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He took more than 30 total questions between the two events. And man alive, did he talk -- about everything from North Korea to Mitch McConnell to leaks to Russia.

Below, I picked out the 39 most remarkable quotes from Trump. They're in no order other than the way I heard them.

1. "The people who were questioning that statement, 'was it too tough,' maybe it wasn't tough enough. They have been doing this to our country for a long time, for many years. It us about time someone stuck up for the people of other country (sic). If anything, maybe that statement wasn't tough enough and we are backed by 100% by our military, we are backed by everybody and we are backed by many other leaders."

2. "For a thing like that to happen is a disgrace. And frankly, it shouldn't have happened. That I can tell you -- it shouldn't have happened."

Trump is talking here about the one-vote failure of the Senate Republican attempt to repeal and replace Obamacare. What's interesting is that, by all accounts, Trump was at best a neutral force in the attempts to bring 50 GOP senators on board -- and he may have been a negative one. His public threat to Republican Sen. Dean Heller and his attempts at persuading GOP Sens. Susan Collins (Maine) and Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) all seem to have backfired, making passage of not only health care but any other major legislation that much more difficult.

3. "Well, I'll tell you what, if he doesn't get repeal and replace done and if he doesn't get taxes done, meaning cuts and reform, and if he doesn't get a very easy one to get done, infrastructure -- if he doesn't get them done, then you can ask me that question."

4. "The opioid crisis is an emergency, and I'm saying officially, right now, it is an emergency. It's a national emergency."

5. "There are no mixed messages. There are no mixed messages."

6. "The people of this country should be very comfortable, and I will tell you this: If North Korea does anything in terms of even thinking about (attacking) anybody that we love or we represent or our allies or us, they can be very, very nervous. I'll tell you what."

This is, um, not terribly reassuring.

7. "I have great respect for China and Russia, what they did on sanctions. I believe that will have an effect. I don't think it will have the kind of effect, even though I was the one -- we were the ones that got it."

Trump is trying to claim credit here for the 15-0 UN Security Council vote on tightening sanctions against North Korea while also, seemingly, getting on-record that he doesn't think they will work.

8. "But, if China helps us, I feel a lot differently toward trade, a lot differently toward trade. So we will do -- I think it's -- I -- the people of our country are safe. Our allies are safe."

Um, OK. So, China should help more on North Korea and then we will do something with them on trade. Also, our allies are safe.

9. "We are having a meeting today. We (inaudible) a much larger group than this. This is the finals."

"The finals." Everything a competition, everything a reality show.

10. "But that has been a place -- 17 years, our longest wars, I read in one of your columns."

Trump is talking about Afghanistan here. But it's worth noting the "I read in one of your columns" reference -- proving, for the billionth time, that he consumes more media than any previous president.

11. "He's our friend. He's my friend. And he's a very talented man. I like him and I respect him."

12. "I think I have great support, or have had great support from that community. I got a lot of votes."

Trump is saying he got a "lot of votes" from the transgender community. Which, in case you were wondering, is not quantifiable in any way.

13. "No, I want to thank him, because we're trying to cut down on payroll. And as far as I'm concerned, I'm very thankful that he let go of a large number of people because now we have a smaller payroll."

This may be the oddest moment of the entire day. Trump is saying here that he appreciates Russian President Vladimir Putin expelling hundreds of US diplomats from the country. It would seem Trump is a) unaware that Putin did this as a penalty to the United States and b) these diplomats are still on the payroll.

14. "I thought it was a very, very strong signal, or whatever."

15. "But to do that early in the morning, whether or not it was appropriate, you'd have to ask them."

In truth, no one likes to get up before dawn. Especially when the people doing the waking up are FBI agents seizing things they believe are connected to a special counsel investigation into Russian meddling in a presidential election.

16. "To wake him up, perhaps his family was there -- I think that's pretty tough stuff."

The real crime here is waking Manafort up. He could have been in REM sleep for all we know!

17. "It's fine. It is what it is. It's fine."

Two things here: 1) "it is what it is" is the worst phrase ever and needs to be excised from the English language 2) If I am Attorney General Jeff Sessions, this is not exactly the endorsement I was looking for from the boss.

