Buzzfeed’s Alberto Nardelli and Julia Ioffe report:

President Donald Trump told G7 leaders that Crimea is Russian because everyone who lives there speaks Russian, according to two diplomatic sources.

Trump made the remarks over dinner last Friday during a discussion on foreign affairs at the G7 summit in Quebec, Canada, one of the diplomats told BuzzFeed News.

Russia invaded and then annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014, leading to widespread international condemnation and sanctions. It also directly led to Russia being kicked out of the then-G8. Russian President Vladimir Putin defended Russia’s intervention in Crimea at the time saying that he had the right to protect Russian citizens and Russian speakers in Ukraine.

Well, Putin says he and … Read the rest

The Washington Post seems oddly surprised that North Korea sees and portrays Trump’s lovefest with Kim from its own point of view as opposed to someone else’s.

North Korean state television aired a 42-minute documentary on Thursday that offered a different view of Kim Jong Un’s meeting with President Trump in Singapore.

Gee, imagine that.

Anyway, the point is, Trump made it easy for them. Of course he did.

Notably, the documentary appears to have captured several scenes that international news organizations missed — including one awkward moment when Trump was saluted by a North Korean military leader. The U.S. president then salutes in return.

Though only a brief interaction, it was telling that the salute was included in the

And a larger one. Breaking news:

The New York State attorney general’s office filed a scathingly worded lawsuit on Thursday taking aim at the Donald J. Trump Foundation, accusing the charity and the Trump family of sweeping violations of campaign finance laws, self-dealing and illegal coordination with the presidential campaign.

The lawsuit, which seeks to dissolve the foundation and bar President Trump and three of his children from serving on nonprofit organizations, was an extraordinary rebuke of a sitting president. The attorney general also sent referral letters to the Internal Revenue Service and the Federal Election Commission for possible further action, adding to Mr. Trump’s extensive legal challenges.

Well, you know, if you elect an obvious crook to high … Read the rest

In a sea of items small and large.

Trump tells Fox that parents of soldiers killed in the Korean War asked him on the campaign trail to bring their sons home. (Absolute minimum age of such a parents is 101 years old. Probable age 110 to 120.) pic.twitter.com/coIjMAekrg

— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) June 14, 2018

… Read the rest

The Post editorial board singles out one thing Trump has said about North Korea for opprobrium.

“His country does love him,” Mr. Trump said, speaking to ABC’s George Stephanopoulos. “His people, you see the fervor. They have a great fervor.”

Yes, you see the fervor, because anyone in North Korea who does not display fervor for their leader may end up in a concentration camp. No one in North Korea may criticize Mr. Kim and expect to survive. If someone is suspected of disloyalty, his or her entire family is liable to be imprisoned or killed. Between 80,000 and 120,000 people are kept in these political concentration camps, and almost none survive or are ever released. Rape and forcible

It’s good to know that at least Trump is taking it all seriously and paying close attention.

Robert De Niro, a very Low IQ individual, has received too many shots to the head by real boxers in movies. I watched him last night and truly believe he may be “punch-drunk.” I guess he doesn’t…

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 13, 2018

…realize the economy is the best it’s ever been with employment being at an all time high, and many companies pouring back into our country. Wake up Punchy!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 13, 2018

Never mind.… Read the rest

Great god almighty.

Just landed – a long trip, but everybody can now feel much safer than the day I took office. There is no longer a Nuclear Threat from North Korea. Meeting with Kim Jong Un was an interesting and very positive experience. North Korea has great potential for the future!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 13, 2018

THERE IS NO LONGER A NUCLEAR THREAT FROM NORTH KOREA

It’s hard to understand how he can be that dumb and remember how to breathe.… Read the rest

I bet Trump was really jealous of Kim’s relationship with the press. He wishes he could shut up those pesky reporters who ask him questions he doesn’t like.

President Trump’s campaign manager on Tuesday called for a CNN White House correspondent to have his media credentials pulled for asking questions while Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un were signing an agreement at their Singapore summit.

Brad Parscale, who in February was named manager of Trump’s 2020 reelection campaign, took to Twitter to condemn the actions of Jim Acosta.

“Jim @Acosta should immediately have his press credentials suspended,” Parscale wrote. “He is an absolute disgrace!”

Why? Because he asked Trump a question, duh.

As Trump and Kim were

Then there’s that emoluments case.

A federal judge on Monday sharply criticized the Justice Department’s argument that President Trump’s financial interest in his company’s hotel in downtown Washington is constitutional, a fresh sign that the judge may soon rule against the president in a historic case that could head to the Supreme Court.

The plaintiffs in the lawsuit, the District of Columbia and the state of Maryland, charge that Mr. Trump’s profits from the hotel violate anti-corruption clauses of the Constitution that restrict government-bestowed financial benefits, or emoluments, to presidents beyond their official salary. They say the hotel is siphoning business from local convention centers and hotels.

It’s siphoning business because people see patronizing the hotel as a way … Read the rest

Trump is living the dream.

President Trump has imagined himself at the center of high-stakes nuclear negotiations since at least the mid-1980s, when he tried, unsuccessfully, to persuade the Reagan administration that it needed a New York real estate deal maker to lead arms-control talks with the Soviet Union.

