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President Donald TrumpDonald TrumpMerriam-Webster again needles Trump over spelling fumbles Senate Dems request DOJ watchdog probe Sessions recusal Social media users mock Trump for misspelling 'hereby' in multiple tweets MOREs speech at last weeks CPAC meeting was a stirring reiteration of themes deployed throughout his campaign and in his inaugural address. Like a rock star packaging a series of concerts, the President has undertaken an American carnage tour. Everywhere he goes, he takes pains to remind his listeners that the country he now leads is a mess. At home and abroad, a mess.

At the center of the mess that Trump conjures is the problem of violent crime. At CPAC, he again highlighted it and promised to work with the Department of Justice to being (sic) reducing violent crime.

Trumps Chicago would seem to be worse off today than it was during the notorious crime era of the Roaring Twenties. And, listening to the President you would think that Chicago is Americas most dangerous city.

That honor actually goes to Detroit, and a recent study based on crime rates and economic data did not even find Chicago to be one of the "25 Most Dangerous Cities in America.

It turns out that 7 of the 10 Americas most dangerous cities are found in states that Trump won. These are cities like Memphis, Tennessee; St. Louis, Missouri; Birmingham, Alabama; Cleveland, Ohio; and Indianapolis, Indiana. The last should especially draw a wince from Trumps Vice President, Mike PenceMike (Michael) Richard PenceGOP rep: Trump or Mike Pence will be president for next 4 years The Hill's 12:30 Report What Donald Trump learned from Barack Obama MORE, who was Indianas governor from 2013 to 2017.

These are, of course, the kind of inconvenient facts that Donald Trump likes to avoid.

If we think about crime in the country as a whole, there are more inconvenient facts. FBI crime statistics estimated that 1,197,704 violent crimes were committed around the nation in 2015. While that was an increase from 2014 figures, the 2015 violent crime total was 0.7 percent lower than the 2011 level and 16.5 percent below the 2006 level.

The murder rate shows a more dramatic decline: in 2014 there were 4.5 murders for every 100,000 people in the US. That figure has fallen consistently since its high point of 10.2 in 1980. Todays murder rate is lower than it has been since 1950 when it was 4.6 per 100,000 people

But these inconvenient facts make no dent on Trumps current law and order rhetoric which he began ratcheting last July, after the tragic mass shooting of police officers in Dallas, Texas. Accepting the Republican nomination, he pointed out that America was shocked to its core when our police officers in Dallas were brutally executed. An attack on law enforcement is an attack on all Americans. I have a message, he said, to every last person threatening the peace on our streets and the safety of our police: when I take the oath of office next year, I will restore law and order our countryIn this race for the White House, I am the Law and Order candidate.

Others have noted how this turn echoes the law and order campaigns of President Richard Nixon. True, but I think Trump also learned an important political lesson from an insight Barack ObamaBarack ObamaLeft wing protests only strengthen the Right Important economic lessons from the Land of the Rising Sun What Donald Trump learned from Barack Obama MORE offered during the 2008 Presidential campaign, when he imprudently noted that older, white men in the United States seemed angry and politically confused, such that they would vote against their own economic best interest.

As Obama put it, You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them And it's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy toward people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.

Sarah Palin made fun of Obamas wording in the 2008 campaign, but it expressed a sentiment that was all too well understood by the Republican candidate in 2016. Donald Trump saw an enormous opportunity to capitalize on those frustrations if he could wrap himself in the flag, patriotism, the Second Amendment, and the rhetoric of law and order.

He has relied on this rhetoric to deliver a coded message about race and to stoke racial fear, while allowing him to deny allegations of racism or that he is responsible for escalating racial and ethnic tensions in the US.

Lest there be any doubt about Trumps intentions, his current message echoes views vividly expressed in an ad he ran in New York newspapers after the arrests of one Latino and four black men (known as the Central Park Five) in the rape and beating of a white jogger in 1989.

The ad was titled BRING BACK THE DEATH PENALTY, BRING BACK OUR POLICE! It read: Let our politicians give back our police departments power to keep us safe. Unshackle them from the constant chant of police brutality which every petty criminal hurls immediately at an officer who has just risked his or her life to save anothers. We must cease our continuous pandering to the criminal population of this City. Give New York back to the citizens who have earned the right to be New Yorkers.