18. "We had 42 to 48 bills passed."

It's one or the other right? Not a range?

19. "I think that General Kelly is going to be a fantastic chief of staff, however."

That's how Trump finished his answer to a question about whether he had confidence in Sessions. So...

20. "He got away with it for a long time, between him and his family. He's not getting away with it. This is a whole new ballgame."

Shorter Trump on Kim Jong Un: There's a new sheriff in town. Or a new baseball manager. One or the other.

21. "You'll see. You'll see. And he'll see. He will see."

Yes, we will. All see. Or will we?

22."It's not a dare. It's a statement. It has nothing to do with dare. That's a statement."

No dare! No dare! Just a statement.

23. "Yeah, nuclear to me -- number one, I would like to de-nuke the world."

Trump nuclear policy: Step 1 -- de-nuke the world. Step 2: See step 1.

24. "And nobody, including North Korea, is going to be threatening us with anything."

25. "I did extremely well with the military vote."

26. "We're ... increasing our budget by many billions of dollars, because of North Korea and other reasons, having to do with the anti-missile."

Ah, yes. The "anti-missile."

27. "You have the leaks where people want to love me and they're all fighting for love."

The love leaks, of course. What Trump is trying to say is there is a difference between leaks of classified information and leaks about who is in good with the President and who isn't. He is right about that.

28. "So they're investigating something that never happened."

This is Trump's take on the special counsel investigation being run by Robert Mueller. Trump's argument is that no collusion has been proven and so the investigation is a waste of time. The special counsel was convened, however to look at Russia's meddling in the 2016 election primarily, and possible collusion secondarily.

29. "Russia -- is very important for Russia, oil. Oil and gas."

[Nods head] Yes, yes. Go on...

30. "The Democrats colluded on the Ukraine. So they colluded."

31. "Did they do something wrong because they didn't file the right document or whatever? Perhaps. You'll have to look at them."

Did some people who work for me break the rules? Maybe. But that's their problem.

32. "I'm not dismissing anybody."

Trump knocks down rumors that he might fire Mueller. Of course, given his changeability from day to day, this promise has a quick expiration date.

33. "There's no -- there is no collusion. You know why? Because I don't speak to Russians." That Trump doesn't speak to the Russians is not proof -- or anything close to it -- that there was no collusion in the election. To be clear: There is no proof that collusion happened. But this is not evidence it didn't.

34. "I won because I went to Wisconsin. I went to Michigan. I won Pennsylvania."

The election happened 275 days ago.

35. "I'm very disappointed in Mitch. But if he gets these bills passed, I'll be very happy with him."

Look, Mitch. You are giving me a sad face right now. But pass some bills I want and that frown will turn upside down!

36. "He just left the Democratic Party, and he became a Republican, which was a great moment; hasn't happened in many years."

37. "They make the Apple iPhones. They make all of the desktop. They make -- they're the biggest in the world."

They make the desktop. So true.

38. "Nobody has better respect for intelligence than Donald Trump."

And no one -- and I mean no one -- goes third person like Donald Trump.

39. "I don't know that it'll be the end-all, but I think it'll be a very, very -- I think it'll have a big impact on North Korea and what they're doing."

This feels like a good place to end.

Read more here:
The 39 most eyebrow-raising Donald Trump quotes today - CNN

Miraflores Palace via Reuters

Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro speaks during a meeting with members of the Constituent Assembly in Caracas, Venezuela August 2, 2017.

Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro has called on President Donald Trump to engage in a "personal conversation" just days after being hit with new sanctions by the U.S.

The U.S. Treasury Department brandished the socialist leader a "dictator" last week and issued a string of new sanctions against him and a number of Venezuelan officials after the government staged what many observers said was a fraudulent vote to create an all-powerful legislative body.

However, Maduro, himself a tough critic of Trump, reached out to Trump Thursday during his first address to the new constituent assembly, and asked to meet with the president next month, when they are both due to attend that UN General Assembly in New York.

"If he (Trump) is so interested in Venezuela, here I am," he said in his three-hour address to the 545 member assembly.

