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CNNs Jake Tapper doesnt seem to care that President Donald Trump actively dislikes his network. And the news anchor doesnt think anyone else at CNN has a problem with it, either.

In an interview with Late Show host Stephen Colbert Wednesday, Tapper talked about CNNs contentious relationshipwith the White House.Last week, Politico reported the Trump administration was icing out the network by refusing to send officials and spokespersons for interviews. On Tuesday night, Tapper had a fiery exchangewith Trump surrogate Kellyanne Conwayin which he called out the White House for repeatedly calling CNN fake news.

Whats it like in the halls over there knowing that the president actively doesnt like your network? Colbert asked. How do people feel over there?

I dont think anybody cares, Tapper responded to applause.

The journalist said he didnt think former President BarackObamawas a particular fan of his, either.

The job is to not be liked, Tapper said. My job is to tell the truth, deliver the facts and hold people accountable.

Watch Tappers full interview in the video below.

The rest is here:
Jake Tapper Really Doesn't Care If Donald Trump Hates Him - Huffington Post

California schemin' Photo by AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais; illustration by Matt Tinoco

One of President Donald Trump's favorite threats is cutting federal government funding to states, cities, and other entities that refuse to cooperate with his policies. On January 25, he issued an executive order titled "Enhancing Public Safety in the Interior of the United States," which warns "sanctuary cities" that they could lose federal funds if they continue to protect undocumented residents from deportation. After an appearance by Breitbart's Milo Yiannopoulos at the University of California-Berkeley was canceled amid violent protests, Trump tapped out the following tweet:

And during a pre-Super Bowl interview with Fox News' Bill O'Reilly, Trump doubled down on California: "If we have to, we'll defundWe give tremendous amounts of money to California. California in many ways is out of control, as you know."

Here's the thing: Trump can't just yank funding from states or cities or universities that upset him. Yet the matter is far from resolved: Several cities and one state have already filed lawsuits against the Trump administration over its threats, all but ensuring a battle that could end up before the Supreme Court. Here's what you need to know about the legal issues behind this fight.

The short answer is that Congress, not the White House, has ultimate power over the federal purse. The president's budget requests may direct Congress how to allocate federal spending, but the matter is not entirely in his hands. And he has no authority to withhold or rescind spending that's already been authorized.

Hypothetically, Congress could pass a law or budget bill that puts conditions on the federal funding provided to, say, out-of-control California. But numerous Supreme Court decisions protect state and local governments against this type of vindictive policymaking. When the federal government raised the national minimum drinking age to 21 in 1984, it prodded states into enforcing the new law by stipulating that any state that didn't comply would lose 5 percent of its federal highway construction funds. South Dakota wasn't happy about this and filed a lawsuit against the federal government. South Dakota v. Dole worked its way up to the Supreme Court, which found that the federal government can apply conditions to fundingwith a few limits. One of those limits is the stipulation that any conditional spending must not be "coercive." As Justice William Rehnquist wrote, there is a point when "pressure turns into compulsion," and a state might unconstitutionally be forced to comply because it needs the federal money to operate. Additionally, conditional funding can only apply to new money, not funding that's already been committed.

As a practical matter, states and cities receive federal money through hundreds of different appropriations bills and programs. If Trump and congressional Republicans wanted to effectively defund California, they would have to modify each federal spending provision that affects the state. Conceivably, they could pass a bill that instructs the Department of the Treasury to stop sending money to Sacramento, but that would spark an enormous constitutional crisis.

Yesbut again there are limits. When the Supreme Court ruled on the constitutionality of Obamacare in 2012, it also considered the law's expansion of state Medicaid programs. The Affordable Care Act had threatened to cut off all Medicaid funding to states should they fail to expand the program in accordance with its standards. Citing South Dakota v. Dole, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in his opinion that this ultimatum was "a gun to the head" of the states. For many states, federal Medicaid money comprises more than 10 percent of total revenue, and losing that money would effectively cripple them. Six other justices agreed with Roberts on this point, and Medicaid expansion was left to the states.

The 10th Amendment of the Constitution says that any power not delegated to the federal government becomes the responsibility of the states. This is the basis of America's federal system, whereby states have the freedom to pass laws that are distinct from those passed by Congress.

The Supreme Court has long interpreted the 10th Amendment as the foundation for a check on federal power. Take the case of Printz v. United States. After Congress passed the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act in 1993, a Montana sheriff named Jay Printz challenged its requirement that local law enforcement agencies conduct background checks on gun buyers. He argued that Congress was acting outside of its authority to compel state-level officials to enforce federal law. In 1997, five Supreme Court justices, led by Antonin Scalia, agreed.