How little things have changed for Donald Trump since the 1980s. Once again, it is far easier for the President to praise American law enforcement and to rail against bad dudes and bad hombres than it is to address the real causes of crime and violence in American cities or to restore Americas manufacturing base and improve the economic lives of our workers.

Americans need to come to terms with this shrewd but cynical move. We need to understand the political work that Trumps law and order rhetoric does for him, but also the damage it does to the social fabric of the nation he leads. We must resist its divisive allure and recognize that the most significant threat to law and order in the United States is found not on the streets of Chicago, but in the Oval Office.

Austin Sarat is Associate Dean of the Faculty and William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Jurisprudence & Political Science at Amherst College. He is author or editor of more than 90 books on American law and politics.

The views expressed by contributors are their own and are not the views of The Hill.

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What Donald Trump learned from Barack Obama - The Hill (blog)

Miami Herald

President Trump returns to Mar-A-Lago Friday Miami Herald President Donald Trump returns to South Florida again Friday and will stay at his Mar-A-Lago estate in Palm Beach. Trump arrived in Orlando at 1:08 p.m. and was greeted by Gov. Rick Scott. U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio and Education Secretary Betty DeVos were ... and more »

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President Trump returns to Mar-A-Lago Friday - Miami Herald

New York Times

How Alec Baldwin Gets Into Character as Donald Trump New York Times Alec Baldwin told Jimmy Kimmel that he was winging it the first time he impersonated Donald Trump on Saturday Night Live. Credit ABC. Welcome to Best of Late Night, a rundown that lets you sleep and lets us get paid to watch comedy. What do you ... Watch Alec Baldwin Reveal the Key to Donald Trump Impression on 'Kimmel'RollingStone.com Donald Trump Writes an SNL EpisodeThe New Yorker Alec Baldwin Is Writing an Entire Book as Donald TrumpVanity Fair Deadline -The Guardian -New York Times all 129 news articles »

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How Alec Baldwin Gets Into Character as Donald Trump - New York Times

Many of those in the media gave a hand to President Donald Trump for his recent address to Congress. The only problem is he mightve needed two hands.

Jimmy Fallon talked about Trumps speech in his opening monologue on Wednesday, saying that since the president didnt trash the media or brag about winning the election, It was the first time people playing a Trump drinking game ended up sober.

Too bad for Trump, a more presidential tone didnt save him from making one terrible, horrible, no-good mistake: He used two hands to drink a glass of water.

And just like that, Trump handed perfect material to the internet on a silver platter.

The sad thing, that was actually a shot glass, Fallon joked.

Its no secret the presidents hands are not known to be yuuuge, but is it fair to make fun of Trump for double-fisting one drink?

NBC

(OMG, he double-fisted one drink).

At this point, Trumps hands have become legend.The Hollywood Reporter even did research to prove the presidents hands were actually smaller than average.They did research, people!

While body-shaming people is not cool, poking fun at the presidents hands seems relatively innocuous compared to the numerous reports of Trump mocking people for their looks and, in some cases, disabilities.

Sure, using two hands to hold a drink gives it more stability. And if you got them, why not use them?

But for a guy who has seemed especially sensitive to such jokes, this was the worst mistake he couldve made, hands down.

(Seriously, dude, put your hands down.)

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Donald Trump Made The Worst Mistake During His Speech To Congress - Huffington Post

Three weeks before Election Day, Donald Trump Jr. left the campaign trail and the country to speak at a private dinner in Paris organized by an obscure pro-Russia group that promotes Kremlin foreign policy initiatives and has since nominated Russian President Vladimir Putin for the Nobel Peace Prize.

A key organizer of the event later told reporters she flew to Moscow to brief a senior Russian official about the session.

The White House referred question about the Presidents son to the Trump Organization. A spokeswoman for Trump business did not respond to questions from ABC News about why Trump, junior flew to France for the session during a critical phase of the Presidential campaign or who arranged for him to attend, whether he was paid, what was discussed, and if anyone vetted the group before he went.

The group sponsoring the session, the Center of Political and Foreign Affairs (CPFA), was founded by a wealthy French businessman and his partner, who are reported to have made major investments in Russia.

They are openly linked with the Russians, said Renaud Girard, a French opinion writer who served as moderator of the session Trump attended. They dont hide it at all.

