| | | | Donald Trump's phantom phone calls | | Over the last 72 hours, President Trump said that he had two phone calls -- one with the Mexican President, one with the head of the Boy Scouts -- that he appears not to have had.
Trump said during a Cabinet meeting Monday that Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto had called and told him that "their southern border, they said very few people are coming because they know they're not going to get to our border, which is the ultimate compliment."
In a statement released Wednesday, Peña Nieto's office said it never happened. "President Enrique Peña Nieto has not been in recent communication via telephone with President Donald Trump," the statement read.
Then there was Trump's brag in a July 25 Wall Street Journal interview that "I got a call from the head of the Boy Scouts saying it was the greatest speech that was ever made to them, and they were very thankful."
Not so, according to CNN's Kevin Litpak ,who reports: "An official with the Scouts said on Wednesday they were not aware of any phone calls between the group's leadership and the President."
One Republican lobbyist emailed me today about the calls (or lack thereof) with this subject line: "why why why why?"
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders in Wednesday's daily briefing admitted that neither phone call actually happened. On Mexico, she said Trump was talking about a conversation he had with Peña Nieto at the G20 summit last month. On the Boy Scouts, Sanders said Trump was referring to the praise Trump received at the event.
"I wouldn't say it was a lie," Sanders said of Trump's versions of the calls that didn't happen.
Ahem. Cough. Throat clear.
Here's the thing: Trump's entire life has been an exercise in him creating a reality that is favorable to him. As a young professional, he created a persona named "John Miller" to promote Donald Trump's wealth and attractiveness to the opposite sex. As a successful businessman, he touted everything he did as the best, the most luxurious, the classiest. As a presidential candidate, he talked about seeing Muslims celebrating on the roofs in northern New Jersey on September 11, 2001 and insisted 3 million to 5 million illegal votes had been cast in the 2016 election.
This is what Trump has done his entire life. He exaggerates. He sometimes does more than that. All in the service of making himself look as good as possible.
What would be surprising is if he suddenly stopped doing so when he became president. He isn't. And he won't.
-- Chris | | 🚨STEPHEN MILLER @ THE PODIUM🚨 | | White House adviser Stephen Miller (a Santa Monica High School alum like Saba) stood behind the podium on Wednesday to talk all things immigration -- it got pretty heated.
As CNN reported, Miller, President Trump's top policy aide, has long advocated for changes to the immigration system and had a key hand in crafting this legislation, which he cast as "the largest proposed reform to our immigration policy in half a century."
First, Miller fired back at New York Times reporter Glenn Thrush, after he asked the White House to cite studies that back up the immigration plan.
"Maybe it's time we had compassion for American workers," he said.
Then, he clashed with CNN's Jim Acosta.
"What you're proposing and what the President is proposing does not sound like it's in keeping with American tradition when it comes to immigration," Acosta said. "The Statue of Liberty says, 'Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.' It doesn't say anything about speaking English or being ... a computer programmer." "The Statue of Liberty is a symbol of liberty enlightening the world," Miller said. "It's a symbol of American liberty lighting the world. The poem that you're referring to was added later. It's not actually a part of the Statue of Liberty." Later, Miller said: "Do you seriously at CNN not know the difference between green card policy and illegal immigration?"
Acosta noted that he is the son of a Cuban immigrant. | | President Donald Trump hasn't hesitated to tout the stock market's new all-time highs in recent days -- but the market's climb over the last decade means record-breaking numbers aren't quite as rare as they might seem.
CNN's Ryan Struyk writes:
It turns out record-breaking stock market days happen more often than you might think. The Dow has reached a new high, on average, once every seven days since fully recovering from the Great Recession in March 2013. And it's happened under both Trump and former President Barack Obama: The Dow has hit an all-time high in 30 of the last 54 months. It happened more than 100 times under Obama since 2013. Under Trump, the market has closed at an all-time high on eight days in July and seven days in June after failing to set records in April and May.
For more, read Ryan's story here. | | | Reuters reported Wednesday that former Justice Department official Greg Andres has joined Special Counsel Robert Mueller's team investigating Russia's potential interference in the 2016 presidential election. That makes him the 16th lawyer on the team. | | "I built a truly great company worth many billions of dollars. That is a big part of the reason I was elected. As President, I can make far better deals with foreign countries than Congress."
-President Donald Trump on signing the Russia sanctions
(See Chris' full analysis here) | | | CNN's Liz Stark writes:
Press freedom organizations have launched a "US Press Freedom Tracker" to document attacks on press freedom in the United States. The new database is managed by the Freedom of the Press Foundation and funded by the Committee to Protect Journalists.
So far, the tracker has documented 19 arrests, 12 equipment searches and seizures, 11 physical attacks and four border stops of journalists in 2017.
After body-slamming a reporter in May, Montana Rep. Greg Gianforte donated $50,000 to the Committee to Protect Journalists, which subsequently passed it along to the US Press Freedom Tracker. Gianforte is listed under the "Who funds this project?" page. | | | Tame Impala's "Let it Happen," because it's stuck in Saba's head. | | HOME ALONE: WHITE HOUSE EDITION | | | The Instagram account beigecardigan on Tuesday evening uploaded this great meme (above) of President Trump's cameo in the 1992 film "Home Alone 2: Lost in New York" with a caption catered to the news of Anthony Scaramucci's exit as White House communications director. BTW if you want to watch the full clip of the cameo, someone uploaded it to YouTube. In the real film, Kevin (Macaulay Culkin) is seen asking Trump where the lobby is. "Down the hall and to the left," Trump says in passing. | | CALIFORNIA KNOWS HOW TO PARTY FUNDRAISE | | Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom has raised nearly $5.4 million since January 1, the Los Angeles Times reports. That amount is more than his three top Democratic rivals to be the state's next governor -- State Treasurer John Chiang, former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, and Delaine Eastin -- combined.
LAT reporter Seema Mehta writes: "For a race that is just under a year away, it is awash in cash. The last time the governor was termed out and the seat was open was in 2010." | | | Anyone interested in being a Guardian of the Galaxy? Business Insider reports that NASA has an opening for a "planetary protection officer" and is paying a six-figure salary (up to $187,000!) for anyone up for the job. While the position does not necessarily require fighting aliens, it was created to ensure humans don't contaminate other planets or objects in space, and also protect the Earth against contamination from alien microbes. | | | In Tuesday's The Point, we misspelled Sen. Cory Booker's name as Sen. Corey Booker. We apologize for the error. | | | Hump days are the best. Don't forget: Tell everyone you know to subscribe to The Point. | | We'd love to share our other newsletters with you. Follow this link for daily coverage of the world's top stories, savvy market insights, an insider's look into the media, and more. Our authors for The Point are Chris Cillizza and Saba Hamedy. Send your tips and thoughts via email to Chris or Saba. Follow on Twitter: Chris and Saba. | | | Get the Nightcap, a comprehensive summary of the most important political news, delivered to your inbox daily. | | | | | |
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