Week 5 began with the media commenting on Trump’s first press conference as president. Apparently the 77 chaotic minutes were a sight to behold.
The Russia story of the week revolved around White House aids circulating a peace plan being pushed by a pro-Russian politician in Ukraine that would allow for the U.S. to drop Russian sanctions. The Kremlin had to deny any knowledge of the plan. This is a good Who’s Who of the Russia connections in Trump’s orbit.
By week’s end, CNN reported that Reince Priebus had asked the FBI to publicly deny reports that the Trump campaign was in regular contact with senior Russian officials before the election. The FBI refused.
And David Leonhardt of the New York Times opines on five possible explanations for Trump’s Russophilia.
Trump named his new National Security Advisor, Lt General McMaster.
This bizarre story about Trump and Sweden shows how cavalier Trump is about foreign relations, as well as how he uses friendly cable news clips as facts to support his assertions, no matter how baseless those new clips are.
Trump’s Education and Justice Department reversed the Obama Administration’s policy that nondiscrimination laws allowed transgender students to use the bathroom of their choice in schools. What is interesting here is that Ed. Secretary Betsy DeVos was against the reversal but was overruled by Jeff Sessions. She was successful in adding language that says schools have an obligation to protect transgender students from bullying.
Finally, NASA announced the discover of seven exoplanets orbiting a red dwarf 40 light years away.
I accidentally watched the news conference when my regular programming was interrupted. The news conference was bizarre. Trump was attacking the press and was still in the campaign with Hillary Clinton. He blames fake news for his connections with Russia. We need an independent investigation of Russia Gate!!🇺🇸🇺🇸