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It's at least half true.

Trump reiterated his philosophy on the matter a few years ago: "I'm loyal to people who've done good work for me."

"Good work" is, of course, a subjective means of measuring one's service to Trump. But it's a telling line mostly because of the subtext, which suggests Trump is indeed willing to repay subordinates who advance his interests with loyalty -- but only up to a point. When the "good work" ends or hits a snag, as we've seen over the past seven months and during the campaign before that, Trump's backing tends to do the same.

The President's recent treatment of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who narrowly failed to deliver the needed GOP votes to repeal Obamacare, is the most immediate illustration of Trump's fickle fealty.

In fairness, McConnell helped load himself into the barrel when he criticized Trump, albeit mildly, during a Monday speech to a Rotary Club in Kentucky.

"Our new President, of course, has not been in this line of work before," McConnell said. As it applies to the legislative process, he added: "I think (Trump) had excessive expectations about how quickly things happen in the democratic process."

The nuance there, that cautious caveat, did not land well with the White House. Trump has now spent the better part of the week assailing the top Senate Republican on Twitter and in remarks to reporters during what's been a news-making vacation at his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey.

On Thursday, he pointedly refused to back McConnell, suggesting what remains of his faith in the majority leader will turn on future performance.

"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, he doesn't get them done, then you can ask me" again if McConnell should give up his post, Trump said.

Trump and Priebus, then the Republican National Committee boss, had an up-and-down relationship during the 2016 primaries. Despite leading in the GOP polls for months before the first ballot was cast, the party establishment (and many in the media) doubted Trump's viability, and whether he could sustain his popularity, once the contests kicked off.

Priebus, though, was clear on Trump's potential -- either to win or damage the eventual nominee's chances in November by going a third party route. There was drama over a loyalty pledge, which Trump signed, then waffled on, but ultimately honored, if only because his frontrunner status rarely wavered.

Whatever his misgivings, Priebus never intervened and eventually (technically) joined Trump's inner circle. His bald-faced backing cleared the way for other Republicans climb aboard.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie wasn't always quite so unpopular in his home state. His decline began well before he left the Republican presidential primary last year, but it's hard to imagine his decision to immediately throw his allegiance to Trump did much to reverse the slide.

Christie backed Trump before it was perceived as a political imperative. His precise motives in endorsing Trump are still not entirely clear. The theories range from vengeance against other more mainstream candidates like Florida Sen. Marco Rubio to strategic angling for future employment, or some combination of those and more.

The attorney general, before he was attorney general, was a US senator from Alabama. He was also the first active member of that august body to endorse Trump during the GOP primary. When the "Access Hollywood" tape threatened to upend Trump's campaign, and some Republicans began to make for the exits, Sessions stood firm: "This thing is overblown," he told Fox News. "Everybody knows that Trump likes women."

As with McConnell, Trump didn't hesitate to air his ire on social media and in a memorably caustic interview with The New York Times.

"So why aren't the Committees and investigators, and of course our beleaguered A.G., looking into Crooked Hillarys crimes & Russia relations?", Trump, in his role as pundit-in-chief, tweeted on the morning of July 24.

Sessions has managed to hang on mostly because he refused to resign and his old friends in the Senate made it clear Trump would not be able to quickly install a replacement if Sessions was fired.

Asked this week about their relationship, Trump offered a bright, shining endorsement.

For now.

Read more from the original source:
Donald Trump is loyal -- until he's not - CNN

"We condemn in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence, on many sides. On many sides. It's been going on for a long time in our country. Not Donald Trump, not Barack Obama. This has been going on for a long, long time."

It's hard to imagine a less presidential statement in a time in which the country looks to its elected leader to stand up against intolerance and hatred.

Picking a "worst" from Donald Trump's statement -- delivered from his Bedminster, New Jersey, golf club -- isn't easy. But, the emphasis of "on many sides" -- Trump repeated that phrase twice -- is, I think, the low ebb.

Both sides don't scream racist and anti-Semitic things at people with whom they disagree. They don't base a belief system on the superiority of one race over others. They don't get into fistfights with people who don't see things their way. They don't create chaos and leave a trail of injured behind them.

Arguing that "both sides do it" deeply misunderstands the hate and intolerance at the core of this "Unite the Right" rally. These people are bigots. They are hate-filled. This is not just a protest where things, unfortunately, got violent. Violence sits at the heart of their warped belief system.