"Mr Donald Trump, here is my hand."

The legislative body was voted into power in an election at the end of July and allows the government to rewrite legislation, though critics argue the result was illegitimate and an attempt by Maduro to cling onto power.

The vote has also prompted a number of corporations to take action against the country. On Thursday, Credit Suisse barred transactions involving certain Venezuelan bonds and business with Venezuela's government and related agencies has to undergo reputation risk reviews. This comes after Goldman Sachs faced scrutiny for buying $2.8 billion in bonds issues by state oil company PDVSA.

"In light of the political climate and recent events in Venezuela ... we want to ensure that Credit Suisse does not provide the means for anyone to violate the human rights of the Venezuelan people," Reuters said, citing a Credit Suisse memo.

The U.S., which relies on Venezuela for oil imports, is yet to place sanctions on the oil industry. Venezuela has the world's largest oil reserves but its economy has been badly hurt by a fall in oil prices over recent years.

Maduro, during the same speech Thursday, also hit out at "imperialists", who he accused of undermining his leadership, saying "we will never cede to foreign powers."

He added that Venezuela would challenge the sanctions in a U.S. court.

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'Donald Trump, here is my hand': Venezuela's Maduro calls for talks with Trump - CNBC

The latest victim of Trump's sharp teeth is Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who Trump suggested on Thursday might consider stepping down from his post if he can't get health care reform, tax reform and infrastructure spending through Congress.

"You can ask the question" of McConnell stepping down, Trump told the pool reporters gathered at his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey during his 17-day long working vacation.

It's Trump's latest -- and most aggressive -- attempt to troll McConnell over the last 24 hours.

It's easy -- amid Trump's continued incendiary comments about North Korea and his broader penchant for just, well, saying things -- to gloss over this. We shouldn't.

Consider this: Trump is leaving open the possibility that the Senate majority leader -- of his own party! -- should step down if he can't get done what Trump wants done. That is not normal politics. If anything close to this happened with President Barack Obama and then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, it would have been the lead story of every newscast in the country. It would have launched a thousand articles delving into the collapse of their relationship -- and what it all meant for the party and its chances of getting something done.

What's more: The strategy behind this latest series of attacks is difficult (impossible?) to ascertain.

Sure, Trump's base will like it -- McConnell is the face of a party establishment they loathe and think is deeply ineffective. But Trump's base is going to be with him no matter what he does or who he attacks. It's not as though they are going to be more for him because he is attacking McConnell.

Given that, there's no obvious upside for Trump. And there's a very clear downside: That he loses the trust, respect and collegiality of everyone from McConnell to the rank-and-file Senate Republicans who owe their elections (or reelections) to McConnell.

This looks like a classic case of cutting off your nose to spite your face by Trump. To get anything -- literally, anything -- done in the coming months or years, he needs McConnell. And, McConnell a) isn't going anywhere and b) has no serious threat to his leadership position.

What Trump is doing is akin to visiting a friend's house, saying it's a dump and then asking if you can stay there for a few weeks while your own house is being renovated.

If McConnelll ever had an inclination to help Trump for the good of the party, it's hard to see how the past 24 hours don't wipe that away entirely.

The way the Senate -- and every other legislative body -- works is trust and goodwill. The attacks on McConnell -- coming after Trump's repeated attacks on Sen. John McCain, his calling out of Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski on health care, his threat to Nevada Sen. Dean Heller on his vote and his repeated attacks on former senator and now Attorney General Jeff Sessions -- effectively zero out Trump's already dwindling supply of either trust or goodwill among the 52 Republican senators.

Trump may not care -- which is his right. But this is a fight he can't win -- and shouldn't keep stoking. Which, of course, means he almost certainly will.

