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Relaxed, smiling broadly, President Donald Trump likely had no idea what Rhode Island teacher of the year Nikos Giannopoulos was doing just behind his back the moment a special Oval Office photo was snapped. Giannopoulos, sporting a rainbow pin in his lapel, posed with a lacy fan to make a point. Now the photo with him and both Donald and Melania Trump is drawing scads of views on his Facebook page.

Giannopoulos, who teaches 11th and 12th graders at Beacon Charter High School for the Arts in Woonsocket, visited the White House with other teachers of the year in April. He received the photo of his moment with Trump this week and immediately posted it.

He said he wore the pin to represent my gratitude for the LGBTQ community that has taught me to be proud, bold, and empowered by my identity even when circumstances make that difficult. He brought the fan that day tocelebrate the joy and freedom of gender nonconformity.

When I met the president as Rhode Islands state teacher of the year, I did not know what to expect, he wrote on Facebook after the photo was taken. After a lengthy security process, we were welcomed into the Roosevelt Room where we each met Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos. Shortly thereafter, we walked into the Oval Office. The man seated at the desk read prepared remarks from a sheet of paper and made some comments about CEOs and which states he loved, based on electoral votes that he had secured. He did not rise from his seat to present the national teacher of the year with her much-deserved award, nor did he allow her to speak.

Giannopoulos wanted to speak to the president, but none of the teachers got the chance(though Trump did tell him that he was very stylish with his fan as the teachers gathered around the president, Giannopoulos told Yahoo). He had wanted to tell Trump that queer lives matter and anti-LGBTQ policies have a body count. Giannopoulos said he also wanted to tell the president how the LGBTQ community is hurt by politicians callously attacking our right to love or merely exist.

He said now when he thinks of the day he will not remember the person seated at the desk. Giannopoulos said hell remember the students he has taught and the other teachers with him that day, including one who presented Trump with letters from her refugee student, pleading with him to hear their voices.

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Bold, Gay Teacher Of The Year Photo Bombs Donald Trump With Fan - HuffPost

Im starting to suspect that Donald Trump may not have been right when he said, You know, Im like a smart person. The evidence continues to mount that he is far from smart so far, in fact, that he may not be capable of carrying out his duties as president.

There is, for example, the story of how Trump met with the pastors of two major Presbyterian churches in New York. I did very, very well with evangelicals in the polls, he bragged. When the pastors told Trump they werent evangelicals, he demanded to know, What are you then? They told him they were mainline Presbyterians. But youre all Christians? he asked. Yes, they had to assure him, Presbyterians are Christians. The kicker: Trump himself is Presbyterian.

Or the story of how Trump asked the editors of the Economist whether they had ever heard of the phrase priming the pump. Yes, they assured him, they had. I havent heard it, Trump continued. I mean, I just I came up with it a couple of days ago, and I thought it was good. The phrase has been in widespread use since at least the 1930s.

Or the story of how, after arriving in Israel from Saudi Arabia, Trump told his hosts, We just got back from the Middle East.

These arent examples of stupidity, you may object, but of ignorance. This has become a favorite talking point of Trumps enablers. House Speaker Paul Ryan, for example, excused Trumps attempts to pressure FBI Director James Comey into dropping a criminal investigation of former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn on the grounds that the presidents new at this and supposedly didnt realize that he was doing anything wrong. But Trump has been president for nearly five months now, and he has shown no capacity to learn on the job.

More broadly, Trump has had a lifetime 71 years and access to Americas finest educational institutions (hes a graduate of the University of Pennsylvanias Wharton School, he never tires of reminding us) to learn things. And yet he doesnt seem to have acquired even the most basic information that a high school student should possess. Recall that Trump said that Frederick Douglass, who died in 1895, was an example of somebody whos done an amazing job and is being recognized more and more. He also claimed that Andrew Jackson, who died 16 years before the Civil War, was really angry that he saw what was happening in regard to the Civil War.

Why does he know so little? Because he doesnt read books or even long articles. I never have, he proudly told a reporter last year. Im always busy doing a lot. As president, Trumps intelligence briefings have been dumbed down, denuded of nuance, and larded with maps and pictures because he cant be bothered to read a lot of words. Hed rather play golf.

The surest indication of how not smart Trump is that he thinks his inability or lack of interest in acquiring knowledge doesnt matter. He said last year that he reaches the right decisions with very little knowledge other than the knowledge I [already] had, plus the words common sense, because I have a lot of common sense and I have a lot of business ability.

