William McRaven delivers a 2014 commencement address at the University of Texas in Austin. He planned and directed the raid that led to the death of Osama bin Laden. President Trump attacked him in an interview that aired Sunday. (University of Texas at Austin/AP)
THE BIG IDEA: Donald Trump’s insults of war heroes and military families who criticize him are a feature, not a bug, of his presidency.
Bill McRaven, a retired Navy SEAL and Special Operations commander who oversaw the killing of Osama bin Laden and the capture of Saddam Hussein, is just the latest veteran to face Trump’s ire. “Fox News Sunday” host Chris Wallace asked the president about McRaven’s comment that Trump referring to the free press as “the enemy of the people” is the greatest threat to democracy. Rather than respond to the substance of this critique, Trump dismissed McRaven as a “Hillary Clinton fan” and an “Obama backer.” Then he said the four-star admiral should have caught bin Laden earlier.
“Wouldn’t it have been nice if we got Osama bin Laden a lot sooner than that?” the president said. “Everybody in Pakistan knew he was there.”
The president’s counterpunching betrayed a lack of basic knowledge about how these kinds of operations work. A former deputy director of the CIA, Michael Morell, noted that it was never McRaven’s job to find bin Laden:
A former director of the CIA and NSA, retired four-star Air Force Gen. Michael Hayden, also wondered why Trump hasn’t taken out other terrorist leaders who are in hiding:
McRaven recently stepped down as chancellor of the University of Texas system to battle leukemia.
“I did not back Hillary Clinton or anyone else," he said in a statement to CNN. “I am a fan of President Obama and President George W. Bush, both of whom I worked for. I admire all presidents, regardless of their political party, who uphold the dignity of the office and who use that office to bring the nation together in challenging times. I stand by my comment that the President's attack on the media is the greatest threat to our democracy in my lifetime. When you undermine the people's right to a free press and freedom of speech and expression, then you threaten the Constitution and all for which it stands.”
(McRaven also criticized Trump this summer for revoking former CIA director John Brennan’s security clearance in an op-ed for The Washington Post.)
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| Trump on fake news, freedom of the press |
-- Trump, who gave himself an “A+” for his overall performance as president in the Fox interview, routinely claims that he’s a champion for those who have served in uniform. “Nobody has been better at the military,” Trump said last month. “I have done more for the military than any president in many, many years.”
“I think the vets, maybe more than anybody else, appreciate what we are doing for them,” he added during an event at the White House last week.
-- But Trump often hasn’t lived up to his rhetoric. Among other things, he never apologized to John McCain before he died. The president said the late Arizona senator was not a war hero because he got captured. When retired Marine Corps Gen. John Allen endorsed Clinton in 2016, Trump blasted the former commander of the NATO-led mission in Afghanistan as “a failed general.”
-- Thanks to Trump, more than 5,000 American G.I.s who would have spent Thanksgiving with their families will instead be separated from them – deployed at the southern border, waiting around for the arrival of a caravan of migrant families from Central America.
“He likes to pound his chest and talk tough, but he has not served our nation in uniform,” said Rep.-elect Jason Crow (D-Colo.), a former Army Ranger who served three tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. “They’re going to be spending yet another holiday away from their families in tents without running water.”
Crow is one of at least nine Democrats who won House seats this month who served in the armed forces, intelligence services or in national security roles at State or DOD. When they get seated in January, they plan to launch an investigation into whether Trump’s politically motivated deployment wasted taxpayer resources, according to Karoun Demirjian and Dave Weigel.
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| Cindy McCain on political climate: 'The level of discourse is really awful' |
-- Last Monday, on Veterans Day, Trump suggested that ballots cast by active duty members of the military who are deployed overseas should not be counted in Florida. He said that the state “must go with election night” numbers and not count new ballots that arrived afterward. He said this four days before the deadline, under Florida law, for military ballots to arrive that had been postmarked by Nov. 6.
-- The same day, he broke with tradition and – for the second year in a row – did not visit Arlington National Cemetery on the holiday. That was even after he took heavy criticism for skipping a Saturday ceremony at the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery in France, the final resting place for more than 2,200 Americans who were killed in World War I – mostly at the Battle of Belleau Wood. The White House blamed rain, but the leaders of France, Germany and Canada still showed up.
-- Two years into the job, Trump still has not visited U.S. troops in a combat zone – and he canceled a planned trip last week to see some of the troops he deployed to the border. In the Fox interview, Trump made a rare acknowledgement that he erred by blowing off Arlington on Veterans Day. “I should have done that,” he said. “I was extremely busy on calls for the country, we did a lot of calling as you know.” He also hinted that a plan to visit a war zone is in the works and said he hasn’t been able to go so far because he’s been so busy.
Trump, who avoided serving in Vietnam by claiming he had bone spurs in his feet, has gone golfing on more than 100 days of his presidency. He said in 1997 that avoiding sexually transmitted diseases while promiscuously galivanting around New York City in the 1970s was “my personal Vietnam.”
-- “Trump recently has signaled discontent with the top retired generals serving in his administration, raising questions about whether he is souring on the military brass in his orbit,” Paul Sonne and Phil Rucker report. “Earlier this year, he derided Defense Secretary Jim Mattis as ‘sort of a Democrat.’ In Sunday’s interview, he said that there are things [John] Kelly does that he doesn’t like and that at some point he will move on from the chief of staff position.”
-- “Rhetorically, Mr. Trump has embraced the United States’ 1.3 million active-duty troops as ‘my military’ and ‘my generals’ … But top Defense Department officials say that Mr. Trump has not fully grasped the role of the troops he commands, nor the responsibility that he has to lead them and protect them from politics,” the New York Times reported Saturday.
