to begin expanding our capacity to hold Trump accountable.

But now we need to scale our capacity to the size of the threat.

Can you help us reach our new goal of $500,000? If you kick in $40, we’ll send you this t-shirt.




ThinkProgress reporting is already making an impact across the board.

Our exclusive investigation revealed that Kuwait, under political pressure, moved its annual event to the Trump Hotel. Our story was cited by USA Today as evidence of Trump’s corruption and “exactly what the Founding Fathers were trying to protect against.” It was also cited in the first lawsuit against Trump over his conflicts of interest.

We comprehensively catalogued all of Donald Trump’s promises — 663 of them and counting. This project involved reviewing transcripts of all Trump’s speeches and media appearances during the campaign, a database that consisted of over 4 million words. Our work revealed that, Trump failed to deliver on 34 of the 36 things he promised to do in his first day.

ThinkProgress exclusively reported on a gag order placed on the renewables team at the Department of Energy. “[W]e are PROHIBITED from any social media post (from personal or business handles) regarding your work, attendance at any meeting, etc until further notice,” ordered the email obtained by ThinkProgress.

As his grip on the federal bureaucracy strengthens, the challenge of holding Trump accountable grows exponentially.
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