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Someone apparently affiliated with President Donald Trump appears to have removed a controversial call for a complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States from his campaign website afterWhite House press secretary Sean Spicer was asked about it during his daily news briefing on Monday.

Several times during his successful 2016 presidential bid, Trump pledged that he was going to implement a Muslim ban on foreigners of the Islamic faith from entering the United States. Since Trump has assumed office, however, he and his allies have tried to couch their desires in more religiously neutral language, as several federal judges who have reviewed the executive orders implementing Trumps euphemisticallyrelabeled extreme vetting policy have remained unpersuaded.

On Monday, Spicer was asked by ABC News reporterCecilia Vega why the presidents campaign website was still calling for preventing Muslim immigration.

Spicer responded that he had not seen what was on Trumps website.

Im not aware of whats on the campaigns website, Spicer said. Youd have to ask them. I know how weve talked about this from the first day of this administration as a travel banIt was something the president made very clear in the filings, why he did it, the motives. There really shouldnt be any question to why the presidents doing this.

Within minutes of Spicers grilling, the text of the December 7, 2015, statement was removed from DonaldJTrump.com. The original document can be retrieved in the Google cache of the page. It reads in full:

DONALD J. TRUMP STATEMENT ON PREVENTING MUSLIM IMMIGRATION

(New York, NY) December 7th, 2015, Donald J. Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our countrys representatives can figure out what is going on. According to Pew Research, among others, there is great hatred towards Americans by large segments of the Muslim population. Most recently, a poll from the Center for Security Policyreleased data showing 25% of those polled agreed that violence against Americans here in the United States is justified as a part of the global jihad and 51% of those polled, agreed that Muslims in America should have the choice of being governed according to Shariah. Shariah authorizes such atrocities as murder against non-believers who wont convert, beheadings and more unthinkable acts that pose great harm to Americans, especially women.

Mr. Trump stated, Without looking at the various polling data, it is obvious to anybody the hatred is beyond comprehension. Where this hatred comes from and why we will have to determine. Until we are able to determine and understand this problem and the dangerous threat it poses, our country cannot be the victims of horrendous attacks by people that believe only in Jihad, and have no sense of reason or respect for human life. If I win the election for President, we are going to Make America Great Again. Donald J. Trump

The administrations attempts to restrict immigration from some Muslim countries also came up in a Senate hearing today which featured former acting attorney general Sally Yates. She was terminated early by the Trump White House after she refused to defend the immigration restriction.

Yates was asked about the incident by Texas Sen. John Cornyn. She replied that her refusal to defend the executive order was an example of her promise during her confirmation hearing to oppose a presidential action which she deemed to be unlawful or unconstitutional.

And I looked at this. I made a determination that I believed it was unlawful, Yates said. I also thought it was inconsistent with principles of the Department of Justice.

Cornyn then asked Yates if she believed she had the authority to overrule the White House Counsels Office which had said the Muslim ban was constitutional.

Yates replied back in a snap: Well, I was the attorney general of the United States.

More here:
Donald Trump's pledge to prevent Muslim immigration suddenly scrubbed from his website - Salon

Americans seem to be pretty much settled in their opinions about President Donald Trump, according to the most recent polls Monday. Most surveys have his approval rating hovering around 40 percent.

Gallup pegged Trump's approvalrating at 42 percent in its latest survey releasedMonday, unchanged from where it stood this time last week but up 2 percentage points from where it was over the weekend.Gallup said53 percent of respondents disapproved of Trump. The tracking pollsurveyed1,500 people through telephone interviews, with a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points. It calculates approval for each day, with athree-day rolling average.

The most recent survey from Investor's Business Daily/TechnoMetrica Market Intelligence (IBD/TIPP), meanwhile, put Trump's approval at just 39 percent. But the survey released Monday actually marked a significant uptick from the prior IBD/TIPP poll last month, which hadsupport for Trump at just 34 percent. The company cited the president's decisions regardingNorth Korea and the confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch as potential reasons for hisapproval rating rise.