Hows that working out? Theres a reason why surveys show more support for Trumps impeachment than for his presidency. From his catastrophically ill-conceived executive order on immigration to his catastrophically ill-conceived firing of Comey, his administration has been one disaster after another. And those fiascos can be ascribed directly to the presidents lack of intellectual horsepower.

How could Trump fire Comey knowing that the FBI director could then testify about the improper requests Trump had made to exonerate himself and drop the investigation of Flynn? And in case there was any doubt about Trumps intent, he dispelled it by acknowledging on TV that he had the Russia thing in mind when firing the FBI director. Thats tantamount to admitting obstruction of justice. Is this how a smart person behaves? If Trump decides to fire the widely respected special counsel Robert Mueller, he will only be compounding this stupidity.

Or what about Trumps response to the June 3 terrorist attack in London? He reacted by tweeting his support for the original Travel Ban, rather than the watered down, politically correct version under review by the Supreme Court. Legal observers including Kellyanne Conways husband instantly saw that Trump was undermining his own case, because the travel ban had been revised precisely in order to pass judicial scrutiny. Indeed, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, in refusing to reinstate the travel ban on June 12, cited Trumps tweets against him. Is this how a smart person behaves?

You could argue that Trumps lack of acumen is actually his saving grace, because he would be much more dangerous if he were cleverer in implementing his radical agenda. But you can also make the case that his vacuity is imperiling American security.

Trump shared code-word information with Russias foreign minister, apparently without realizing what he was doing. In the process, he may have blown Americas best source of intelligence on Islamic State plots a top-secret Israeli penetration of the militant groups computers.

Trump picked a fight on Twitter with Qatar, apparently not knowing that this small, oil-rich emirate is host to a major U.S. air base that is of vital importance in the air war against the Islamic State.

Trump criticized Londons mayor, Sadiq Khan, based on a blatant misreading of what Khan said in the aftermath of the June 3 attack: The mayor had said there was no reason to be alarmed about a heightened police presence on the streets not, as Trump claimed, about the threat of terrorism. In the process, Trump has alienated British public opinion and may have helped the anti-American Labour Party leader, Jeremy Corbyn, win votes in Britains general election.

Trump pulled out of the Paris climate accord apparently because he thinks that global warming a scientifically proven fact is a hoax. His speech announcing the pullout demonstrated that he has no understanding of what the Paris accord actually is a nonbinding compact that does not impose any costs on the United States.

Trump failed to affirm Article V, a bedrock of NATO, during his visit to Brussels, apparently because he labors under the misapprehension that European allies owe the United States and NATO vast sums of money. In fact, NATO members are now increasing their defense spending, but the money will not go to the United States or to the alliance; it will go to their own armed forces. Trump has since said he supports Article V, but his initial hesitation undermines American credibility and may embolden Russia.

Trump supporters used to claim that sage advisors could make up for his shortcomings. But he is proving too willful and erratic to be steered by those around him who know better. As Maggie Haberman of the New York Times notes: Trump doesnt want to be controlled. In [the] campaign, [he] would often do [the] opposite of what he was advised to do, simply because it was opposite.

The 25th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution provides that if the vice president and a majority of the cabinet certify that the president is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, he can be removed with the concurrence of two-thirds of both houses. That wont happen, because Republicans are too craven to stand up to Trump. But on the merits perhaps it should. After nearly five months in office, Trump has given no indication that he possesses the mental capacity to be president.

Photo credit:Tom Pennington/Getty Images

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Donald Trump Is Proving Too Stupid to Be President - Foreign Policy (blog)

An abstract, in-case-of-emergency-break-glass executive order drafted by the Trump administration in March may become real-world applicable as the president, raging publicly at his Justice Department, mulls firing special counsel Robert Mueller.

Since taking office, the Trump administration has twice rewritten an executive order that outlines the order of succession at the Justice Department once after President Donald Trump fired acting Attorney General Sally Yates for refusing to defend his travel ban, and then again two months later. The executive order outlines a list of who would be elevated to the position of acting attorney general if the person up the food chain recuses himself, resigns, gets fired or is no longer in a position to serve.

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In the past, former Justice Department officials and legal experts said, the order of succession is no more than an academic exercise a chain of command applicable only in the event of an attack or crisis when government officials are killed and it is not clear who should be in charge.

But Trump and the Russia investigation that is tightening around him have changed the game.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions has already recused himself from overseeing the investigation into possible collusion between Trump campaign aides and Russian operatives, after it was revealed that he failed to disclose meetings with the Russian ambassador during the campaign. And Trump started his morning on Friday by appearing to take a public shot at his deputy attorney general, Rod Rosenstein, who has increasingly become the target of his impulsive anger.