When, in 1989, he ran into the man who filled that job for President George H.W. Bush, he had a bit of negotiating advice: Arrive late, poke your finger into your adversary’s chest and swear at him with a vulgar insult, he told Richard R. Burt.

So his time at the G7 was rehearsal for all that. Good to know.

For Mr. Trump, the looming question now is whether his

Ugh this is so repulsive. It may seem comparatively minor but the attitude behind it is…hideous.

Solomon Lartey spent the first five months of the Trump administration working in the Old Executive Office Building, standing over a desk with scraps of paper spread out in front of him.

Lartey, who earned an annual salary of $65,969 as a records management analyst, was a career government official with close to 30 years under his belt. But he had never seen anything like this in any previous administration he had worked for. He had never had to tape the president’s papers back together again.

Why did he have to do that? Why do people still have to do that? Because Trump tears … Read the rest

Originally a comment by Bruce Gorton on A declaration of ignorance and policy insanity.

It is one of the things I keep saying: We in Africa need to take Trump being elected as a warning that we cannot rely upon the West.

We need to boost our funding for the sciences, boost our spending on developing our own economies, and cut all reliance on American goods and services, because America is fundamentally headed by a madman.

The American market is always talked up as if servicing American demand is this path to wealth, yet it is remarkably rare when an outside player can actually make any headway in it. The demand economy just isn’t there anymore, it is all … Read the rest

Trump’s people are running around echoing his tweets bashing Trudeau, no doubt in hopes of making Trump look less deranged and backstabby.

President Donald Trump’s chief economic adviser Larry Kudlow on Sunday accused Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of undermining the US and its allies with comments he made at the G7 summit.

“It was a betrayal,” Kudlow said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

Kudlow was speaking following the G7 summit in Canada on Saturday. As Trump flew from the summit with US allies to a planned meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Singapore, he lashed out at Trudeau for what he said were his “false statements” at a news conference and said the US

Paul Krugman on the summit frolics.

[T]here has never been a disaster like the G7 meeting that just took place. It could herald the beginning of a trade war, maybe even the collapse of the Western alliance. At the very least it will damage America’s reputation as a reliable ally for decades to come; even if Trump eventually departs the scene in disgrace, the fact that someone like him could come to power in the first place will always be in the back of everyone’s mind.

That’s why I keep saying we’ll never live this down. He got selected, he got elected, and he trashed the joint. Not a sign of health.

He didn’t put America first; Russia first

Trump did a press conference before he hopped on the plane to Singapore to meet that nice Mister Kim.

Q As you were heading into these G7 talks, there was a sense that America’s closest allies were frustrated with you and angry with you, and that you were angry with them and that you were leaving here early to go meet for more friendlier talks with Kim Jong Un in Singapore. And I’m wondering if you —

THE PRESIDENT: It’s well put, I think.

Q — if you view it the same way. And do you view the U.S. alliance system shifting under your presidency, away —

THE PRESIDENT: Who are you with, out of curiosity?

Q CNN.

THE PRESIDENT:

Tritler wants to lay waste to all the rules, throw out all the treaties and accords, tear up all the agreements, pull the US out of all the deals. He wants to break everything, so that he can make his mark, and also so that he can make America safe for crooks and thugs like him.

As he pursues his America First agenda, Mr. Trump has driven a wedge between the United States and its allies by imposing aggressive tariffs, abandoning the Paris climate change accord and pulling out of the Iran nuclear deal that the Western democracies negotiated along with President Barack Obama.

And with no warning on Friday, Mr. Trump deepened that rift by directly challenging the

Tritler goes full crazy.

President Trump said on Saturday that he had brought up with America’s closest allies the dramatic prospect of completely eliminating tariffs on goods and services, even as he threatened to end all trade with his counterparts if they didn’t stop what he said were unfair trade practices.

Speaking to reporters at the end of a contentious weekend meeting of the Group of 7 nations in a resort town outside of Quebec City, Mr. Trump said that eliminating all trading barriers would be “the ultimate thing.” But he railed about what he called “ridiculous and unacceptable” tariffs on American goods and vowed to get rid of them.

“It’s going to stop. Or we’ll stop trading with

https://twitter.com/timothy_stanley/status/1005485360552534016… Read the rest

Well you see it’s like this: it turns out the US doesn’t like rules. Rules are for sissies and Democrats and women, and we all hate all three. We like violence and force and power.

President Trump aggressively confronted America’s closest allies on Friday as they convened their annual summit meeting, calling for Russia’s readmission to the Group of 7 nations and refusing to ease his assault on the global trading system.

The response from the leaders of Europe, Canada and Japan was swift and angry. Most rejected the return of Russia, which was ousted from the diplomatic forum after President Vladimir V. Putin violated international norms by seizing parts of Ukraine in 2014. And they assailed Mr. Trump’s

Trump is, of course, making himself as obnoxious as he possibly can at the G7 meeting.

A tardy Donald Trump created a distraction Saturday when he showed up late for a G7 meeting on women’s empowerment.

The U.S. president arrived several minutes after the start of the breakfast meeting between G7 leaders and the gender equality advisory council that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau created for this year’s summit in the Charlevoix region of Quebec.

Hey – the meeting was on women’s empowerment. What’s he going to do, show up on time? Sit down and shut up and listen politely? Don’t be silly! He has nothing but contempt for women, so obviously he’s going to disrupt that meeting by turning … Read the rest