Trying to fit these hate-mongers into the political/ideological spectrum -- which appears to be what Trump is doing -- speaks to his failure to grasp what's at play here. This is not a "conservatives say this, liberals say that" sort of situation. We all should stand against this sort of violent intolerance and work to eradicate it from our society -- whether Democrat, Republican, Independent or not political in the least.

What Trump failed to do is what he has always promised to do: Speak blunt truths. The people gathered in Charlottesville this weekend are white supremacists, driven by hate and intolerance. Period. There is no "other side" doing similar things here.

What Trump is doing -- wittingly or unwittingly -- is giving cover to the sort of beliefs (and I use that word lightly) on display in Charlottesville today.

Chalking it all up to a violent political rhetoric that occurs on both sides and has been around for a very long time contextualizes and normalizes the behavior of people who should not be normalized. It is not everyday political rhetoric to scream epithets at people who don't look like you or worship like you. Trump's right that this sort of behavior has existed on American society's fringes for a long time -- but what we as a nation, led by our presidents, have always done is call it out for what it is: radical racism that has no place in our world.

So, that's the big one. But there are other things in Trump's statement that are also worth calling out -- most notably "not Donald Trump, not Barack Obama."

What Trump is doing here is pre-emptively absolving himself of blame for creating a political climate in the country in which people like these "Unite the Right" demonstrators feel emboldened enough to rally in public. Not my fault, Trump is saying. There were hate groups and hate speech under Obama too!

With someone dead and more than two dozen people injured, this is, of course, not the time for assigning blame. Or for making political calculations. This is a time to say: We stand together against what we saw in Charlottesville today. Trump didn't do that. Not even close.

Then, last but not least, is what Trump said a few paragraphs after his "on many sides" comment. Here it is:

"Our country is doing very well in so many ways. We have record -- just absolute record employment. We have unemployment, the lowest it's been in almost 17 years. We have companies pouring into our country. Foxconn and car companies, and so many others, they're coming back to our country. We're renegotiating trade deals to make them great for our country and great for the American worker. We have so many incredible things happening in our country. So when I watch Charlottesville, to me it's very, very sad."

Really? A pivot to an I-am-not-gettng-enough-credit-for-all-the-good-I-am-doing-in-the-country line? With scenes of hatred splashed across TV screens With someone dead?

This speech is not the time to tout your accomplishments. I mean "we're renegotiating trade deals to make them great for our country"? Who thought that was a good thing to say in the same speech in which Trump, theoretically, was trying to reassure people that what we all saw in Charlottesville is not, fundamentally, who we are?

That no one -- starting and ending with the President -- raised a red flag about tacking on a laundry list of accomplishments to a speech that should have simply condemned the behavior in Charlottesville and called to our better angels, is staggering, even for this White House.

There are moments where we as a country look to our president to exemplify the best in us. They don't happen every day. Sometimes they don't happen every year. But, when they do happen, we need the person we elected to lead us to, you know, lead us.

Trump did the opposite today.

More here:
Donald Trump's incredibly unpresidential statement on Charlottesville - CNN

Updated: Aug 12, 2017 8:34 PM ET

(BEDMINISTER, N.J.) President Donald Trump on Saturday blamed "many sides" for the violent clashes between protesters and white supremacists in Virginia and contended that the "hatred and bigotry" broadcast across the country had taken root long before his political ascendancy.

That was not how the Charlottesville mayor assessed the chaos that led the governor to declare a state of emergency, contending that Trump's campaign fed the flames of prejudice.

Trump, on a working vacation at his New Jersey golf club, had intended to speak briefly at a ceremony marking the signing of bipartisan legislation to aid veterans, but he quickly found that those plans were overtaken by the escalating violence in the Virginia college town. One person died and at least 26 others were sent to the hospital after a car plowed into a group of peaceful anti-racist counterprotesters amid days of race-fueled marches and violent clashes.

And officials later linked the deaths of two people aboard a crashed helicopter to the protests, though they did not say how they were linked.

Speaking slowly from a podium set up in the golf clubhouse, Trump said that he had just spoken to Gov. Terry McAuliffe, D-Va. "We agreed that the hate and the division must stop, and must stop right now. We have to come together as Americans with love for our nation and ... true affection for each other," he said.

"We condemn in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence on many sides, on many sides," said Trump. "It's been going on for a long time in our country. Not Donald Trump. Not Barack Obama. It's been going on for a long, long time."

