Michael Crowley

“He should have been killed years ago, another president should have gotten him,” Trump said of the ISIS chief.

A day after he formally announced the most high-profile U.S. counterterrorism action since the 2011 killing of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, Trump continued to revel in its success, and reprised his blunt language from a day earlier.

“He was a sick and depraved man and now he’s dead — he’s dead as a doornail,” Trump said of al-Baghdadi, drawing some laughter from his audience. “And he didn’t die bravely, I can tell you that.”

In a typically freewheeling speech to the annual conference of the International Association of Chiefs of Police that lasted more than an hour, Trump struck a stern law-and-order tone as he lashed out at the city’s police chief, condemned local gun violence, railed against unauthorized immigrants, and denounced an apparently staged assault on actor Jussie Smollett.

Trump said that Smollett, who made a questionable claim last year that he was assaulted in Chicago by Trump supporters in red “Make America Great Again” hats, “beat himself up.” (Smollett was charged with filing a false police report before the charges against him were dropped as past of a deal with prosecutors.)

Trump drew an unlikely line between Smollett’s alleged hoax and the House Democratic inquiry now underway against him back in Washington. “It’s a scam, just like the impeachment of your president is a scam,” Trump said.

Trump did not explain how exactly his predecessors had failed in their pursuit of al-Baghdadi. The ISIS leader was imprisoned by U.S. forces in Iraq in 2004, during the administration of George W. Bush, but was seen as an insignificant figure at the time. He was released after less than a year and then dropped out of view for several years. U.S. officials did not appreciate his import as an insurgent leader until 2009, early in the administration of President Barack Obama.

Al-Baghdadi became a top target of U.S. forces deployed by Obama to Iraq and Syria after he led ISIS’ seizure of large swaths of territory in those countries in 2014. And U.S. officials say that Trump’s abrupt withdrawal of U.S. troops from northeastern Syria earlier this month had complicated planning already underway for the treacherous raid on al-Baghdadi.

But his critique echoes that of the mother of Kayla Mueller, a young American aid worker who was abducted in Syria in 2013 and enslaved and raped by al-Baghdadi. She was killed under murky circumstances in February 2015.

“I still say Kayla should be here, and if Obama had been as decisive as President Trump, maybe she would have been,” Mueller’s mother, Marsha Mueller, told The Arizona Republic on Sunday.

Trump also reprised past criticisms of Chicago’s Democratic political establishment, pointing to the city’s long-running epidemic of gun violence. “All over the world they’re talking about Chicago,” Trump said. “Afghanistan is a safe place by comparison.”

Trump noted that Chicago’s police superintendent, Eddie T. Johnson, was not in attendance. Last week, Johnson released a statement saying that he could not “in good conscience stand by while racial insults and hatred are cast from the Oval Office or Chicago is held hostage because of our views on new Americans.”

Trump repeatedly insulted Johnson by name, in some cases drawing applause. “He’s not doing his job,” Trump said, citing the city’s homicide rate.

Writing on Twitter shortly after Trump spoke, Chicago’s mayor, Lori E. Lightfoot, denounced his “insulting, ignorant buffoonery.”

“Rather than belittle Chicago’s communities with hateful and dishonest rhetoric, he needs to go back to D.C. and face his fate,” Lightfoot wrote, adding that she stood by Johnson.

Trump was introduced at the event by the president of the police chiefs group, Paul Cell, who called him “the strongest supporter of law enforcement that this profession has ever seen.”

After his remarks, Trump headed to a round table with supporters and a private fundraising lunch at the Trump International Hotel and Tower in downtown Chicago. He was scheduled to returned to Washington on Monday afternoon for a Halloween event on the South Lawn of the White House.

This article originally appeared in

Trump Says Past Presidents Should Have Killed ISIS Leader al-Baghdadi

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump told a gathering of police chiefs in Chicago on Monday that his predecessors should have killed the murderous Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who blew himself up during a U.S. raid on his compound in Syria on Saturday.

“Now the press is trying to sell the fact that I wanted a Moat stuffed with alligators and snakes, with an electrified fence and sharp spikes on top, at our Southern Border,” Trump posted on Twitter. “I may be tough on Border Security, but not that tough. The press has gone Crazy. Fake News!”

Trump amplified his complaints during an Oval Office appearance with President Sauli Niinisto of Finland. But he attributed the article to reporters from The Washington Post rather than The Times. “It’s written by Washington Post people, so you know it’s inaccurate,” he said. “You know it’s probably a fraud.”

Taking aim at the owner of the The Post, the Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos, Trump said that Bezos “ought to be ashamed of himself because what they do to his reputation — I think maybe it’s probably no good anyway, but what they do to his reputation with The Washington Post is a disgrace.”