The Printz decision underscores what Duke University law professor Matthew Adler calls "an external constraint upon congressional poweranalogous to the constraints set forth in the Bill of Rightsbut one that lacks an explicit textual basis." In other words, decades of Supreme Court rulings on the 10th Amendment have formed an effective check on federal power by the states. And that could mean that just as Printz was allowed to resist conducting federally mandated background checks, a court could find that officials in sanctuary states and cities are allowed to avoid enforcing federal immigration law.

In the past, the 10th Amendment has provided cover for advocates of states' rights and efforts to resist federal civil rights efforts such as integrating schools. More recently, the 10th Amendment became a rallying cry for the Obama administration's opponents. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) is a big fan of the 10th, and tea partiers and "Tenthers" invoked the amendment to push back against Obamacare and even call for secession.

Now it's liberals who are warming to the promise of the 10th Amendment. San Francisco's recently filed federal lawsuit against the Trump administration argues that, defunding aside, the anti-sanctuary-city executive order violates the 10th Amendment. The city claims that it is within its rights to not cooperate with federal authorities under the "anti-commandeering" precedent set in Printz, which says higher jurisdictions may not "commandeer" local resources to enforce federal rules. Likewise, Massachusetts has also invoked the 10th amendment against Trump's "Muslim ban" executive order. Several Boston suburbs have also cited the 10th in their lawsuits against the administration's sanctuary city order, as has Santa Clara County, California, the home of Silicon Valley. Last week, Portland's mayor issued a statement that the 10th Amendment protects its sanctuary city policies too.

The feds depend on state and local officials to enforce their policies. The federal system is set up to encourage cooperation between state and federal officials. If that falls apart, Trump will have difficulty enacting his agenda. As Yale law professor Heather Gerken recently argued on Vox, "Even if President Trump spends enough political capital to win this or that battle against blue cities and states, he cannot win the war. The federal government doesn't have the resources to carry out Trump's policies."

The funding question remains up in the air since Trump hasn't given any indication to how, exactly, he would defund cities and states. However, given that California is in the process of passing legislation that effectively makes the entire state a sanctuary for undocumented immigrants, and given that its elected officials have been vocal about their opposition to Trump, we could see a California v. U.S. case in the near future if Trump tries to follow through. On Monday, state Attorney General Xavier Becerra reiterated his commitment to pushing back against Trump's defunding threat. "We will fight anyone who wants to take away dollars that we have earned and are qualified for simply because we are unwilling to violate the Constitution under these defective executive orders," he said.

More here:
Here's Why Donald Trump Can't Defund "Out-of-Control" California - Mother Jones

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Donald Trump - The New York Times - nytimes.com

President Donald Trump's travel ban had been in effect for less than 24 hours when, 10 days ago, he offered a smiling review from the Oval Office.

Indeed, millions of Americans with access to television and internet, and the thousands protesters at international arrivals terminals around the country, were bearing witness to the effects of his executive order.

"(Trump) said the press doesn't tell you that, doesn't like to report that -- the press doesn't like to tell it like it is," said CNN senior media correspondent Brian Stelter. "In fact, the murder rate is not at a 45 year high. It has ticked up slightly in the last couple years, that's cause for concern, but the murder rate is much lower than it was, for example, in the 70s, 80s or 90s."

In a tweet on Monday, Trump offered his worldview in stark terms.

"Any negative polls are fake news, just like the CNN, ABC, NBC polls in the election," he said. "Sorry, people want border security and extreme vetting."

In the reality described by Trump, a federal judge who ruled to halt the administration's travel ban would, along with the entire "court system," be responsible for a potential terrorist attack.

The dynamic in the White House mimics Trump's personality, one former campaign official told CNN. He is someone who can lose interest quickly and turn to the next issue without much thought.

It's most apparent on Twitter, where the President will bounce between a variety of often unconnected agenda items and personal grudges.

Speaking on Monday, Trump built on this construction, placing the press in cahoots with the judiciary -- another willful enabler of global terrorism.

"You've seen what happened in Paris and Nice," Trump said during a visit to US Central Command headquarters in Tampa. "All over Europe, it's happening. It's gotten to a point where it's not even being reported, and in many cases, the very, very dishonest press doesn't want to report it. They have their reasons, and you understand that."

Those reasons -- whatever the President thinks they may be -- remained unspoken.