The president said that "what is vital now is a swift restoration of law and order and the protection of innocent lives."

After completing his statement and the bill signing, Trump then walked out of the room. He ignored reporters' shouted questions, including whether he wanted the support of white nationals who have said they backed him or if the car crash in Virginia were deemed intentional, would it be declared to be terrorism.

The previous two days, Trump took more than 50 questions from a small group of reporters. A White House spokeswoman did not immediately respond to a request for an explanation as to what Trump mean by "many sides."

Following Trump's comment, several Republicans pushed for a more explicit denunciation of white supremacists.

Colorado Sen. Cory Gardner tweeted "Mr. President - we must call evil by its name. These were white supremacists and this was domestic terrorism."

Florida Sen. Marco Rubio wrote "Nothing patriotic about #Nazis,the #KKK or #WhiteSupremacists It's the direct opposite of what #America seeks to be."

And even New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, a staunch Trump supporter, wrote: "We reject the racism and violence of white nationalists like the ones acting out in Charlottesville. Everyone in leadership must speak out."

White nationalists had assembled in Charlottesville to vent their frustration against the city's plans to take down a statue of Confederal Gen. Robert E. Lee. Counter-protesters massed in opposition. A few hours after violent encounters between the two groups, a car drove into a crowd of people peacefully protesting the rally. The driver was later taken into custody.

Alt-right leader Richard Spencer and former Ku Klux Klan member David Duke attended the demonstrations. Duke told reporters that the white nationalists were working to "fulfill the promises of Donald Trump."

Trump's speech also drew praise from the neo-Nazi website Daily Stormer, which wrote: "Trump comments were good. He didn't attack us. He just said the nation should come together. Nothing specific against us. ... No condemnation at all."

The website had been promoting the Charlottesville demonstration as part of its "Summer of Hate" edition.

Mayor Michael Signer said he was disgusted that the white nationalists had come to his town and blamed Trump for inflaming racial prejudices with his campaign last year.

"I'm not going to make any bones about it. I place the blame for a lot of what you're seeing in American today right at the doorstep of the White House and the people around the president," he said.

Disturbances began Friday night during a torch-lit march through the University of Virginia before escalating Saturday.

The White House was silent for hours except for a tweet from first lady Melania Trump: "Our country encourages freedom of speech, but let's communicate w/o hate in our hearts."

Trump later tweeted: "We ALL must be united & condemn all that hate stands for." He also said "there is no place for this kind of violence in America. Lets come together as one!" Trump tweeted condolences about the woman killed the protests Saturday evening, more than five hours after the crash.

Trump, as a candidate, frequently came under scrutiny for being slow to offer his condemnation of white supremacists. His strongest denunciation of the movement has not come voluntarily, only when asked, and he occasionally trafficked in retweets of racist social media posts during his campaign. His chief strategist, Steve Bannon, once declared that his former news site, Breitbart, was "the platform for the alt-right."

The president's reluctance to condemn white bigots also stood in stark contrast by his insistence of calling out "radical Islamic terrorism" by name.

"Now, to solve a problem, you have to be able to state what the problem is or at least say the name," Trump said in a general election debate.

In his remarks Saturday, Trump mentioned the strong economy and "the many incredible things in our country, so when I watch Charlottesville, to me it's very, very sad."

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President Trump Blames 'Many Sides' for Violence in Charlottesville - TIME

US President Donald Trump speaks during a security briefing on August 10, 2017, at his Bedminster National Golf Club in New Jersey. / AFP PHOTO / Nicholas Kamm (Photo credit should read NICHOLAS KAMM/AFP/Getty Images)NICHOLAS KAMMAFP/Getty Images

(BEDMINSTER, N.J.) President Donald Trump has signed an emergency spending bill that will pump more than $2 billion into a program that allows veterans to receive private medical care at government expense.

Trump, who made improving veterans care a central campaign promise, signed the VA Choice and Quality Employment Act while at his New Jersey golf club on Saturday. The bill, which addresses a budget shortfall at the Department of Veteran Affairs that threatened medical care for thousands of veterans, provides $2.1 billion to continue funding the Veterans Choice Program, which allows veterans to seek private care.

Another $1.8 billion will go to core VA health programs, including 28 leases for new VA medical facilities.

"Today is another milestone in our work to transform the VA where we're doing record-setting business," Trump said.

The Choice program was put in place after a 2014 wait-time scandal that was discovered at the Phoenix VA hospital and spread throughout the country. Veterans waited weeks or months for appointments while phony records covered up the lengthy waits.

