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SAUL LOEB

"He considers exercise misguided, arguing that a person, like a battery, is born with a finite amount of energy."

The good people at The New Yorker have published a lengthy feature exploring the tantalizing possibility that President Trump could be removed from office, via either the impeachment process or the Twenty-Fifth Amendment, before the conclusion of his term. (Our friend Allan Lichtman, an American University political science professor and stone-cold elections genius, discussed both of these subjects in an interview with GQ last month.) Right now, though, is not the time to discuss the machinations of arcane constitutional processes or tackle esoteric debates about the role impeachment plays in ensuring the continued legitimacy of the republic. No, we are here to discuss the revelations contained in this breathtaking paragraph:

There has been considerable speculation about Trumps physical and mental health, in part because few facts are known. During the campaign, his staff reported that he was six feet three inches tall and weighed two hundred and thirty-six pounds, which is considered overweight but not obese...Trump himself says that he is not a big sleeper (I like three hours, four hours) and professes a fondness for steak and McDonalds. Other than golf, he considers exercise misguided, arguing that a person, like a battery, is born with a finite amount of energy.

Yes, President Trump, an adult man who has access to the entire body of human scientific knowledge via the same device he primarily uses to disseminate his stream-of-consciousness takes in 140-character spurts, apparently believes that the billions of people around the world who regularly engage in some form of physical activity are idiots that are slowly and voluntarily killing themselves. As the Washington Post's Michael Kranish and Marc Fisher explained in a recent book:

After college, after Trump mostly gave up his personal athletic interests, he came to view time spent playing sports as time wasted. Trump believed the human body was like a battery, with a finite amount of energy, which exercise only depleted. So he didnt work out. When he learned that John ODonnell, one of his top casino executives, was training for an Ironman triathlon, he admonished him, "You are going to die young because of this."

In a 2015 New York Times profile, Trump disclosed the "evidence"scare quotes used for reasons that will immediately become apparenton which he relies for this worldview, instantly turning transmogrifying into the human embodiment of the "wow makes u think" meme.

Trump said he was not following any special diet or exercise regimen for the campaign. "All my friends who work out all the time, theyre going for knee replacements, hip replacementstheyre a disaster," he said.

Alternatively, this sage observation could be related to the fact that Donald Trump is a 70-year-old overweight male, and that many of his friends are also in that sweet spot for joint replacement, but let's not let a little rational thinking get in the way of a worldview so astonishingly facile that it makes the flat-earth truthers look like a regular pack of Neil DeGrasse Tysons.

He exerts himself fully by standing in front of an audience for an hour, as he just did. "Thats exercise."

For decades, American presidents have maintained a (mostly) proud tradition of exercising in office. Sure, William Howard Taft was so, um, imposing that he had to have a custom bathtub installed in the White House. But since then, President Clinton's runs on the National Mall and his gloriously mid-'90s jogging suits have become the stuff of legend, while President George W. Bush was a bona fide psychopath who would actually wait to start his run until Washington D.C. hit a sweltering 100 degrees. President Obama was a notorious gym rat and a lifelong pickup basketball player. And in a sentence so cool that it physically pains me to type it, Teddy Roosevelt survived an assassination attempt after a bullet failed to penetrate his chest muscles. (Congratulations to those of you who just screamed "GOALS" in public and are now enduring withering glares from strangers.) I'm no doctor, but it seems unlikely that Donald Trump's "standing is the new high-intensity interval training" mantra stacks up very well against the fitness regimens of his predecessors.

Admittedly, it is possible that the president's dubious opinion about the merits of exercise is a tongue-in-cheek line he crafted to make light of his sincere aversion to the practice, sort of like when I explain to bewildered strangers that my important burrito-eating obligations prevent me from looking like a shirtless Cristiano Ronaldo. But given the Commander-in-Chiefs well-documented affection for other wild theories for which there exists no evidence, giving him the benefit of the doubt here might be a bit too generous. On the off-chance that anyone requires clarification or confirmation on this point: Exercise is good, and no matter what Donald Trump says or how long he stands in front of an audience for, you should do it.

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Donald Trump's Profoundly Stupid Views on Exercise Are Perfectly American - GQ Magazine

Major networks including CNN, ABC, CBS and NBC are refusing to air a Donald Trump 2020 campaign ad that attacks mainstream media.

The 30-second spotfocuses on the presidents first 100 days in office, touting his confirmation of Supreme Court justice Neil Gorsuch as well as pushing forth of the Keystone Pipeline construction and slashing regulations. You wouldnt know it from watching the news, a voiceover says.