The article, which appeared in Wednesday’s newspaper, was written by the Times reporters Michael D. Shear and Julie Hirschfeld Davis, and excerpted from their forthcoming book, “Border Wars: Inside Trump’s Assault on Immigration,” to be published on Tuesday by Simon &amp; Schuster. The Washington Post had no role in either the article or the book.

“The article, an adaptation from Julie Davis and Michael Shear’s forthcoming book, was based on interviews with more than a dozen White House and Trump administration officials,” Eileen Murphy, a Times spokeswoman, said in a statement. “We are confident in the accuracy of the reporting.”

The Times article also reported that Trump “wanted the wall electrified, with spikes on top that could pierce human flesh.” But the president singled out for scorn the idea that “I wanted sharp spikes at the top” of border fencing, so that “it goes piercing through their skin.”

“Never said it,” he added. “Never thought of it.”

But two weeks ago, in a visit to the border in San Diego, Trump was asked whether he wanted his barrier to “have the spikes at the top.” “I do,” he responded.

In December, the president also tweeted an illustrated image of a proposed barrier that included a close-up insert showing it topped with spear-shaped spikes.

Trump similarly rejected the idea that he had expressed a desire that the barrier be electrified — or “electrocuted,” as he put it.

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump on Wednesday angrily denied a New York Times article that said he privately discussed fortifying barriers along the Mexican border with a reptile-filled moat to deter illegal border crossings.

Trump Denies Considering a Border Moat

Sending fresh mixed signals about his view of the chant directed at Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., Trump shared video of the episode posted by the commentator, Katie Hopkins, who has said “Islam disgusts me” and who last year appeared to link a rabbi’s pro-migrant work to the mass shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh.

Hopkins was celebrating the moment in Greenville, North Carolina, on Wednesday, suggesting that the crowd’s chant could be a new slogan for Trump’s reelection campaign. “Send her back is the new lock her up,” she wrote, referring to a refrain from the 2016 campaign directed at Trump’s Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton. “Well done to #TeamTrump,” she added.

Trump, who has shifted his account of how he responded to the chant, posted Hopkins’ tweet on his own feed while adding commentary that placed some distance between himself and his supporters that night in Greenville. “As you can see, I did nothing to lead people on, nor was I particularly happy with their chant. Just a very big and patriotic crowd. They love the USA!” Trump wrote early Saturday.

A day after the Greenville rally, Trump falsely claimed that he had tried to interrupt the chant, something clearly disproved by the video. Speaking to reporters Friday, he declined an opportunity to criticize the chant, calling his supporters “incredible patriots” and saying he was unhappy that Omar “can hate our country.”

It is unclear whether Trump was aware of the background of Hopkins, a right-wing agitator whose attacks on Muslims have largely exiled her from the mainstream news media. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/20/us/politics/trump-send-her-back.html" id="86600b56-9d5d-3fa0-a1bf-2579c87ac96c">The New York Times</a>.

Trump Sends New Mixed Signals on 'Send Her Back' Chant

BRIDGEWATER, N.J. — President Donald Trump on Saturday extended the debate over a chant of “send her back!” at his campaign rally in North Carolina this past week when he retweeted a right-wing British commentator who has drawn repeated condemnation over a long history of anti-Muslim remarks and for casting blame on a Jewish leader for provoking a synagogue shooting.

Hopkins was celebrating the moment in Greenville, North Carolina, on Wednesday, suggesting that the crowd’s chant could be a new slogan for Trump’s reelection campaign. “Send her back is the new lock her up,” she wrote, referring to a refrain from the 2016 campaign directed at Trump’s Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton.

“Well done to #TeamTrump,” she added.

Trump, who has shifted his account of how he responded to the chant about Omar, posted Hopkins’ tweet on his own feed while adding commentary that placed some distance between himself and his supporters that night in Greenville.

“As you can see, I did nothing to lead people on, nor was I particularly happy with their chant. Just a very big and patriotic crowd. They love the USA!” Trump wrote early Saturday.

The chant followed Trump’s attack on Omar and three of her fellow Democratic congresswomen of color — Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan — in which the president called on the lawmakers to “go back” to their countries. All of them are American citizens, and all but Omar, a Somali refugee, were born in the United States.

A day after the Greenville rally, Trump, under pressure from congressional Republicans and even his own daughter, falsely claimed that he had tried to interrupt the chant, something clearly disproved by the video. Speaking to reporters Friday, he declined an opportunity to criticize the chant, calling his supporters “incredible patriots” and saying he was unhappy that Omar “can hate our country.”

It is unclear whether Trump was aware of the background of Hopkins, who is a notorious right-wing agitator and former columnist for The Daily Mail whose attacks on Muslims in particular have largely exiled her from the mainstream news media. The White House did not respond to a request for comment.

Trump has often amplified, through retweets, the voices of white nationalists, fierce critics of Islam, conspiracy theorists and other activists and commentators from the far-right fringe.

