Day 4: The Upside Down.

1/ The first days inside Trump’s White House: Fury, tumult and a reboot. President Trump had just returned to the White House on Saturday from his final inauguration event, a tranquil interfaith prayer service, when the flashes of anger began to build. (Washington Post)

2/ Spicer: ‘Negative’ Trump coverage is ‘demoralizing’ The White House press secretary pushed back at what he said was negative coverage of the Trump White House, describing the media narrative as “demoralizing. It’s not just about a crowd size. There’s this constant theme to undercut the enormous support he has,” Spicer said of Trump. (The Hill)

3/ No White House leaks like this… until now. The Trump White House not only leaks like crazy. It casually leaks the most intimate and humiliating details about the President - hurt feelings, ego injury, childlike behavior, self-destructive rages over tweets, media failure to credit his own grandiosity. We have simply never seen this level of leaking, with this little respect for the President’s dignity or reputation, this early. (Talking Points Memo)

4/ Without evidence, Trump tells lawmakers 3 million to 5 million illegal ballots cost him the popular vote. Days after being sworn in, President Trump insisted to congressional leaders invited to a reception at the White House that he would have won the popular vote had it not been for millions of illegal votes, according to people familiar with the meeting. Trump has repeatedly claimed, without evidence, that widespread voter fraud caused him to lose the popular vote to Hillary Clinton, even while he clinched the presidency with an electoral college victory. (Washington Post)

5/ Why Trump’s staff is lying. One of the most striking features of the early Trump administration has been its political uses of lying. The big weekend story was the obviously false claim that Trump pulled in the largest inauguration crowds in American history. This raises the question of why a leader might find it advantageous to promote such lies from his subordinates. (Bloomberg)

6/ The Right is building a new media “upside down” to tell Trump’s story. Armed with its own set of facts, the right has created a parallel media universe that’s risen all the way with Trump to the White House. (Buzzfeed)

7/ Trump pays a fence mending visit to the CIA after weeks of mocking U.S. intelligence officials. Trump told staffers that he’s now with them, “a thousand percent.” (NPR)

8/ An official said the visit “made relations with the intelligence community worse” and described the visit as “uncomfortable.” (CBS News)

9/ Trump names his Inauguration Day a ‘National Day of Patriotic Devotion’. (Washington Post)

---

« Previous edition Next edition »

• email
• facebook
• twitter
• reddit

---

---