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"The president's recent achievements in foreign affairs have bolstered Americans' view of President Trump as a strong leader," Raghavan Mayur, president of TechnoMetrica Market Intelligence, said in a statement. "For instance, the airstrike against the Syrian airbase, along with Trump's handling of the situation with North Korea, have created within the public a renewed and positive sense of American leadership in the world. Also, Americans are encouraged by a number of Trump's domestic initiatives, such as his tax reform plan, his focus on job creationand the confirmation of Justice Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court."

IBD/TIPP polled 904 Americans fromApril 28 to May 4. Its survey hada margin of error of plus or minus 3.3 percentage points.

The data-focused website FiveThirtyEight, which calculates Trump's approval rating using a weighted average, hadthe presidentat 42.2 percent approval Monday. That figure has hovered between 40 percent and 42.5 percent since early April.

Overall, Trump's rating appears to have settled in the low 40s, which remains quite low when compared with his predecessors. Barack Obama had an approval rating of 66 percent at this point in his first term, while George W. Bushstood at 53 percentand Bill Clintonwas relatively close to Trump, at 45 percent.

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Donald Trump's Approval Rating Holds Relatively Flat at Historically Low Level - Newsweek

President Donald Trump says staying at his central New Jersey home causes less disruption than if he had spent the weekend at Trump Tower in New York, and saves taxpayers money. But does it?

On Friday the president tweeted, "Rather than causing a big disruption in N.Y.C., I will be working out of my home in Bedminster, N.J. this weekend. Also saves country money!" He'd arrived late Thursday at his home on his private golf course in the central New Jersey town of rolling hills and horse farms about 40 miles west of New York City.

He followed with a second tweet Saturday: "The reason I am staying in Bedminster, N.J., a beautiful community, is that staying in NYC is much more expensive and disruptive. Meetings!"

Trump is right that Manhattan gets tied in knots whenever the president or any other high-ranking dignitary visits. Roads are closed and access to the places where events are held is severely restricted, forcing New Yorkers to make detours that lengthen their already harried commutes. Law enforcement personnel flood those areas to provide security .

But the White House makes it hard for taxpayers to know anything about the costs. Trump and his aides are mum when asked for an accounting. Past attempts by government auditors to gauge the costs of presidential travel have been sketchy, fragmentary and outdated.

In a recent Fox News interview, Trump contended that when he stays at his homes in New Jersey or at the Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida , it causes less disruption and requires fewer security personnel because the properties are larger and easier to secure than if he were staying at Trump Tower in Manhattan.

In the first months of his term Trump has spent about half of his weekends at Mar-a-Lago, his private club. It is scheduled to close for the season next week, and the president is expected to shift weekend getaways to New Jersey.

Flying to either Florida or New Jersey for the weekend is a president's personal choice, but spending weekends away from the round-the-clock security of the White House adds to the cost to taxpayers.

It costs roughly $200,000 an hour to fly Air Force One, the modified Boeing 747 that the president typically travels on. There's also the cost of flying the presidential limousine or SUV to Trump's destination ahead of time so he can be whisked away when he lands.

White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said the cost is a built-in part of the presidency. "The bottom line is the president is the president no matter where he goes. And he doesn't get to control the level of costs in security that may come along with that."

While presidential security is dictated by the U.S. Secret Service, presidents do have control over where they conduct business, and Huckabee Sanders asserted that taking his team to New Jersey rather than New York saves money.

The mayor of Bedminster said a weekend trip there by Trump when he was still the president-elect cost nearly $4,000 in police overtime. With heightened security requirements now that Trump is president, Bedminster has estimated that it could spend $12,000 per day on his visits, and up to $300,000 over the course of the summer.

The New York Police Department has said it spends up to $146,000 a day to protect first lady Melania Trump and their son, Barron, living at Trump Tower until the school year ends. That's estimated to more than double when the president is there, officials said.

Palm Beach County, Florida, spends more than $60,000 a day when the president visits, mostly for law enforcement overtime.

A $1 trillion spending bill Trump signed Friday while in Bedminster includes $61 million to reimburse law enforcement agencies for the costs of protecting Trump and his family when they are at his private properties in New York and Florida. The bill would cover expenses incurred at Trump Tower and the Mar-a-Lago resort from the Nov. 8 election through September.