Link:
Donald Trump's strategy on Mitch McConnell is totally pointless - CNN

James Bovard, Opinon columnist Published 2:23 p.m. ET Aug. 10, 2017 | Updated 4:48 p.m. ET Aug. 10, 2017

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson downplayed President Trumps warning to North Korea over its nuclear intentions. Buzz60

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson(Photo: Pool photo by Mohd Rasfan)

The Trump administrations foreign policy often resembles a Mad Hatters Tea Party or a loose cannon on a ship deck. But every now and then, a good idea emerges from the fracas.Such is the case with a reform that could sharply reduce Americas piety exports.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is revising the State Department mission statement to focus on promoting the security, prosperity and interests of the American people globally.Washington pundits are aghast that democracy promotion is no longer trumpeted as a top U.S. foreign policy goal.Elliott Abrams, George W. Bushs democracy czar, complained, We used to want a just and democratic world, and now apparently we dont ... the message being sent will be a great comfort to every dictator in the world.

But this is like presuming that any preacher who fails to promise to eradicate sin is a tool of the devil.Instead, it is time to recognize the carnage the U.S. has sown abroad in the name of democracy.

More: Trump's Boy Scout speech may have set kids on the right path

More: Trumps Attorney General Jeff Sessions is bringing the hammer down on leaks

The U.S. has periodically pledged to spread democracy ever since President Woodrow Wilson announced in 1913: I am going to teach the South American republics to elect good men!Democracy is so important that the U.S. government refuses to stand idly by when foreign voters go astray. Since 1946, the U.S. has intervened usually covertly inmore than 80 foreign elections to assist its preferred candidate or party.

In his 2005 inaugural address, President George W. Bush proclaimed that the U.S. would seek and support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture, with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world. While Bushs invocation thrilled Washington, the rest of the world paid more attention to his support for any tyrant who joined his War on Terror.

President Barack Obama was supposed to redeem the honor of U.S. foreign policy.In 2011,Obama portrayed the U.S. bombing of Libya as a triumph of democratic values. After Libyan dictator Moammar Gaddafi was killed, Obama speedily announced that Libyans now have the opportunity to determine their own destiny in a new and democratic Libya. Butviolence spiraled out of control andclaimed thousands of victims (including four Americans killed in Benghazi in 2012).Similarly, Obama administration officials invoked democracy to justify arming quasi-terrorist groups in Syrias civil war, worsening a conflict that killed hundreds of thousands and created millions of refuges.

But the Obama team, like prior administrations, did not permit its democratic pretensions to impede business as usual. After Egyptian protestors toppled dictator Hosni Mubarak, Obama pledged to assist that nation pursue a credible transition to a democracy.But the U.S. government disapproved of that nations first elected leader, Muslim Brotherhood candidate Mohamed Morsi.After the Egyptian military deposed Morsi in 2013, Secretary of State John Kerry bizarrely praised Egypts generals for restoring democracy.Similarly, many Ethiopians were horrified when Obama visited their country in 2015 and praised its regime as democratically elected despite a sham election and its brutal suppression of journalists, bloggersand other critics.

Democracy promotion gives U.S. policymakers a license to meddle almost anywhere on Earth.The National Endowment for Democracy, created in 1983, has been caught interfering in elections in France, Panama, Costa Rica, Ukraine, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Russia, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Haitiand many other nations.The State Department has a long list of similar pratfalls, including pouring vast amounts of money in vain efforts to beget democracy in Iraq and Afghanistan.

More: On immigration, let the states decide for themselves

POLICING THE USA: A look at race, justice, media

Democracy at its best isa wonderful form of government but many so-called democracies nowadays are simply elective despotisms. Elections abroad are often herd counts to determine who gets to fleece the herd. Many democracies have become kleptocracies where governing is indistinguishable from looting.

In some nations, election victories legitimize destroying voters en masse.This is exemplified by the Philippines, where the government has killed 7,000 suspected drug users and dealers, including several mayors.After President Rodrigo Duterte publicly declared that he would be happy to slaughter three million drug users, Trump phoned him and, according to a leaked transcript, said, I just wanted to congratulate you because I am hearing of the unbelievable job [youre doing] on the drug problem. Similarly, Trump congratulated Turkish president Recep Erdogan after he won a referendum that awarded him quasi-dictatorial powers.

It is time to admit that America lacks a Midas touch for spreading democracy. Freedom House reported that, even prior to Trumps election, more than 100 nations have seen declines in democracy since 2005.

