Mediaboss Marketing

Roger Stone, longtime friend and Republican strategist, also dodges the White House and reaches Trump through Graff, according to Politico. She passes requests to Madeleine Westerhout, Trump's personal assistant in the White House, whom Graff trained during the transition, according to Politico.

Graff anticipated that people would still try to reach Trump through her. Katie Walsh, who oversees Trump's schedule, requested that Graff forward the requests along, Politico reported. A White House spokesman told The New York Times that Graff sends messages to an official point of contact rather than directly to the president.

Trump has directed some people to contact Graff instead of the White House, two associates who have received such advice told Politico. She wields the most influence over his schedule at Mar-a-Lago, when Trump asks his staff to leave blocks of personal time free. He uses the time to meet with friends, some of whom tell Graff they will be at the club at the same time as Trump, according to Politico.

Graff, 64, grew up in Queens. She started at the Trump Organization nearly 30 years ago after running a sports marketing company, according to the Times. She was featured in a few episodes of Trump's reality show "The Apprentice."

Follow this link:
Who is Rhona mentioned in Donald Trump Jr.'s emails? - CNBC

BBC News

US President Donald Trump 'to visit UK in 2018' BBC News US President Donald Trump is likely to come to the UK next year, the BBC understands. Downing Street and the White House are believed to be looking at options for the visit. Mr Trump accepted the Queen's invitation for him to travel to Britain on a ... Donald Trump to make state visit to Britain next yearThe Guardian Donald Trump's state visit will take place 'next year'Sky News all 329 news articles »

See the article here:
US President Donald Trump 'to visit UK in 2018' - BBC News

Our investigative team collaborated with the nonprofit news site ProPublica to analyze the appointees working on deregulation, using records obtained under the Freedom of Information Act. We found 28 appointees with potential conflicts.

Separately, we learned that Trump aides asked businessmen who profited from military contracts to devise alternatives to the Pentagons plans for a troop surge in Afghanistan. The Defense Department is not considering their idea of using contractors instead of soldiers, an official said.

_____

3. Senate leaders said they would unveil a revised bill to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act on Thursday, then debate and vote on it next week.

But they still appear to be well short of the support needed to pass the legislation. The majority leader, Mitch McConnell, said he would delay the Senates August recess by two weeks.

We collected opinions from the right and left on the future of the health care bill. Above, a protest inside a Senate building.

_____

4. The military confirmed that 16 service members were killed on Monday when a Marine Corps transport plane plunged into a field in the Mississippi Delta.

Their names have not yet been released. The flight took off from an air station in North Carolina, and was headed to a naval facility in California for a training exercise.

Six of the those aboard were assigned to the Marine Raiders, an elite special operations force that deploys to Afghanistan and Iraq, among other countries.

_____

5. Our correspondent took a tour of Mosul a day after the Iraqi government declared victory over the Islamic State in the city.

What she found was rubble, death and devastation. In some parts of the city artillery fire could still be heard.

While this is a major moment for Iraq, she wrote, I doubt this fight is over.

_____

6. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is using shuttle diplomacy to try to end the standoff between four Arab nations and Qatar.

He signed a memorandum of understanding with Qatars foreign minister, outlining ways the country could fortify its fight against terrorism and address terrorism funding.

The dispute has pushed Qatar closer to Iran, which has stepped in with planeloads of fresh vegetables and other support.

_____

7. The International Olympic Committee will announce the host cities for the 2024 and 2028 Summer Olympics at the same time this September.

The mayors of Paris and Los Angeles, the front-runners, were in Switzerland today to make formal presentations, above. Voting by I.O.C. delegates will take place on Sept. 13 in Peru.

The Games are trying to generate excitement amid corruption and doping scandals and diminished interest from potential host nations leery of the high costs.

_____

8. Boston is seeing the most intense building frenzy in its 400-year history, and theres worry that glassy towers will bathe the citys prized parks in darkness.

The states strict laws to protect sunlight and open space are being tested by developers who are trying to change the shadow laws, saying preservation must be balanced with economic development.

The ultrarich will get great views, but there will be permanent damage to the peoples parks, one critic warned.

_____

9. People with disabilities tend to receive worse medical treatment and less routine care. Our writer has a proposal to change that: recruit more medical professionals who are themselves disabled.