I am being investigated for firing the FBI Director by the man who told me to fire the FBI Director! Witch Hunt, the president tweeted.

The Justice Department said in a statement on Friday that there are no current plans for a recusal, but Rosenstein has said in the past that he would back away from overseeing Muellers investigation if his role in the ouster of former FBI Director James Comey becomes a conflict.

That has legal experts closely examining the dry executive order to figure out who might be next up to bat, or, as Democratic lawyers and consultants view it, who might serve as Trumps next sacrificial lamb.

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We know Rachel Brand is the next victim, said Benjamin Wittes, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and the editor-in-chief of Lawfare, referring to the former George W. Bush official who was recently confirmed as associate attorney general, the third-highest position in the Justice Department.

For those of us who have high confidence in Rachel the more confidence you have in someone in this role, the less long you think theyll last, said Wittes, who said he considers Brand a friend. That does put a very high premium on the question of who is next.

That question, however, has become more complicated because the Trump administration has been slow to fill government positions and get those officials confirmed. Typically, the solicitor general would be next in line after the associate attorney general, followed by the list of five assistant U.S. attorneys, the order of which would be determined by the attorney general. But none of those individuals have been confirmed by the Senate, and they would be unable to serve as acting attorney general without Senate confirmation.

Because of that, the executive order comes into play one that puts next in line after Brand the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, Dana Boente. Boente, a career federal prosecutor and an appointee of former President Barack Obama, was tapped last April to serve as the interim head of the Justice Departments national security division, which oversees the FBIs Russia investigation.

Boente, who was briefly thrust into the no. 2 spot at the Justice Department after Yates was fired, was also tasked with phoning Preet Bharara, then U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, to deliver the unexpected news that he was fired. At the time, Boente also vowed to defend Trumps travel ban in the future.

Boente is followed, on the succession list, by the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of North Carolina, John Stuart Bruce; and the U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Texas, John Parker. Both are career prosecutors who are serving in their posts on an interim basis, until a presidential appointment is made. But they would not need to be Senate confirmed to take over.

It was not clear why the Trump administration chose those three U.S. attorneys to be in the succession line. During the Obama administration, sources familiar with the drafting of the old executive order said, the positions were chosen based on geographic diversity, and purposely included big cities where officials assumed there would be a talented attorney capable of stepping in: The U.S. attorneys on the succession list were from Washington, D.C., Chicago and Los Angeles.

Some former Justice Department officials said they would find it inconceivable for Trump to clean house, or to fire Mueller even taking into account the sometimes erratic behavior of the commander in chief.

This president is so unpredictable, its hard to say, said Emily Pierce, a former Justice Department official in the Obama administration. It would be the craziest thing hes done to date if he were to start firing the special counsel or Rosenstein. Im trying to give him the benefit of the doubt that he realizes how much trouble he may be in and that with the firing of Comey, he wouldnt do that.

Deputy U.S. Attorney General nominee Rod Rosenstein and Rachel Brand, then a nominee for associate attorney general, testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee on March 7. Brand is considered the next person in the executive order at the Justice Department. | Getty

But others were less willing to predict the actions of a president who prides himself on being unpredictable. At the rate we're going, it's clearly possible, because you could go through a number of people in one go depending on the things that are asked of them, said Jane Chong, a national security and law associate at the Hoover Institution. If Rosenstein had refused to write the memo [laying out the case for Comeys firing], you can imagine him being fired, and you can imagine Brand doing the same thing. Its not difficult to see a scenario like that playing out down the line, Chong said.

In Washington circles, the comparison being made is between Trumps desire to rid himself of Mueller, at potentially any cost, and the Saturday Night Massacre during Watergate, in 1973, when the attorney general and the deputy attorney general both resigned after refusing to obey President Richard Nixons order to fire special prosecutor Archibald Cox. It fell to the solicitor general at the time, Robert Bork, to do the deed.

I think the Watergate scenario would make most self-respecting lawyers loath to put themselves in the role that Bork ended up playing, said Brian Fallon, a former Obama Justice Department and Hillary Clinton spokesman. Most career-minded independent lawyers that have high regard for the Justice Department as an institution would be loath to be the modern-day equivalent to Bork.

But Trump, too, is cognizant of the comparison to Nixon, according to one adviser. The president, who friends said does not enjoy living in Washington and is strained by the demanding hours of the job, is motivated to carry on because he doesnt want to go down in history as a guy who tried and failed, said the adviser. He doesnt want to be the second president in history to resign.