Rather than abandoning all moral goals in foreign policy, Washington could instead embrace a strict policy ofhonesty in democracy promotion.Under this standard, the U.S. government would cease trying to covertly influence foreign elections, cease glorifying tinhorn dictators who rigged elections to capture power, and cease bankrolling authoritarian regimes that blight democratic reforms in the bud.But the odds of Washington policymakers abiding by those restraints is akin to the chances that all of Trumps tweets will henceforth be edifying.

Rather than delivering political salvation, U.S. interventions abroad more often produce no-fault carnage (no one in Washington is ever held liable).At a minimum, we should get our own constitutional house in order before seeking to rescue benighted foreigners. Ironically, many of the same people who equate Trump with Hitler still insist that the U.S. government should continue its political missionary work during his reign.

James Bovard,author ofPublic Policy Hooligan,isa member of USA TODAYsBoard of Contributors. Follow him on Twitter@JimBovard

You can read diverse opinions from ourBoard of Contributorsand other writers on theOpinion front page, on Twitter@USATOpinionand in our dailyOpinion newsletter. To submit a letter, comment or column, check oursubmission guidelines.

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Hey, guess what? Donald Trump has a good foreign policy idea - USA TODAY

In 2009, Democrats controlled both the state senate and house in 27 states, the Republicans 14. After the 2016 elections, Republicans controlled both branches of the legislatures in 32 states to 14 for the Democrats.

The importance of these trends cannot be overstated. State legislatures not only control redistricting in most states a key to determining which party will control the House after the 2020 census but also serve as a training ground where politicians learn the ropes of winning elections and governing. In this respect, state legislatures are a key source of new talent.

Emerge America, an organization that recruits Democratic women to run for office, is stressing the need for candidates to file for state legislative seats. In the first six months of 2016, the group raised $500,219; during the first half of this year, it raised $2.03 million.

Andrea Dew Steele, the organizations president and founder, describes Emerge as the beginning of the food chain, performing basic training for women, many of them seeking office for the first time.

In 2017, Emerge expanded operations from 17 to 22 states, including such deep red states as Alabama, South Carolina and Louisiana. Unlike Emilys List, a more established group that supports Democratic women, Emerge pointedly does not have a litmus test requiring its candidates to back abortion rights.

One of the biggest successes so far this year is the organization called Indivisible, founded in the immediate aftermath of the 2016 election by Ezra Levin and Leah Greenberg, a married couple who both worked as aides to Democratic congressmen. Indivisible now claims 5,983 local chapters, with at least two in every congressional district.

Indivisible has played a leading role in turning out voters at congressional town halls to voice their opposition to Trumps plan to repeal Obamacare a tactic explicitly copied from the Tea Partys organizing drive in 2009-2010.

While support for these relatively new groups on the left is growing, the track record of some of the more established organizations is mixed.

The Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee has traditionally been the single most important group devoted to winning state senate and state house seats. In terms of financial support, it has seen a modest increase. In the first six months of 2016, the D.L.C.C. raised $4.03 million compared to $4.36 million during the first six months of 2017.

Organizing for Action, an offshoot of Obamas presidential campaigns, has experienced a steady drop in revenues: from $26 million in 2013 to $14.4 million in 2014 to $9 million in 2015 to $6 million in 2016. O.F.A. raised $3.4 million during the first half of 2017, according to Jesse Lehrich, the organizations communications director.

Money is not the only factor in politics if it were, the efforts of these progressive groups would be doomed.

Republicans and conservative organizations have had the financial advantage in the fight for state legislatures, and they will continue to have it during the 2018 election cycle.

Take the Republican State Leadership Committee. It has raised $6.53 million so far this year, $2.17 million more than the amount raised by its Democratic counterpart.

On a larger scale, the immense network of organizations created by the Koch brothers and other conservative donors far outstrips the structures that Democrats and liberals are piecing together. USA Today reported in June that in 2017-18 the Koch machine plans to spend $300- $400 million on elections and lobbying at every level.

If we look at enthusiasm, however, Democrats have the clear advantage this year. Take special legislative elections.

