The Nation Newspaper

Tag: Donald Trump

  • Trump top aide leaves campaign team

    The campaign manager for presumptive Republican presidential candidate, Donald Trump, is to leave his job.

    A campaign spokeswoman said Corey Lewandowski would “no longer be working with the campaign” and said the team was grateful to him “for his hard work and dedication.”

    The exact reason for Mr. Lewandowski’s departure is not yet clear, the BBC reports.

    The New York Times said the campaign was planning adjustments to the needs of the general election campaign.

    His departure comes as Mr. Trump, a New York businessman, faces strong resistance from senior members of his own party over his strident tone and his hardline immigration policy.

     

     

     

     

  • Orlando attack: No clear evidence of IS link – Obama

    There is no clear evidence that the Orlando gunman was directed by the so-called Islamic State group (IS), United States President, Barack Obama, has said.

    But the inquiry into the attack on the Pulse gay night club, in which 49 people were killed, is being treated as a terrorist investigation, he added.

    Meanwhile presidential contender, Donald Trump, has renewed his controversial call to ban Muslims entering the U.S.

    “They’re pouring in and we don’t know what we’re doing,” the Republican said.

    The .US authorities said gunman Omar Mateen pledged allegiance to IS shortly before the attack in Florida.

    However, the extent of his links to IS remains unclear, the BBC reports.

    Speaking in Washington, Mr. Obama said: “It does appear that at the last minute he [gunman Omar Mateen] announced allegiance to Isil [IS].

    “But there is no evidence so far that he was in fact directed.

    “This is certainly an example of the kind of home-grown extremism that all of us have been concerned about for a very long time.”

  • Former U.S presidents ‘will not endorse’ Trump

    Former United States presidents, George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush will not endorse Donald Trump’s candidacy for president, aides have told local media.

    This marks a first for the 91-year-old former president Bush, who had endorsed Republicans in the past five elections, the BBC reports.

    Republican politicians are struggling to define their support, or lack thereof, for Mr.Trump.

    Mr. Trump’s remaining opponents dropped out earlier this week leaving him as the presumptive Republican nominee.

    Both Bush men had previously campaigned this year for former Florida Governor, Jeb Bush, who exited the race in February.

    They had each supported past Republican presidential nominees – John McCain in 2008 and Mitt Romney in 2012.

    Although neither former president has openly attacked Mr. Trump or his policy proposals, George W. Bush made a veiled criticism at a campaign event for his younger brother saying, “The strongest person usually isn’t the loudest one in the room.”

    “I understand that Americans are angry and frustrated. But we do not need someone in the Oval Office who mirrors and inflames our anger and frustration,” he told the South Carolina audience.

     

     

     

  • Ohio governor Kasich quits U.S presidential race

    Ohio Governor John Kasich has dropped out of the presidential race after struggling to gain traction against Republican front-runner, Donald Trump.

    Mr. Kasich did not have a path to secure the nomination outright, but pledged to lobby for his candidacy during the Republican convention in July, the BBC reports.

    Mr. Trump holds a commanding lead and is closing in on the nomination.

    His likely opponent will be Democratic front-runner, Hillary Clinton, who lost the Indiana primary to Bernie Sanders.

    It was a surprise win for the Vermont senator who continues to attract huge crowds to his rallies, but his opponent has an almost insurmountable lead.

    Speaking to CNN about taking on Mr. Trump, Mrs. Clinton said he was a “loose cannon” who had ran a “negative, bullying” campaign.

    The New York businessman has made several controversial remarks ever since he launched his White House bid by labelling Mexicans as rapists and criminals.

    Several senior Republicans said on Wednesday they will not back him, with some saying they would prefer to vote for Mrs. Clinton.

    Mr. Kasich’s announcement, which will be made later but has been leaked to the United States media, clears Mr. Trump’s path although he was never a significant threat and only won his home state.

     

  • Trump nomination divides Republicans

    Top Republicans are divided on whether to support Donald Trump after the businessman all but secured the party’s presidential nomination.