In May, Trump retweeted a conspiracy-theory account under the handle Deep State Exposed — whose Twitter profile claims 10 retweets by the president in all — that declared: “The ‘elite’ proclaim America must submit to Islam or else!!! #Trump2020.” That month he also retweeted a message ending with an OK Hand emoji, which has become a symbol of the white nationalist movement.

After a terrorist attack in May 2017 at an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester, England, Hopkins tweeted, “We need a final solution Manchester.” Soon after that, she left a job as a talk-show host with LBC radio in London.

After a Tunisian man living in France killed 86 people in 2016 by driving a truck through a crowd in Nice, France, Hopkins incited another backlash by calling for mass deportations of Muslims. “I am not Islamophobic,” she wrote. “Islam disgusts me. This is entirely rational.”

After the mass shooting last year at the Tree of Life synagogue that left 11 people dead, Hopkins suggested that the killer, who expressed fury online over a Jewish charity’s support for Muslim immigrants, had been provoked.

“Look to the Chief Rabbi and his support for mass migration across the Med,” she wrote. “There you will find your truths.”

It was unclear to whom Hopkins was referring, but Britain’s most senior rabbi, Ephraim Mirvis, has advocated welcoming immigrants from south of the Mediterranean Sea.

In response to an online uproar Saturday over the president’s retweet of her post, Hopkins followed up with another message.

“Call me what you wish. Islamophobe. Bigot. Racist. Vile. It matters not,” she wrote. “What matters is the fight back for our Christian culture we desperately need to defend.”

Sending fresh mixed signals about his view of the chant directed at Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., Trump shared video of the episode posted by commentator Katie Hopkins, who has also said “Islam disgusts me” and appeared to blame a Jewish leader’s pro-migrant work for a mass shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh last year.

BRIDGEWATER, N.J. — President Donald Trump on Saturday extended the debate over a chant of “send her back!” at his campaign rally in North Carolina this week when he retweeted a right-wing British commentator with a long history of anti-Muslim remarks, including a call for a “final solution,” that has drawn repeated outrage and condemnation.

It is unclear whether Trump was aware of the background of Hopkins, who is a notorious right-wing agitator and former columnist for The Daily Mail whose attacks on Muslims in particular have largely exiled her from the mainstream news media. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

<h1>GREENVILLE, N.C. — President Donald Trump road-tested his attacks on four Democratic congresswomen Wednesday, casting them as avatars of anti-American radicalism and reiterating his call for them to leave the country, in a preview of a slash-and-burn reelection strategy that depicts Trump as a bulwark against a “dangerous, militant hard left.”</h1>

“These left-wing ideologues see our nation as a force for evil,” Trump told a packed arena here.

To roaring applause, the president railed against what he called “hate-filled extremists who are constantly trying to tear our country down.”

“They don’t love our country,” he said. “I think, in some cases, they hate our country. You know what? If they don’t love it, tell them to leave it.”

In recent days, similar comments by Trump have been met with repugnance across the country. But the capacity crowd in an arena at East Carolina University seemed to savor them. After Trump reeled off several controversial comments made by one of the four congresswomen, Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, including ones that he depicted as sympathetic to al-Qaida, the crowd started up a rousing chant of “Send her back! Send her back!”

It was the latest sign that the president’s plan for winning a second term in office involves playing to racial and nationalist themes that shock the consciences of many Americans but seem to delight his most ardent supporters.

Trump doubled down on his previous calls for the four congresswomen — Omar, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Rashida Tlaib of Michigan and Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts — to “go back” to their countries of origin, even though all but one were born in the United States and all four are citizens. It left no doubt that he was undaunted by condemnations of his remarks as racist, including a Tuesday vote by the House.

After Trump’s rally ended, Omar retweeted a comment by Jon Favreau, a former speechwriter for President Barack Obama, saying that the crowd’s chant of “Send her back!” was “one of the most chilling and horrifying things I’ve ever seen in politics.”

Above that statement, she quoted poet Maya Angelou, writing in part: “You may kill me with your hatefulness, But still, like air, I’ll rise.”

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/17/us/politics/trump-rally-greenville-nc.html" link="null" target="_blank">The New York Times</a>.

At North Carolina rally, Trump bets on divisive attacks as way to bolster reelection bid

To roaring applause, the president railed against what he called “hate-filled extremists who are constantly trying to tear our country down.”

To roaring applause, the president lit into what he called “hate-filled extremists who are constantly trying to tear our country down.”

In recent days, similar comments by Trump have been met with repugnance across the country. But the capacity crowd here in an arena at East Carolina University seemed to savor them.

It was the latest sign that the president hopes to win a second term in office by playing to racial and nationalist themes that shock the consciences of many Americans, but seem only to delight his most ardent supporters.