Im a guy in a wheelchair sitting right next to my patients, said Dr. Gregory Snyder, above, who became paralyzed from an injury in medical school. They know Ive been in that bed just like they have. And I think that means something.

_____

10. Finally, its been a hot, dry spell at Wimbledon, where Novak Djokovic was among those criticizing match officials over court conditions and scheduling. He plays his quarterfinal match against Tomas Berdych on Wednesday.

And Venus Williams, above, advanced to the semifinals for the second year in a row by beating Jelena Ostapenko. Williams, 37, made her Wimbledon debut a few weeks after Ostapenko, 20, was born.

Have a great night.

_____

Photographs may appear out of order for some readers. Viewing this version of the briefing should help.

Your Evening Briefing is posted at 6 p.m. Eastern.

And dont miss Your Morning Briefing, posted weekdays at 6 a.m. Eastern, and Your Weekend Briefing, posted at 6 a.m. Sundays.

Want to look back? Heres last nights briefing.

What did you like? What do you want to see here? Let us know at briefing@nytimes.com.

More here:
Donald Trump Jr., Russia, Mississippi: Your Tuesday Evening Briefing - New York Times

Fox News Channels morning show Fox & Friends on Tuesday issued an on-air correction to its Monday report that former FBI director James Comey had given top-secret information to a friend.

The inaccurate report was widely disseminated, thanks to the shows biggest fan, President Donald Trump, who had tweeted, James Comey leaked CLASSIFIED INFORMATION to the media. That is so illegal! (The all-caps bit is his.)

F&Fs report had claimed Comey leaked classified information in a memo he wrote about an uncomfortable-making meeting he had with Trump. Comey testified, youll recall, about how hed given that memo to a friend after Trump sacked him and then tweeted ominously that Comey better stop to think whether their conversation was recorded, in case he was thinking about leaking anything.

Trumps least-favorite news network CNN recently suffered an embarrassing retraction of an original report, which cost three staffers their jobs. Fox& Friends, however, did not claim its incorrect story was an original report. Rather, the program was referencing a report by The Hill from Sunday in which it said more than half of the memosComey filed after his meetings with Trump contained classified information. But when F&F co-host Jilian Mele relayed the info to viewers Monday morning, it had been given an upgrade on the scandal-o-meter:

A brand-new bombshell report accuses Comey of putting our national security at risk, she said starkly. According to The Hill, the former FBI directors personal memos detailing private conversations with President Trump contained top-secret information.

Word got around of the error, which Fox News said would be addressed on Tuesday mornings program.

Yesterday on this program we aired and tweeted this story saying former FBI director James Comey leaked memos containing top-secret information, Fox & Friends Steve Doocy said. We were mistaken in that according to a report half of the memos contained information classified at the secret or confidential level, not top secret. Markings of the government documents in which Mr. Comey leaked are, at this point, unclear. Just wanted to straighten that out.

Read more:
'Fox & Friends' Corrects James Comey Report That Donald Trump Plugged On Twitter - Deadline

Just when you think youve seen it all, out comes another Donald Trump tweet, or tweetstorm, to prove you wrong. On Sunday morning, Americas forty-fifth President, having just returned to Washington from the G-20 summit in Hamburg, Germany, pronounced his trip a great success for the United States.

It says something about Trumps grip on reality that he could reach such a conclusion after a summit in which he and the rest of the U.S. delegation were utterly isolated on major issues such as climate change and international trade. In fact, the only way that German Chancellor Angela Merkels diplomatic sherpas were able to cobble together a communiqu that everyone could sign onto was to include a section that noted Americas decision to withdraw from the Paris climate accord, but which added, Leaders of the other G20 members state that the Paris Agreement is irreversible. The symbolism here was powerful: in a global forum that the U.S. government, especially the Treasury Department, helped to create during the late nineteen-nineties, Trumps America stood alone.

Of course, the G-20 is far from perfect: the protesters assembled outside the Messehallen Convention Center, most of whom were peaceful, were right about that. The organizations membership is arbitraryItaly is a member, Spain isnt; South Africa is in, Nigeria is outand its pronouncements can reflect the sometimes hidebound thinking of finance ministers and central bankers. But the G-20 is also one of the few political forums for tackling global economic problems, such as financial contagion, tax evasion, and climate change (which is ultimately a market failure). And, until Trumps election, U.S. leadership was widely recognized as an integral part of any G-20 get-together.