What "you understand" could be anything, though the clear implication was that a monolithic media dedicated to repelling Trump, and thwarting the popular will, had launched a campaign to hide reality and cover-up for terrorists. For fans of the conspiracy theorist radio host Alex Jones and his Infowars, the fundamental argument was familiar.

Pressed to provide material proof of his claims, the White House released on Monday evening a list of 78 attacks it said "did not receive adequate attention from Western media sources." Among the incidents listed were the killings in Orlando and San Bernardino, California -- two bloody domestic attacks that received wall-to-wall coverage online, on television and in newspapers and magazines for days on end.

Over the past week, top Trump aide Kellyanne Conway has also muddied the waters in what increasingly appears to be a concerted effort to stoke anxiety over the presence and entrance of refugees into the US.

The "Bowling Green" yarn was delivered in the midst of a pitched debate over Trump's travel ban and suspension of the US refugee program. Days earlier, the White House -- acting within their rights -- had fired Acting Attorney General Sally Yates, a holdover from the Obama administration after she instructed federal attorneys not to defend the executive order in court.

The attack fit into a consistent narrative of undermining or seeking to delegitimize political opponents or groups operating outside the administration's narrative framework.

White House press secretary Sean Spicer kept up the drumbeat on Monday, telling Fox News that nationwide protests against Trump and the travel ban were being organized and subsidized by some unnamed benefactor.

"Protesting has become a profession now," he said, without proof. "They have every right to do that, don't get me wrong, but I think that we need to call that what it is: it's not these organic uprisings that we've seen through the past several decades."

He offered no evidence and there would have been little time for protesters to plot the demonstrations; Trump's executive order was, according to the President's own tweet, purposefully delivered as a surprise.

"If the ban were announced with a one week notice," he wrote, "the 'bad' would rush into our country during that week."

With a grassroots protest movement dismissed, the nation's highest ranking law enforcement officer's loyalty questioned and the media accused of conspiring to cover up terror attacks, the Trump administration's reality is on a collision course with a divided nation.

CNN's Dan Merica contributed to this report.

The rest is here:
Donald Trump's universe of alternative facts - CNN

WASHINGTON A federal appeals court is expected to rule on President Donald Trump's U.S. travel ban on people from seven Muslim-majority countries as soon as Wednesday, one day after questioning whether the order unfairly targeted people over their religion.

The temporary ban faced tough scrutiny on Tuesday by a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which is weighing a challenge to the order.

During a more than one-hour oral argument, the panel pressed a government lawyer over whether the Trump administration's national security argument was backed by evidence that people from the seven countries posed a danger.

Judge Richard Clifton, a George W. Bush appointee, posed equally tough questions for a lawyer representing Minnesota and Washington states, which are challenging the ban. Clifton asked if a Seattle judge's suspension of Trump's policy was "overbroad."

The 9th Circuit said at the end of Tuesday's session that it would issue a ruling as soon as possible. The court earlier had said it would probably rule this week. Ultimately the matter is likely to go to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The appeals court is looking, however, at whether the Seattle court had the grounds to halt Trump's ban, while the case challenging the underlying order proceeds.

Trump's Jan. 27 order barred travelers from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen from entering for 90 days and all refugees for 120 days, except those from Syria, whom he would ban indefinitely.

Trump, who took office on Jan. 20, has defended the measure as necessary for national security.

The order, the most divisive act of Trump's young presidency, sparked protests and chaos at U.S. and overseas airports. Opponents also assailed it as discriminatory against Muslims in violation of the U.S. Constitution and applicable laws.

A federal judge in Seattle suspended the order last Friday, and many travelers who had been waylaid by the ban quickly moved to travel to the United States while it was in limbo.

Trump was criticized for later questioning the "so-called judge," and on Wednesday tweeted: "If the U.S. does not win this case as it so obviously should, we can never have the security and safety to which we are entitled. Politics!"

The legal fight ultimately centers on how much power a president has to decide who cannot enter the United States and whether the order violates a provision of the U.S. Constitution that prohibits laws favoring one religion over another, along with relevant discrimination laws.

(Additional reporting by Emily Stephenson, Timothy Gardner, David Shepardson and Julia Edwards Ainsley in Washington, Mica Rosenberg and Leela de Kretser in New York, and Dan Levine, Kristina Cooke and Peter Henderson in San Francisco; Writing by Howard Goller, Amanda Becker and Susan Heavey; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn)

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Appeals court weighs Trump's travel ban after tough scrutiny - Reuters