Trump doubled down with relish on his previous calls for the four congresswomen — Reps. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Rashida Tlaib of Michigan and Ayanna S. Pressley of Massachusetts — to “go back” to their countries of origin, even though all but one were born in the United States and all four are citizens. It left no doubt that he was undaunted by furious condemnations of his remarks as racist, including a Tuesday vote by the House.

After Trump reeled off several controversial comments made by Omar, including ones that he depicted as sympathetic to al-Qaida, the crowd started up a rousing chant of “Send her back!”

Wednesday night’s event was billed as a “Keep America Great” rally — a boastful variant of Trump’s 2016 campaign slogan, “Make America Great Again.”

“Big Rally tonight in Greenville, North Carolina,” the president tweeted early Wednesday, saying he would play up economic growth and the booming stock market in a state that has narrowly tilted right in the past two presidential contests.

Many Republicans, including some of Trump’s advisers, wish he would stick to those themes, saying they think that he is overshadowing an economic success story by engaging in name-calling and divisive cultural clashes.

But while the president did devote time to the recent positive economic growth, and took credit for data showing that China’s gross domestic product is growing at its slowest rate in 27 years, he was most animated when attacking his Democratic rivals, particularly Omar, Ocasio-Cortez, Tlaib and Pressley, who are collectively known as “the squad.”

Trump denounced Ocasio-Cortez for branding federal migrant detention centers along the southwestern border “concentration camps,” saying she had, in effect, called border agents Nazis. And he recalled the way Tlaib had used what he called a “vicious” expletive when she vowed in January that Trump would be impeached.

“That’s not somebody that loves our country,” the president said.

Trump also ridiculed the 2020 Democratic presidential candidates, like mocking the name of Pete Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, and saying that former Vice President Joe Biden had “choked” in the last Democratic primary debate after Sen. Kamala Harris of California challenged him on the issue of busing.

Depicting the 2020 Democrats as a hapless and left-wing lot, Trump delivered what may have been his core pitch: “Tonight, we renew our resolve that America will never be a socialist country. A vote for any Democrat in 2020 is a vote for the rise of radical socialism and the destruction of the American Dream — frankly, the destruction of our country.”

Trump also boasted about an afternoon vote in the House on a resolution to impeach him that had been introduced by Rep. Al Green, D-Texas. The measure, opposed by House Democratic leaders wary of a potential backlash, failed 332-95.

“We just received an overwhelming vote against impeachment, and that is the end of it,” Trump said after his arrival to the rally. “Let the Democrats now go back to work.” The vote did not preclude the possibility of future impeachment action.

Trump first announced the rally shortly after House Democrats set Wednesday as the date for former special counsel Robert Mueller to testify about his report on Russian election interference. That was widely seen as an effort by the president to counterprogram that testimony, which has since been delayed.

During his speech Wednesday, he only briefly mentioned the investigation, denouncing it as “a hoax,” and never mentioned Mueller.

Trump carried North Carolina in 2016 with 49.8% of the vote to Hillary Clinton’s 46.2%. The state also voted Republican, for Mitt Romney, in 2012, after Barack Obama won it narrowly in 2008.

In his remarks before leaving Washington, the president responded to a question about Omar, who has faced scrutiny for filing tax records with her first husband, her brother, while legally married to her second.

An investigation of public records and state documents by The Minnesota Star Tribune last month could not conclude whether Omar had married her brother for immigration benefits, a rumor that has run rampant in the conservative blogosphere. Omar has denied that claim. Trump accepted the opportunity to weigh in on the subject.

“There’s a lot of talk about the fact that she was married to her brother,” the president said. “I know nothing about it,” he said, adding that “I’m sure that somebody would be looking at that.”

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/17/us/politics/trump-rally-greenville-nc.html" id="77c1ebf6-9d01-3a6e-a677-0f43bedb1e5d">The New York Times</a>.

Trump Steps Up Attack on Congresswomen, to Roars of Supporters

GREENVILLE, N.C. — President Donald Trump road-tested his attacks on four Democratic congresswomen Wednesday, casting them as avatars of anti-American radicalism and reiterating his call for them to leave the country, in a preview of a slash-and-burn reelection strategy that depicts Trump as a bulwark against a “dangerous, militant hard left.”

Trump steps up attack on congresswomen, to roars of supporters

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Michael Crowley

Articles written by the author

Trump Says Past Presidents Should Have Killed ISIS Leader al-Baghdadi

Trump Denies Considering a Border Moat

Trump Sends New Mixed Signals on 'Send Her Back' Chant

Trump Sends New Mixed Signals on 'Send Her Back' Chant

Trump Sends New Mixed Signals on 'Send Her Back' Chant

Trump Sends New Mixed Signals on 'Send Her Back' Chant

At North Carolina rally, Trump bets on divisive attacks as way to bolster reelection bid

Trump steps up attack on congresswomen, to roars of supporters