    Some took to social media to disavow their membership in the party by burning their voter registration forms, the BBC reports.

    Others, though, started to fall in line behind the candidate, saying Mr. Trump is vastly preferable to Hillary Clinton, the likely Democratic nominee.

    Mr. Trump is deeply unpopular among many key voting blocs in the United States.

    “If we nominate Trump, we will get destroyed and we will deserve it,” South Carolina Senator, Lindsay Graham said on Tuesday after Texas Senator Ted Cruz dropped out of the race, effectively clearing a path for Mr. Trump.

    Others such as former Louisiana Governor, Bobby Jindal, who have been harsh critics of Mr. Trump in the past, said they would support him in the general election.

    “There’s a lot about Donald Trump that I don’t like, but I’ll vote for Trump over Hillary any day,” said Ari Fleischer, press secretary for former President George W Bush.

     

  • Trump, Cruz row before Indiana primary

    Republican presidential hopeful, Ted Cruz, has warned that America would “plunge into an abyss” if Donald Trump is elected as president.

    He spoke after Mr. Trump suggested Mr. Cruz’s father was connected to the man that killed President John F. Kennedy, the BBC reports.

    The New York tycoon is poised to deliver a crushing blow to Mr. Cruz as Indiana votes in the latest primary.

    Mr. Cruz’s advisers had targeted Indiana as the senator’s best hope of halting Mr. Trump’s march to the nomination.

    However, polls show Mr. Trump with a sizeable lead in the mid-western state.

    Mr. Cruz attacked Mr. Trump on Tuesday, calling the billionaire businessman “totally amoral,” “a pathological liar” and “a serial philanderer.”

    Responding, Mr. Trump said “Ted Cruz is a desperate candidate trying to save his failing campaign.

    “It is no surprise he has resorted to his usual tactics of over-the-top rhetoric that nobody believes.”

    Mr. Cruz and fellow candidate John Kasich are hoping to force a contested convention where party officials, not voters, choose the nominee.

    If Mr. Trump wins Indiana, the New York businessman will likely reach the required 1,237 delegates to secure the nomination and avoid such a scenario.

    Meanwhile, in the Democratic battle, polls show Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders locked in a tight race in Indiana.

    However, a Sanders win in Indiana would do little to erase Mrs. Clinton’s commanding lead.

    The Clinton campaign has shifted its focus to other states, opting not to actively campaign or spend money in Indiana.

    Mr. Trump told supporters on Monday that he is eager turn his attention to the general election.

     

  • Trump accuses China of trade ‘rape’

    Republican presidential front-runner, Donald Trump, has accused China of “raping” the United States, in renewed criticism of China’s trade policy.

    He told a rally in Indiana that China was responsible for “the greatest theft in the history of the world.”

    Mr. Trump, a billionaire businessman, has long accused China of manipulating its currency to make its exports more competitive globally, the BBC reports.

    This, he says, has badly damaged U.S businesses and workers.

    “We can’t continue to allow China to rape our country, and that’s what we’re doing,” he told the campaign rally on Sunday.

    “We’re going to turn it around, and we have the cards, don’t forget it,” he added. “We have a lot of power with China.”

    Mr. Trump, in his campaign manifesto, pledges to “cut a better deal with China that helps American businesses and workers compete.”

    He sets out four goals that include immediately declaring China “a currency manipulator” and putting “an end to China’s illegal export subsidies and lax labour and environmental standards.”

    Figures from the U.S government show the annual trade deficit with China was at an all-time high of $365.7bn (£250.1bn) last year.

     

  • Protesters delay Trump speech in California

    Hundreds of protesters broke through barricades and threw eggs at police outside a California hotel where Republican Party front-runner, Donald Trump, was due to address the state’s Republican convention.

    The demonstrations in the city of Burlingame temporarily delayed a speech by the billionaire businessman, the BBC reports.

    Because of the protest, Mr. Trump had to enter the hotel via a rear entrance.

    On Thursday, a police car had its windows smashed as Mr. Trump spoke inside a hall in the Orange County Fairgrounds in Costa Mesa. Some 20 arrests were made.