A White House spokeswoman referred queries to the Justice Department. A Justice Department spokesman declined to comment.

Darren Samuelsohn contributed to this report.

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Trump threatens to break the glass on DOJ succession plan - Politico

On Wednesday, the hundred and forty-fifth day of his Presidency, Donald Trump did something out of character: he acted Presidential. A few hours after James Hodgkinson, a sixty-six-year-old building inspector from Illinois, shot up an early-morning practice of the Republican congressional baseball team, Trump issued a statement at the White House. He provided an update on what had occurred, praised the two Capitol Police officers who were shot while exchanging fire with Hodgkinson, and said that he and the First Lady were praying for the victims.

We may have our differences, but we do well in times like these to remember that everyone who serves in our nation's Capitol is here because, above all, they love our country, Trump said . We could all agree that we are blessed to be Americans, that our children deserve to grow up in a nation of safety and peace, and that we are strongest when we are unified and when we work together for the common good.

Almost as notable as Trumps statement was the period of dignified silence that followed it. While some conservative media figures, such as Rush Limbaugh and Alex Jones, immediately sought to blame the shooting on anti-Trump liberals, Trump himself stayed above the fray. His Twitter account was quiet for most of the day, until, at 9:41 P.M. , he reported that he had just left the hospital after visiting one of the shooting victims, Representative Steve Scalise.

For once, Trump had followed protocol and done what a President is supposed to do in a crisis: act as a unifier. Even some of his harshest critics gave him credit. The Washington Posts Jennifer Rubin wrote, I was impressed with President Trumps well-crafted remarks. Stephen Colbert, the host of The Late Show, said , I want to say thank you to the congressional leadership, and to the President, for responding to this attack of terror in a way that gives us hope that whatever our differences, we will always be the United States of America.

The Trump transformation lasted twenty-four hours. Shortly before 7 A.M. on Thursday morning, he was back to his old ways on Twitter. Responding to news reports that Robert Mueller, the special counsel in the Russia investigation, is now investigating him for possible obstruction of justice, Trump wrote , They made up a phony collusion with the Russians story, found zero proof, so now they go for obstruction of justice on the phony story. Nice. About an hour later, he posted another message: You are witnessing the single greatest WITCH HUNT in American political history - led by some very bad and conflicted people! #MAGA

Trumps fury didnt diminish as the day went on. Why is that Hillary Clintons family and Dems dealings with Russia are not looked at, but my non-dealings are? he wrote in a mid-afternoon tweet. In a follow-up message, he added , Crooked H destroyed phones w/ hammer, bleached emails, & had husband meet w/AG days before she was cleared- & they talk about obstruction?

These outbursts can be read in at least two ways. The rational actor explanation is that Trump and his allies are engaged in a deliberate campaign to destroy the credibility of Mueller, a Republican and a former director of the F.B.I., by depicting him as a friend of James Comey and the Democrats. Newt Gingrich, a key Trump surrogate, has been taking this line in recent days, and Trumps mention of very bad and conflicted people seemed to be a reference to Mueller.

The attacks on Mueller could be preparing the ground for Trump to fire him. But the White House is well aware that such an incendiary move would create a constitutional crisis that would probably end with Congress insisting on the appointment of another independent prosecutor. (Thats what happened in 1973, after Richard Nixon forced the Justice Department to fire Archibald Cox. Within two weeks, Leon Jaworski replaced Cox.) The Administration, therefore, might be playing a longer game. Few people in Washington think that Mueller will end up bringing charges against the President. The conventional wisdom is that, if he concludes that an obstruction case is justified, he will hand the matter over to Congress, which would then have to decide whether to impeach the President.

If that happens, the survival of Trumps White House would depend on its ability to keep Capitol Hill Republicans in line. And one way to accomplish this is to exert pressure on them via Trumps base. In an interview with Bloomberg View , Bob Inglis, a former G.O.P. congressman from South Carolina, explained that, even with the Presidents approval rating in the thirties, his diehard supporters can kill you in a Republican primary, which is why elected Republicans are terrified of those voters. Trump must know that he is unlikely to convince most of the country that Mueller has an axe to grind. But it may still make sense for him to rile up viewers of Fox News, readers of Breitbart, and his own Twitter followers.

Yet there is a second way to read these attacks on Mueller. It is possible that Trump, having seen his decision to fire Comey boomerang on him in spectacular fashion, is simply ranting and raving.