It also notably features the words fake news, a phrase Trump often uses to undermine reporting with which he disagrees, over the faces of well-known journalists such as Rachel Maddow of MSNBC and George Stephanopoulos of ABC. CNN was the first network to nix the ad, according to The Wrap.

Now, the Trump campaign is responding. On Friday, presidential campaign consultant and quelle surprise the commander in chiefs daughter-in-law Lara Trump called it an unprecedented act of censorship in America that should concern every freedom-loving citizen in a post written on DonaldJTrump.com.

Apparently, the mainstream media are champions of the First Amendment only when it serves their own political views, she said in a statement.

On Thursday night, Variety noted, Lara appeared on Fox News to promote the campaign.

Its a great ad and it highlights all the wonderful things that have happened that you dont hear about every day because some people dont watch Fox News, she told hostSean Hannity.

CNN issued its own statement in response to the ad earlier this week, saying that if the inaccurate fake news graphic was removed, there would be no problem airing the spot.

The mainstream media is not fake news, and therefore the ad is false and per policy will be accepted only if that graphic is deleted, the network said.

NBCUniversal and ABC offered similar explanations for their rejection of the ad, per Deadline, citing inconsistency with advertising guidelines as the reason for its removal.

Read the original here:
Unsurprisingly, Networks Refuse To Air Donald Trump's 'Fake News' Ad Against Them - Huffington post (press release) (blog)

President Donald Trump was simply saying nice things to an ally when he called Australia's universal healthcare system better than the U.S. system, and he does not think his country should adopt a similar approach, the White House said on Friday.

"The president was complimenting a foreign leader on the operations of their healthcare system," White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said at a news briefing. "It didn't mean anything more than that."

Trump raised eyebrows when he told Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull on Thursday in New York, "You have better health care than we do."

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Trump spoke shortly after he led a White House rally with Republicans from the House of Representatives, who had just passed legislation to overturn much of former President Barack Obama's signature healthcare law and move further away from a guarantee of universal coverage.

That measure, opposed by Democrats, must clear the Senate before Trump can sign it into law.

"Of course the Australians have better healthcare than we doeverybody does," Trump tweeted on Friday. "ObamaCare is dead! But our healthcare will soon be great."

Independent scorekeepers at the Congressional Budget Office have not yet analyzed the bill, but they estimated an earlier version would have led to 24 million fewer Americans with insurance coverage than under current law.

Australia's government plays a larger role in its health system. The country provides free hospital treatment and subsidized medical care for all residents through a publicly funded program. Roughly half of Australians choose to buy private coverage, which provides them with greater choices.

Huckabee Sanders said Trump's remarks do not mean he thinks the United States should adopt a similar system.

"I think he believes that they have a good healthcare system for Australia," she said. "What works in Australia may not work in the United States."

Originally posted here:
Donald Trump Does Not Think US Should Adopt Australian-Style Healthcare Despite His Praise - Newsweek

Like his approval rating, tweeter-in-chief Donald Trump has seen his Twitter engagement drop during his first 100 days in office.

New data analysis conducted by the Associated Presshas shown thatlikes, retweets, replies and quote tweets on Trumps postshave been trending downwarddropping by the thousandssince he took office in January.

Before his 50th day in office, a little over 32 percent of his tweets averaged around 60,000 engagements including retweets, replies, and quote tweets, according to the AP.But after day 50, no day has reached that level of engagement. Before then, 60 percent of the days tweets got over 50,000 engagements. After, only three havenine percent.

Read also:We Found the 9 Tweets Donald Trump Has Deleted Since He Was Sworn In as President

The analysisconducted in partnership with the media analytics nonprofit Corticolooked at the 495 tweets from Trumps personal account, @realDonaldTrump. It also pulledinformation from other users profiles, networks and tweets to assess their age, gender and political leanings in order to reveal moretrends and insights regarding who engages with Trumps tweets and how. According to the study:

The analysis also revealed some interesting information about specific Trump tweets:

Now the questions is, will Trump tweet this is just fake news?

Read the rest here:
Donald Trump's Tweets Are Getting Fewer Likes Now That He's POTUS - Observer

But the President joked Thursday during a White House ceremony that the sisters have something he deeply desires: smart attorneys.

"Do you mind if I use your lawyers?" Trump said with a grin, as a nun in a gray habit laughed. "I could use some good lawyers, too."

The Little Sisters are represented by the Becket Fund, a nonprofit firm that focuses on religious liberty, who helped the nuns gain a key exemption from the Affordable Care Act.

That case -- and religious freedom writ large -- is what brought together the nuns, the President, and a few dozen religious leaders in the Rose Garden on Thursday. The stated purpose was Trump's signing of an executive order, which he said would prevent the federal government from "bullying and even punishing Americans for following their religious beliefs."