In an analysis published by FiveThirtyEight, Nathaniel Rakich found that in the first 15 special elections to fill vacant state legislative seats in 2017, Democratic candidates outperformed past Democratic presidential candidates by an average of 14.4 percentage points. On Aug. 8, Phil Miller, a Democrat, won a special election to fill a vacant seat in the Iowa House by 10 points in a district that Trump carried by 22.

Another gauge of enthusiasm is the willingness of prospective candidates to enter contests in the first place. Michael Malbin, executive director of the Campaign Finance Institute and a professor of political science at the University at Albany, tracked the number of Democratic and Republican challengers (in other words, non-incumbents) who filed their candidacies with the Federal Election Commission and had raised $5,000 as of June 30.

Malbin compared the data to prior years and his findings are noteworthy: So far this year, there are already 209 Democratic challengers, more than in any of the previous seven election cycles and more than double the 78 Republican challengers in 2009, the year that led up to the Republican wave election of 2010.

Number of candidates running against House incumbents who raised at least $5,000 by June in each of these years.

While motivation is high on the left, there is no guarantee that it will be well directed. Many of the newly involved enthusiasts are political neophytes.

Theda Skocpol, a professor of government and sociology at Harvard, has been studying the rise of Indivisible in eight mid-western counties.

In a phone interview, Skocpol said the quality and effectiveness of Indivisible chapters ran the gamut in terms of efficacy, with only some developing structured organizations. There are groups, she said, that are equipped to mobilize members to act on specific issues and to get voters to the polls, while others are far less prepared to engage on either front.

Along similar lines, a Democratic operative with extensive experience in grass-roots organizing who asked not to be identified told me that

We are working with many of these new organizations in a variety of ways. As we have non-disclosure agreements with all of the organizations we work with, details have to come from them. The growth in activism that these groups have both spurred and harnessed outstrips anything I have seen in decades previously. That said, this activism is pushing against strong structural headwinds and entrenched power. Further, still unknown is whether the geographic distribution of this activism will be aligned with and find the political fulcrum points.

By geographic distribution, this operative means that the renewed vitality on the left is most heavily concentrated in New York, Massachusetts and California, which are already Democratic.

Resilience in the face of setbacks will be a key test of the long-range viability of activist liberal organizations across the country.

David Wasserman, an election specialist, describes the likelihood of Democratic frustration in 2018 in a detailed analysis published by FiveThirtyEight, The Congressional Map Has A Record-Setting Bias Against Democrats. As Wasserman writes,

Even if Democrats were to win every single 2018 House and Senate race for seats representing places that Hillary Clinton won or that Trump won by less than 3 percentage points a pretty good midterm by historical standards they could still fall short of the House majority and lose five Senate seats.

The combination of Republican gerrymandering and the clustering of Democratic voters in urban centers has moved the median House seat well to the right of the nation, Wasserman notes.

The result is what Wasserman calls a structural partisan bias favoring Republicans in Congressional elections:

Trump lost the national popular vote by 2.1 percentage points, but Republicans won the median House seat by 3.4 points and the median Senate seat by 3.6 points.

Which is to say that Democrats will have an uphill struggle in 2018 to wrest control of either the House or Senate. Of the 25 Senate seats held by Democrats that are up for election next year, 10 are in states that Trump carried.

In the past, Republican commitments to building strength at the local level have been sustained by trade associations and corporations with a financial stake in decisions made at the county and state level. There is every reason to believe these interests will continue to invest time and money to protect their profits.

From 2010 to 2016, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce was the single largest contributor to the Republican State Leadership Committee, steadily increasing its support over this period to a total of $14.9 million, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Such companies as Walmart, Reynolds American, Eli Lilly and AT&T are also substantial R.S.L.C. backers.

The liberal donors and activists who have mobilized this year have a less materialistic stake in the outcome of local elections. If, as Wassermans data suggests, a major victory is beyond reach in November 2018, will these players regroup and fight on? Or will they retreat at the state and local level, as they have in the past, leaving this refractory terrain to their highly motivated Republican adversaries?

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Donald Trump Is the Godfather of a Democratic Renaissance - New York Times