    The Trump campaign had to cancel several rallies in March after hundreds of protesters threatened to disrupt events in Chicago and St Louis.

    Before his speech on Friday, news helicopters showed Mr. Trump and his security detail crossing a motorway before entering the hotel via a side door.

    On stage, Mr. Trump joked about the protesters, saying “that was not the easiest entrance I ever made.”

    “I felt like I was crossing the border,” he said, and that he walked through “dirt and mud” to get to the building outside of San Francisco.

    Many of the protesters outside his speech were arguing against his positions on immigration.

    He has advocated building a border wall with Mexico which he says Mexico would pay for.

    He has also referred to Mexicans as “rapists” and criminals responsible for bringing illegal drugs into the United States.

  • Donald Trump as America’s Nemesis and Global Democracy’s Hemlock

    This  week  the   US  Republican Party presidential party front runner Donald Trump gave a foreign policy speech  outlining his world view on  when he becomes president of the USA and the international news media reacted as if either Trump had gone mad or did not know what he was talking about . Immediately he finished  , analysts and well  known pundits all over the world  tore his speech to shreds with words like contradictions , inconsistencies , mistakes and almost called the Trump foreign policy sheer buffoonery . I was horrified at such loathsome bias as  I watched the same  speech on CNN and  could not at all hide my admiration for its contents  and delivery by Trump . This  is because   I  found what he condemned  about the Obama foreign policy tallying with my criticisms of President Barak Obama’s foreign policy on this page in the last few  weeks and the danger of that for global peace in our time . I have  since however discovered that the hatred for the Trump foreign policy runs deep even in Nigeria among my friends who are sold on the idea that the Democratic Party of the US is for  blacks   while the Republican Party is for the rich and against blacks and that is what Donald Trump represents . When however you point out to them that gay rights and marriages which are anti African culture were  endorsed by the US Supreme Court   in a Democratic   Party  government   of Barak   Obama you are met with a loud silence and a sudden body language for a change of topic. Definitely both here and abroad  , especially in the US ,  the emergence of  Donald Trump as a possible US president has been   giving many people nightmares  whether they are immigrants ,politicians , Nigerians , Americans , Asians or  even ISIS or Boko Haram .

    That really is the truth and that is why the topic of the day is couched the way it is . I have decided to toe  the line of the western media who are lambasting Donald  Trump from their  own narrow  perspective and interests –   business , parochial and national . The difference in my own bias is that l Iike the Donald Trump speech they have condemned so much with the same fervor as their hatred albeit  for the same base reason as theirs which I concede and I will illustrate   here and now .

    Let me start by highlighting some of the criticisms leveled by Trump at the Obama Administration foreign policy . Trump said there was need to replace randomness with purpose , ideology  with strategy and chaos with peace . He said his foreign policy will be based on the principle of America first in politics and diplomacy . He traced the success of US foreign policy from the Cold War to the  collapse of the former Soviet Union after which   he said arrogance and mediocrity took over from logic . It  was here according to Trump that the US decided to export democracy to nations  that had no experience or interest in it . The US according  to Trump then veered off   course . America,  he said tore off the constitutions of nations and forced them into western democracies . The results he said were civil wars , religious militancy ,loss of American lives and the creation of a vacuum filled by ISIS . I have written like this if not worse on the Obama foreign policy . To rub it in,  as if in assent with me , Donald Trump said  he would not draw a line in the sand  that he would not keep on Syria like Obama did on chemical weapons on Syria and I cannot agree more .