The message of Hamburg was that Trumps America First rhetoricand his inability to see international agreements as anything other than zero-sum dealshave changed that situation, at least temporarily. The rest of the world hasnt turned its back on the U.S.; the country is still far too big and powerful for that to happen. And, in any case, many foreign leaders harbor respect for the values that the U.S. espouses and the global order that it has helped maintain for seven decades. At the moment, however, they are looking for ways to work around Washington and its rogue President.

Judging by his Twitter comments on Sunday, Trump is proud of having turned the U.S. into a G-20 pariah. But even more revealing, and disturbing, was the readout he delivered on his meeting last Friday with Russias Vladimir Putin. Here it is, not quite in its entirety (as, since weve heard Trump criticize Barack Obama and the fake news media many times before, Ive left out those bits):

I strongly pressed President Putin twice about Russian meddling in our election, He vehemently denied it. I've already given my opinion. . . . We negotiated a ceasefire in parts of Syria which will save lives. Now it is time to move forward in working constructively with Russia! Putin & I discussed forming an impenetrable Cyber Security unit so that election hacking, & many other negative things, will be guarded . . . and safe. Questions were asked about why the CIA & FBI had to ask the DNC 13 times for their SERVER, and were rejected, still dont . . . have it. . . . Sanctions were not discussed at my meeting with President Putin. Nothing will be done until the Ukrainian & Syrian problems are solved!

In the spirit of generosity, it should be acknowledged that the final sentence here was a welcome one. And Moscows many critics in Congress will surely remind Trump of it if he decides, during the coming months, to relax the restrictions that the Obama Administration imposed on Russia following its annexation of Crimea.

But the rest of what the President wrote on Sunday was a mess of confusions and contradictions. Trump didnt out-and-out confirm the claim made by Sergey Lavrov, Russias foreign minister, that he had accepted Putins denials of any Russian involvement in hacking during the election. But Trump made perfectly clear that he still rejects the view of the U.S. intelligence community that Russia was responsible for hacking and that, for policy purposes, he considers the matter to be closed. Any effort to get to the bottom of what happenedmuch less impose some real punishment on Moscowwill be subjugated to the imperative of working constructively with Russia.

That brings us to the nuttiest part of the tweetstorm, perhaps the nuttiest thing an American President has said in decades: the proposal to create a joint Cyber Security unit with Moscow to safeguard future elections. Whether Trump himself came up with this ingenious proposal, or whether it was Putins idea, the Tweeter-in-Chief didnt say. But it drew instant ridicule from both sides of the political divide.

Its not the dumbest idea I have ever heard but its pretty close, the Republican senator Lindsey Graham told NBCs Meet the Press. Representative Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said on CNN, If thats our best election defense, we might as well just mail our ballot boxes to Moscow.

What was Trump thinking? As ever, we have to consider the possibility that he wasnt thinking at all, and what he says doesnt mean anythingnot even when he is reporting on his dealings with the leader of a rival nuclear power. Donald Trump is a man who craves power because it burnishes his celebrity: to be constantly talking and talked about is all that really matters, Chris Uhlmann, the political editor of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, said , in remarks about the G-20 summit that went viral. And there is no value placed on the meaning of words, so whats said one day can be discarded the next.

The other reading is a darker one, and it involves taking Trump at his word. For whatever reason, he still appears to see Putin as a potential partnermaybe even one who can be trusted with some of Americas most sensitive secrets, such as the workings of its voting systems. If this is indeed the case, it matters little whether Trump is a Russian dupe or a Russian stooge: he needs to be stopped.

On Sunday night, Trump disavowed part of what he had said earlier in the day, writing in another tweet, The fact that President Putin and I discussed a Cyber Security unit doesnt mean I think it can happen. It cant-but a ceasefire can,& did! This message illustrated Uhlmanns point about the half-life of Trumps utterances, and also confirmed the truth of the Australian journalists over-all conclusion about the Presidents trip to the G-20 meeting: So what did we learn? We learned that Donald Trump has pressed fast forward on the decline of the United States as a global leader.

Read the original:
Donald Trump Is Dragging Down America - The New Yorker