That bill also adds $58 million for additional Secret Service costs such as rent in Trump Tower and housing for agents at Mar-a-Lago.

Trump made it a point to suggest that he was working while in New Jersey, ending one of the tweets with "Meetings!"

A group of senior Trump advisers got off of Air Force One after it landed in New York, where Trump met Thursday night with Australia's prime minister and delivered a speech, but it was unclear whether any traveled with him to Bedminster. A photo of Trump playing golf Saturday appeared on social media.

Asked earlier Saturday whether Trump planned to play golf, the White House said only that he was having meetings and making calls. The White House did not respond to a later email seeking confirmation that he played golf after the photo surfaced.

It is the White House's practice to refuse to acknowledge that Trump played golf, even after photos of him at play on the course are published.

As a candidate, Trump excoriated President Barack Obama for playing golf almost every weekend when he was at the White House, and sometimes when he was out of town, and for not using those outings to conduct business. Obama's aides readily acknowledged that he was playing golf and regularly named the members of his foursome.

Read more:
Here's How Much It Costs Taxpayers for Donald Trump to Stay at His Weekend Getaways - Fortune

Donald Trump and Martha Stewart attend The New York Observer Relaunch Event on April 1, 2014 in New York City.

Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images

Last Updated May 8, 2017 12:33 PM EDT

Domestic diva Martha Stewart has a well-documented history of throwing shade, so it shouldn't be too much of a surprise that Stewart has now appeared to diss President Donald Trump.

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On Nov. 7th, Martha Stewart and Snoop Dogg will team up for a new show on VH1. Martha and Snoop's bond goes back to 2008, when the rapper guest-s...

In a photo posted on Instagram, it appears that Stewart is giving the middle finger to a portrait of Mr. Trump while flashing a peace sign at an adjacent portrait of her friend and colleague, Snoop Dogg.

Stewart posted a photo of herself throwing peace signs at both men, but another photo of her with a middle finger directed at Mr. Trump circulated on other Instagram accounts.

She wrote that she was at Freize New York, an art fair on Randall's Island in New York City.

The lifestyle mogul worked with Mr. Trump when she hosted her own season of "The Apprentice" in 2005; Mr. Trump continued to host his own version of "The Apprentice." She and Mr. Trump feuded in 2006 when they blamed each other for her season's demise.

"Having two 'Apprentices' was as unfair to him as it was unfair to me," she said at the time. "But Donald really wanted to stay on."

Mr. Trump responded, "I wish she would be able to take responsibility for her failure."

Stewart publicly announced that she was voting for Hillary Clinton during the 2016 presidential election.

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Martha Stewart appears to give Donald Trump the middle finger in photo - CBS News

So here's a pair of sentences we never thought we'd write: Does this video show Donald Trump driving around in his Rolls-Royce Phantom, listening to Taylor Swift? Yes,this is a video of Donald Trump driving around in his Rolls-Royce Phantom, listening to Taylor Swift.

The title of video, which was posted to Melania Trump's Facebook page back in December 2014, it shows just why Trump was tooling around listening to T-Swift: He's accompanied by his son Barron, who is sitting shotgun.

The video was brought back to the surface of the web and exposed to us via Axios's Sneak Peek newsletter, having been sussed out by reporter Jonathan Swan in response to a reference by conservative columnist of "Trump driving with his son." The search for the video was prompted by a reference by Trump friend and Republican consultant Roger Stone, who said he'd never seen the mogul behind the wheel of a motor vehicle. (Presumably, he meant one that was moving.)

We at The Drive, however, know better. Not only have we repeatedly chronicled the cars of The Donald, but we've also seen the pictures of him clambering out of his Lamborghini Diablo in Florida back in the Nineties. Granted, the pictures don't show him driving per se, but considering he seems to be alone next to the Lambo at the gas station, unless he had it trucked in for appearances, he must have driven it there himself. (And as anyone who's ever driven a Diablo knows, piloting that puppy isn't easyespecially for a man who's six-foot-three and probably weighs around 250 pounds.)

Excerpt from:
Watch Donald Trump Drive His Rolls-Royce While Listening to Taylor Swift - The Drive