Both liberals and conservative agree, however, that Trump's order accomplishes less than advertised. Robert George, a Princeton University professor and leading expert on religious liberty, called the executive order "meaningless" and "a betrayal."

Still, this President makes news in bunches, not bites, and Thursday was no exception.

In addition to signing the executive order, Trump announced he would travel later this month to the Vatican, setting up his first face-to-face meeting with Pope Francis. He also said he will visit Saudi Arabia, a source of extremist Islamic ideology, where the President said he would "begin to construct a new foundation of cooperation" to combat terrorism.

The trip will pose a series of diplomatic challenges for Trump, for whom the world of faith remains unfamiliar turf. Among the religious leaders in the Rose Garden on Thursday, Trump seemed to enjoy himself -- he joked that he prefers their company to Congress -- but it was a bit like watching a tourist stumble into the Sistine Chapel.

Trump referred to two of the country's most powerful Catholics as "my cardinals." He mused that he'd be "out enjoying my life" instead of helping evangelicals if he had lost the election. And he accused HUD Secretary Ben Carson of flouting a law that only applies to the head of non-profit organizations, which Trump should have known is not possible, since it was the focus of the executive order he signed just a few minutes later.

For weeks, rumors had swirled that the Trump administration was considering a sweeping executive order that would grant religious believers, schools and corporations extensive exemptions to federal laws they disagree with, from LGBT protections to reproductive rights.

The 3-page executive order Trump signed on Thursday wasn't that -- not even close, leaving many conservative Christians looking like the boy who wanted a BB gun for Christmas and instead got a pair of socks.

The Heritage Fund's Ryan Anderson, a proponent of strong legal protections for religious liberty, called the executive order "woefully inadequate."

The ACLU, with whom social conservatives rarely agree, agreed, saying the executive order wasn't even worth a lawsuit.

The order's most controversial section directs the federal government not to take adverse action against any "individual, house or worship or other religious organization" that speaks about political issues from a moral perspective.

Why is that important? Since 1954, when Congress passed the Johnson Amendment, religious groups and other nonprofits have been prohibited from participating "directly or indirectly" in political campaigns at risk of losing their tax exemptions.

"Under this rule, if a pastor, priest or imam speaks about issues of public or political importance, they are threatened with the loss of their tax exempt status -- a crippling financial punishment," Trump said on Thursday. "Very, very unfair. But no longer."

Trump had promised to "destroy" the Johnson Amendment after several of his key evangelical advisers, such as Liberty University President Jerry Falwell Jr., told him it threatens their free speech.

Several evangelical groups, including the Alliance Defending Freedom, which organizes the "Pulpit Freedom" protests, said Trump's religious freedom promises remain unfulfilled.

"Though we appreciate the spirit of today's gesture," said Michael Farris, the group's CEO, "vague instructions to federal agencies simply leaves them wiggle room to ignore that gesture."

The US Catholic Bishops, in their statement on Thursday, didn't even mention the Johnson Amendment.

Instead, the bishops focused on brief language in Trump's order promising regulatory relief for groups like the Little Sisters of the Poor, which want exemptions from the Affordable Care Act's contraception mandate.

They called the executive order a good beginning.

You know it's a busy news day -- the House also voted to repeal and replace Obamacare -- when an announcement that two of the most powerful people on the planet would soon meet gets barely a blip of attention.

The President said Thursday that he will finally meet Pope Francis later this month, part of a trip that will also take him to the homeland of two of the three Abrahamic faiths: Israel and Saudi Arabia. (The Vatican visit will give Trump an Abrahamic Trifecta.)

The Vatican later confirmed the meeting between the Pope and President, saying it is scheduled for May 24 at the Apostolic Palace.

Trump's aim on the trip is to reach out across religions and countries to combat extremism, senior administration officials told CNN. But it's unclear how he will be received in at least two of his stops.

Both sides backed down. A Vatican spokesman said the Pope wasn't talking in particular about Trump. Trump said, "I don't like fighting with the Pope. I like his personality; I like what he represents."

Likewise, Trump's denigration of Islam and his travel ban on six Muslim-majority nations would seem to make him persona non grata in Saudi Arabia, though the country was not included on the list.

In his announcement on Thursday, Trump said he hopes, while in Saudi Arabia, "to construct a new foundation of cooperation and support with our Muslim allies to combat extremism, terrorism and violence."

By Thursday, Trump's tone had changed. He praised Saudi Arabia's role as the custodian of Islam's two holiest sites, in Mecca and Medina, adding another odd detail to an already bizarre day.

More here:
Donald Trump's big, bizarre religious day - CNN