The program allows veterans to receive care from outside doctors if they must wait at least 30 days for an appointment or drive more than 40 miles to a VA facility. VA Secretary David Shulkin has warned that without legislative action, the Choice program would run out of money by mid-August, causing delays in health care for thousands of veterans.

The bill will extend the program for six months. Costs will be paid for by trimming pensions for some Medicaid-eligible veterans and collecting fees for housing loans.

Veterans groups applauded the bill being signed, though some criticized the delay and the cost.

"We're grateful President Trump is taking decisive action to ensure veterans using the Choice Program won't see lapses in their care due to a lack of funding," said Dan Caldwell, policy director for Concerned Veterans for America. "Unfortunately, this bill took far too long to get to the president's desk and is $1.8 billion more expensive than it needed to be."

Leaders of the House Veterans Affairs Committee said the six-month funding plan was urgently needed and would give Congress more time to debate broader issues over the VA's future. While the bill may avert a shutdown to Choice, disputes over funding may signal bigger political fights to come.

During the 2016 campaign, Trump criticized the VA for long wait times and mismanagement, saying he would give veterans more options in seeing outside providers. Shulkin announced the budget shortfall last month, citing unexpected demand from veterans for private care and poor budget planning. To slow spending, the department last month instructed VA medical centers to limit the number of veterans it sent to private doctors.

Currently, more than 30 percent of VA appointments are in the private sector, up from fewer than 20 percent in 2014. The VA has an annual budget of about $180 billion.

Originally posted here:
Donald Trump Signs Bill Funding Veterans Medical Care Program - TIME

NICHOLAS KAMM/AFP/Getty Images

Someone in America died today. Someone died today in Virginia in a racial terrorist attack, and our President had the audacity, the hardihood to continue to hew to the line of dog whistling racist dogma.

Donald Trump showed us exactly who he was today as a man, as a leader, as a human being and as an American. And he aint shit.

Donald Trump aint shit and hes a small man with tiny hands unworthy of the office of the presidency.

Forty-five, who obviously must have written that inferior, juvenile speech, spoke for all of four minutes about Charlottesville, Va. today not about the race war that is literally erupting around us and one he surely helped to set the climate forand stuck to stilted, coded language about gun violence in Chicago, Barack Obama and all the other shit that racists hate (P.S. they really dont care that black people are dying in Chicago tho.)

Today, Donald Trump did not even have the human decency to speak about an American citizen who died protesting peacefully and white men acting out in violent ways. As usual, he spoke without an an iota of integrity or even a semblance of decency by even pretending to giving a fuck about black people.

Guess what? He doesnt. Omarosa. He doesnt. Ben Carson. He doesnt all those black folks who voted for him to give him a chance.

The president, who came on at least 40 minutes after he was supposed to, actually spoke these words:

Were closely following the terrible events unfolding in Charlottesville Va. We condemn in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence on many sides.

Pause. Here goes that false equivalence again. Who has been violent to the white nationalists?

Its been going on a long time in our country. Not Donald Trump, not Barack Obama. Its been going on for a long, long time.

You damn right hatred, bigotry and violence has been going on a long time directed at black people who were brought here as chattel property and violently suppressed within a vicious caste system, one that continues until today.

And hells no, you are not Barack Obama. You arent even worthy of a sliver of a nail on his left pinky. You damn right you not Barack Obama and we are all facing a race war at home and perhaps a nuclear threat from abroad because of that.

And then this:

There is no place for this in America. What needed now is a swift restoration of law and order and a restoration of innocent lives. No citizen should fear for their safety and security in our society.

And no child should ever be afraid to go outside (pause) and play or be with their parents (pause) and have a good time, he says.

Hes obviously speaking about the violence in Chicago here, which has absolutely nothing to do with what happened in Charlottesville. But wink, wink hes letting the racists know that hes still with em.

Trump then gave a prolonged and pointed shout out to law enforcement (local state and federal) as doing a wonderful job when they clearly did not.

Because a person died with at least a thousand police on hand. Great job, guys.

We are all Americans first. We love our God, Trump continues.

Were going to study this situation. We want to see whats going wrong in this country.

Dude. Study what? History?

This man is dangerous. This man is vile. And this man gives negative fucks about black people. Of that I am clear.

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Donald Trump Ain't Shit, He Ain't Barack Obama and He Surely Doesn't Care About Black People - The Root