| | | | Massive women's marches protest Trump worldwide | | Streets in the monumental core of downtown Washington were brought to a standstill Saturday as droves of women marched to protest Donald Trump's presidency and his history of derogatory comments about women, writes CNN's Maeve Reston. Protesters filled Pennsylvania Avenue, the same iconic street Trump walked down a day before during his inaugural parade, as they moved in the direction of the White House.
The large turnout wasn't limited to Washington. Similar protests unfolded throughout the day in cities such as New York, where crowds spilled across Fifth Avenue. Boston Police Chief William Cross said the crowd there was too big for the march route and could not proceed because "it would be like a snake eating its tail." In Los Angeles, some protesters eventually moved to streets parallel to the march so they could move and still feel like they were participating. The marches in the United States and around the world amounted to a remarkable protest against Trump on his first full day in office.
So what comes next? That's the big question after Saturday's massive show of force. Do these protesters have the staying power of the Tea Party circa 2010? Or will they fizzle out like Occupy Wall Street? Politico's Edward-Isaac Dovere and Elana Schor explore that question. | | "We will not build a stupid wall, and we will not tear millions of families apart. Not on our watch." -- Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who is emerging as the face of the Donald Trump opposition, to a Women's March crowd in Boston. | | | | Which crowd was larger -- Saturday's Women's March or Friday's inauguration of Donald Trump? Here's a GIF from CNN's Brenna Williams -- you be the judge. | | | Of course, women's marches were planned in cities across the United States. Here's a map of all of them: | | Scenes from today's women's marches | | | Top tweets from around the country: | | Trump gives the CIA a media-bashing campaign speech | | President Donald Trump gave his first official remarks on his first full day in the White House today at the CIA headquarters -- and used the speech to blast the media for its coverage of the size of his inauguration crowd, writes CNN's Stephen Collinson in his wrap of the second day of Trump's presidency.
He also offered words of praise for the intelligence community. "This is my first stop officially, there is nobody that feels stronger about the intelligence community and the CIA than Donald Trump, there is nobody," Trump said. "I am so behind you and I know that maybe sometimes you haven't got the backing that you wanted."
Why was Trump there? Here's what he said: "I have a running war with the media. They are among the most dishonest human beings on earth. Right? And they sort of made it sound like I have this feud with the intelligence community."
But here's the reality: Trump's feud with the intelligence community has much more to do with his use of scare quotes around the word "intelligence" on Twitter -- as well as his tweet comparing the American intelligence community to Nazi Germany.
A brutal assessment of Trump by former CIA Director John Brennan, who left the job yesterday, per his former deputy chief of staff Nick Shapiro: "Former CIA Director Brennan is deeply saddened and angered at Donald Trump's despicable display of self-aggrandizement in front of CIA's Memorial Wall of Agency heroes. Brennan says that Trump should be ashamed of himself."
Did Trump allude to another war in Iraq? Here's what he said: "We should have kept the oil. Maybe we'll have another chance." | | Spicer makes false claims, ignores questions at briefing | | White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer addressed reporters this evening for his first briefing -- and used his briefing to unload on press coverage of the size of President Donald Trump's inauguration crowd.
Here's the truth: Trump's crowd was noticeably smaller than former President Barack Obama's in 2009 -- as CNN reported yesterday with a side-by-side comparison.
But what Spicer claimed was that yesterday was the "largest audience to ever witness an inauguration, period." He also made a number of demonstrably false claims. One example: He said Metro ridership was 420,000 yesterday compared to 317,000 for Obama's second inauguration day in 2013. But those numbers were bogus -- and based on figures as of 11 a.m. on inauguration day in 2013. Here are the real numbers, per The Washington Post's Luz Lazo: "Metro said 570,557 people took trips in the system between its early 4 a.m. Friday opening through midnight closing. The figures are significantly lower than those from the 2009 and 2013 Inaugurations of President Barack Obama; 1.1 million trips in 2009 and 782,000 in 2013, according to Metro."
He then walked out of the briefing without taking questions from reporters -- and without addressing the worldwide women's marches today.
So what was going on? Here's former White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer, who held the job under former President George W. Bush: | | | So what was up with all that? Here's The New York Times' Maggie Haberman's take: | | | The guy who might have had the job if Hillary Clinton had won also weighed in, attacking Spicer: | | | And a critical take from The New York Times' Binyamin Appelbaum: | | | The Justice Department says Donald Trump's hiring of son-in-law Jared Kushner for a top White House post is not nepotism. ... Former First Lady Barbara Bush could be released from a Houston hospital as soon as tomorrow. | | | We'd love to share our other newsletters with you. Check out Five Things for Your New Day, CNN's morning newsletter. Give us five minutes, and we'll brief you on all the news and buzz people will be talking about. | | | Get the Nightcap, a comprehensive summary of the most important political news, delivered to your inbox daily. | | | | | |
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