The reports about Muellers investigation shouldnt have come as a surprise to him. The existence of Comeys memos, in which he recorded what the President said to him about dropping the investigation of Mike Flynn, has been known for a month now. And, in his testimony to the Senate Intelligence Committee last week, Comey said straight out that Mueller would have to reach a judgment on whether an offense had been committed.

Officially, the White House stance is that it wont have much more to say on the matter until the President is exonerated, and that questions should be directed to Trumps personal lawyer, Marc Kasowitz. But Trump clearly cant stop himself. He reportedly watches hours of news coverage about the Russia investigation every day, and vents about it to anybody who will listen. Aides have tried to change the subject, with little luck, Politicos Josh Dawsey reported on Thursday. Advisers have tried to buck up the president by telling him to be patient, agreeing that it is a witch hunt and urging him to just let it play outand reassuring him, Eventually, you will be cleared, in the words of one. But none of that has changed Trumps response.

It has become a clich in Washington to say that Trump is his own worst enemybut its true. By leaning on Comey to drop the Flynn investigation, and firing him when he didnt, Trump transformed an F.B.I. probe that was still focussing on his campaign aides and associates into a special-counsel investigation in which he is now a principal target. And, although almost all the Republicans on Capitol Hill are still supporting him, the trends are in the wrong direction. Earlier this week, Paul Ryan, the Speaker of the House, issued what was effectively a public warning to Trump not to fire Mueller. On Thursday, the Senate approved a bill that would impose additional sanctions on Russia and make it difficult for the Administration to lift them. Meanwhile, a new poll from the Associated Press showed that Trumps approval rating has dropped to thirty-five per cent, while his disapproval rating has risen to sixty-four per cent.

A different President might look at these figures and decide to change course. But, of course, we are not dealing with a different President. This President apparently learned no lessons from the way his measured response to the shooting at the congressional baseball practice was received. On Friday morning, Trump launched yet another fusillade of tweets, in which he mocked the Russia investigation, lambasted the Fake News Media, and turned against Rod Rosenstein, the Deputy Attorney General, who told Congress earlier this week that he supported Muellers investigation and wouldnt fire him without proper cause. I am being investigated for firing the FBI Director by the man who told me to fire the FBI Director! Trump wrote. Witch Hunt.

In response to this fusillade, Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein issued a statement, saying that Trump was sending a message "that he believes the rule of law doesn't apply to him and that anyone who thinks otherwise will be fired.... We're a nation of laws that apply equally to everyone, a lesson the president would be wise to learn." But is Trump, in this mood, capable of learning anything?'

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A Cornered Donald Trump Lashes Out - The New Yorker

"The Fake News Media hates when I use what has turned out to be my very powerful Social Media - over 100 million people! I can go around them," Trump tweeted.

If Trump believes this -- and he certainly seem to -- it shows a fundamental misunderstanding of how the media views the president's Twitter feed and how he employs it.

The reality is this: Every political journalist in the world is absolutely thrilled that Donald Trump not only tweets but does with the frequency and bluntness that he does. NO reporter wants Donald Trump to stop tweeting. Not one.

Trump's Twitter feed gives the political media -- and anyone else who follows him -- a direct look into his thought processes. We know what he is thinking about -- or angry about -- at all times of day. That's absolutely invaluable. It's "The President: Raw and Uncut."

Even as his White House will be excoriating the media for focusing too little on some policy roll-out or another, Trump will drop a series of tweets about the "witch hunt" Russia investigation or complain, as he did yesterday, about why the Justice Department isn't investigating alleged improprieties surrounding Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign.

All presidents have private thoughts that sometimes (often?) run counter to the official message the White House is pushing in a given day, week or month. But, no past president has been willing to put those discrepancies on public display in front of the tens of millions of people who follow him on Twitter before Trump.

What sort of reporter would want that pipeline to end?

The people who do want Trump to stop tweeting or to tweet less aren't the media. They're Republicans and Trump loyalists who believe his willingness to tell people exactly what is on his mind at any minute of the day fundamentally undermines the White House's efforts to find some consistent messaging and build the momentum the administration has been sorely lacking to date.

"[Twitter is] a powerful tool, but I do believe that it can be used more effectively to achieve his purpose," New York Rep. Lee Zeldin, a Trump supporter, said on CNN Friday morning. "I don't know the strategy behind, you know, this morning -- this latest tweet you are asking me about. But if there is a bigger strategy that makes sense, I'm all ears."

If you're reading this, Mr. Trump, let me be crystal clear as a card-carrying member of the media: Please keep tweeting. It provides us insight into how you think that we have never had before and may never get again from a president. Period.

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The one big thing Donald Trump gets totally wrong about the media - CNN