Thirty people joined the Trump family scion for the private Oct. 11 gathering at the Ritz Hotel, according to Girard.

The younger Trumps appearance briefly made news after the event, including in a Wall Street Journal report that quoted one of the hosts, Randa Kassis. Kassis told the newspaper she traveled to Moscow shortly after the U.S. election and discussed details of the Trump dinner with Mikhail Bogdanov, the deputy head of Russias foreign ministry.

Congressional sources told ABC News Trump Juniors jaunt to Paris remains one of a number of episodes some confirmed and others unproven that have fueled suspicions about the possibility that there was communication between the Trump team and the Russian government during the closing months of the 2016 presidential campaign.

In France and in Washington diplomatic circles, those familiar with the French think tank circuit told ABC News they had never heard of the Center of Political and Foreign Affairs (CPFA), which organized the dinner. The organization has no fixed address and neither of the founders, Fabian Baussart and Kassis, responded to calls and emails seeking an interview.

I have been dealing with French think tanks and research institutes for 35 years and Ive never heard of it, said Daniel S. Hamilton, the executive director of the Center for Transatlantic Relations at the Johns Hopkins Schools of Advanced International Studies. That tells you something.

Marie Mendras, a political scientist in the field of Russian and post-Soviet studies at the Paris School of International Affairs, said she was reluctant to weigh in. I can only say that Fabien Baussart is known in France for his close Kremlin and Russian business connections, she said in an email exchange.

No one involved with CPFA would respond to phone calls or questions. And unlike in the U.S., France does not require non profit organizations to make information about their financing publicly available. Hamilton was one of several experts who noted that the Russian government is believed to have spent considerable money to fuel the European think tank and opinion circuit, though they were all equally explicit to note that they did not know if there was any connection between those Russian activities and CPFA.

Money plays a big role here through front organizations, he said. But its hard to ever know.

Published reports in French newspapers and intelligence journals indicate that both Baussart and Kassis have frequently touted their Russian ties. News reports in France described Baussart as a former lobbyist for Russian oligarchs in France. A news service called Intelligence Online reported that Baussart organized efforts to lobby the French authorities and, in particular, the French intelligence services.

Kassis is described in French news reports as a Syrian-born activist who has sought Russian support for her position on Syria. She has posted photos online showing her in meetings with senior Kremlin officials. Just this week, a report by the English-language Russian web site Sputinik News said Kassis was in Geneva and told reporters she was meeting with Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov.

Last September, the CPFA attempted to raise its profile by organizing what it described as peace talks between Armenia and Azerbaijan, two former Soviet republics with a long-simmering, frozen conflict born out of the collapse of the Soviet Union. Those countries signed a truce in 1994, according to the BBC, but sporadic fighting has persisted.

The organization invited former U.S. diplomat James Rubin, at the time a strong supporter of Hillary Clintons, and a British politician and former diplomat who served as Leader of the Liberal Democrats, Paddy Ashdown to help facilitate the talks. But the weekend was canceled. Rubin instead flew to France and joined the group for one of their salon-style dinners. Rubin declined comment.

Ashdown told ABC News he initially accepted the invitation, but then became suspicious of the organizers and backed out.

It was clearly an attempt to instrumentalise me for their own very dubious purposes. I told them I wasnt born yesterday and that the Serbs used to try that and didnt succeed, and they were probably cleverer, Ashdown said in an email. Result: the engagement was cancelled along with the peace talks.

Others who have attended the dinners, Girard said, are former U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan, and the organization website also shows a visit from the former head of British intelligence, Richard Dearlove. Neither replied to emails seeking comment.

One dignitary who spoke to the group told ABC News he was hired through a speakers bureau and was paid well in excess of the typical fee an amount in the tens of thousands of dollars. He asked not to be quoted by name because he did not wish to stoke any ill will with Kassis and Baussart.

Girard said that on the evening Trump Jr. attended, the guests included ambassadors to France, lawyers, bankers and business executives. Conversation at the dinner was cordial and focused on a range of international affairs. Girard said the gathering occurred at a time when most of the media had dismissed Trumps chances of winning the American election as highly unlikely. The one thing that amazed me was that he was confident that his father would win, Girard said.

ABC News' Paul Blake and Cho Park contributed to this report from New York City.

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For Donald Trump Jr., lingering questions about meeting with pro-Russia group - ABC News