    It is however in the insistence inherent in Donald Trump’s speech that he would not sew democracy or nurture it abroad that catches my fancy  and seems to me like  the death knell of democracy especially the type that George Bush Jnr planted in Iraq after the Iraqi Invasion of 2003 .This destabilized both Iraq and the Middle East and has given rise to ISIS and Boko Haram  as blood brothers or birds of the same feather in global terrorism . Chaos has since replaced peace like Donald Trump rightly pointed out . So I was thoroughly and totally shocked by the vitriol rained on Donald Trump’s foreign policy speech by the western media generally . How can Donald Trump a US success story  successful author , businessman , TV personality and politician be so vilified on his world view by his native  constituency and natural allies , I asked and the answer seem obvious . Donald Trump has spoken the truth from a position of strength  and wealth and it seems the American people are with him and have left the two main political parties stranded as onlookers at their own party . Something which they find unbelievable and incomprehensible even though it is lost in plain sight as their ultimate nemesis for having led the American people by the nose for too long from Washington and Wall Street . Now Donald  Trump is like their day of judgement and  doom and that is not quite palatable   as  the   brash  New Yorker has become their Nemesis and the American business  and political establishment  is   reeling like a punch drunk heavyweight champ about losing his title to a virtually unknown but brilliant , dancing , big lip like the great Muhammed Ali . Up Donald Trump ! .

    Let me now go into the other serious business of why I am happy that America under Trump will not sponsor democracy abroad . You really don’t  need to look far to  see the rot democracy as practiced a la US supervision has gotten the world . I will  illustrate briefly  with events in Nigeria, S Africa and Brazil just this last week .

    In Nigeria the profligacy of the last Jonathan Administration is unraveling in unbelievable acts of treasury looting and embezzlement that beggar description on a daily basis . The  amounts involved said to be in individual hands and pockets are mind bogging . The trial of the Senate President and his singular and bold fight against  the judicial and legal system can never be a plus for any democracy . The  legislature has become immune to the wishes of the electorate that put it there at the ballot box in the last elections and is at daggers drawn with the executive over a budget that is the life blood  of the nation for any development or meaningful progress . Fulani herdsmen have made incursions into farm lands in the nation’s southern part and the security forces have not been able to stop them which is akin  to the prospect of a civil war the sort of which Donald Trump highlighted in his speech on the exportation of democracy to foreign lands by previous US Administrations. Nigerians have never experienced the dividends of democracy  as practiced  here except the euphoria at election time which vaporizes once elected representatives arrive in Abuja only to forget till next elections the natives or Nigerians who voted them to power in the hot sun of election and voting days .

    In Brazil the incumbent President Dilmar Rousseff is on the verge of imprisonment for corruption and her strategist at the last two elections she won  has been arraigned for taking bribes .Yet till now the world  thought of Brazil as a success story of democracy . Similarly  the world respected majority rule as practiced by the S African nation after emancipation from the clutches of a racist apartheid system especially after the great Mandela withdrew from office after one term when  he could have been president for life . Now the incumbent President Jacob Zuma has been ordered by a high court in S Africa to face over 700 charges   on  corruption and  money laundry which the nation’s National  Prosecuting Authority buried to enable him contest election in 2009 to become president . The court has ruled this week that the decision not to prosecute in 2009   was irrational . Yet Zuma is in his second term and has  a solid majority with the ruling ANC to see him through . It is as if majority rule or victory at the polls is a license to loot the treasury in African nations . Such democracy is highly dubious and unjust and if Donald  Trump is not interested in such democracies as promoted  by recent and present   US governments ,  then he has my applause and I wish him God’s speed to be elected as the next president of the US . Once again  long live the Federal Republic of Nigeria .

  • Trump to pursue ‘America First’ policy

    Republican presidential hopeful, Donald Trump, has detailed his foreign policy in a speech, a day after sweeping to a win in five United States primaries.

    Mr. Trump said he would pursue an “America First” policy.

    He called the foreign policy of President Barack Obama’s administration “a complete and total disaster.”

    On Tuesday, Mr. Trump called himself the Republican “presumptive nominee” after his primary wins.

    He claimed victories in Connecticut, Delaware, Rhode Island, Maryland and Pennsylvania.

    Before the speech, he promised it would not be a “Trump doctrine,” and that he would retain some flexibility to make changes if elected.

    Much of his speech focused on what he called the “weakness, confusion and disarray” of the Obama administration, and his hope of reversing it.

    Before the audience in Washington, he vowed to “shake the rust off America’s foreign policy.”