He doesn’t believe in the mission: “One reason he has not visited troops in war zones, according to his aides, is that he does not really want American troops there in the first place. To visit, they said, would validate missions he does not truly believe in.”
Another telling detail that shows how disinterested he is in details: “Shortly after becoming commander in chief, President Trump asked so few questions in a briefing at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Fla., that top military commanders cut the number of prepared PowerPoint slides to three — they had initially planned 18 … The commanders had slotted two hours for the meeting, but it lasted less than one,” per Helene Cooper, Peter Baker, Eric Schmitt and Mitchell Ferman.
“There was the belief that over time, he would better understand, but I don’t know that that’s the case,” said Col. David Lapan, a retired Marine who served in the Trump administration in 2017 as a spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security, in an interview with the Times. “I don’t think that he understands the proper use and role of the military and what we can, and can’t, do.”
Former high school track coach Evie Cluke talks about her interactions with Ian David Long after he shot and killed 12 people at a Southern California bar. Cluke said Long was volatile and sadistic and once told her he wanted to join the military so he could kill people for his country. Cluke coached Long at Newbury Park High School in 2008 and 2009. (Amanda Lee Myers/AP)
-- Many veterans and mental-health advocates also bristled two weeks ago when Trump appeared to blame the massacre at a Thousand Oaks, Calif., nightclub on the post-traumatic stress disorder of a Marine veteran who had served in Afghanistan. Trump began speculating about PTSD when asked about 28-year-old Marine veteran Ian David Long, who killed 12 people at the country-music bar in California before killing himself. “He was a Marine. He was in the war. He served time. He saw some pretty bad things, and a lot of people say he had PTSD, and that’s a tough deal,” Trump said after describing the shooter as a “very sick puppy.” “People come back — that’s why it’s a horrible thing — they come back, they’re never the same.”
“Trump’s broad-brush remarks outside the White House on Friday prompted concern that the president was amplifying stereotypes suggesting PTSD turns veterans into violent killers and that all service members come home somehow damaged from combat,” Sonne reported. “It is not clear whether Long had been formally diagnosed with PTSD before his death...”
Subsequent reporting has revealed that Long had a pattern of being violent and unable to control his temper for years before he joined the military.
William Owens holds a photo of his youngest son, Ryan Owens, at his home in Lauderdale by the Sea, Fla. (Emily Michot/Miami Herald via AP)
-- Moreover, Trump has had several awkward and testy interactions with Gold Star families.
Weeks into his presidency, Trump traveled to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware to meet the family of Navy SEAL Ryan Owens, who had died during a mission in Yemen. According to Bob Woodward’s book“Fear,” the experience was so uncomfortable for the president that “he let it be known the would make no more trips to Dover.” “No one said anything harsh, but there was a definite coldness that the president remembered,” Woodward reported.
Trump had personally authorized the operation in which Owens died, but the president blamed the generals for the outcome. He said on Fox News at the time that the commanders “came to see me and they explained what they wanted to do … And they lost Ryan.”
Last fall, Trump called the widow of Sgt. La David Johnson after he was killed in action in Niger. She said he stumbled recalling her husband’s name and told her that her husband “knew what he signed up for.”
“Very upset and hurt; it made me cry even worse,” Myeshia Johnson saidof her conversation with the president, saying Trump’s tone made her angry. “If my husband is out here fighting for our country and he risked his life for our country, why can’t you remember his name?”
Trump disputed Johnson’s account and said he was “very respectful” in tweets about the incident. A congresswoman who was in the room when it happened validated the widow’s account.
In a phone call to another grieving Gold Star father, Chris Baldridge, after his son was killed in Afghanistan in June 2017, Trump said he’d send a personal check for $25,000 and would direct his staff to establish an online fundraiser for the family, but neither happened – until after The Post pressed the White House on the issue four months later.
Khizr Khan, left, talks to Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) during the confirmation hearing for Jeff Sessions in January 2017. (Matt McClain/The Washington Post)
-- The most famous clash with a Gold Star family came before Trump took office. In July 2016, Trump criticized the parents of the late Capt. Humayun Khan after they spoke at the Democratic National Convention. Khizr Khan, a Pakistani-born Muslim, said his son wouldn’t have been able to be in the United States, let alone serve in the armed forces, if Trump’s proposed Muslim ban was in effect. Directing his remarks at Trump and waving a pocket Constitution, Khan said: “You have sacrificed nothing, and no one.”
Trump responded by saying, “I think I've made a lot of sacrifices. I work very, very hard.” He then said Hillary Clinton’s writers gave him the speech to deliver, which Khan denied, and suggested that Ghazala Khan, Capt. Khan’s mother, did not speak at the DNC because the Islamic religion does not allow her to speak in public.
“I was viciously attacked by Mr. Khan at the Democratic Convention,” Trump tweeted later. “Am I not allowed to respond?”
-- Today is the sixth anniversary of this Trump tweet:
WHILE YOU WERE SLEEPING:
Jim Acosta of CNN speaks to the media after his White House press pass was returned. (Calla Kessler/The Washington Post)
-- The White House informed CNN reporter Jim Acosta it would again revoke his press pass once a judge’s temporary order expires. Meagan Flynn reports: “The 14-day order was issued Friday and unless the judge extends it, it would expire at the end of the month. In a ruling seen as a victory for press freedom, U.S. District Judge Timothy J. Kelly, appointed by [Trump], ordered the White House to temporarily restore Acosta’s press pass on Friday while he considers the merits of the case and the possibility of a permanent order. … But on Sunday night, CNN’s Brian Stelter of ‘Reliable Sources’ said in his newsletter that ‘White House officials sent Acosta a letter stating that his pass is set to be suspended again once the restraining order expires.’”
Michael Bloomberg speaks during a panel discussion in Washington. (Yuri Gripas/Reuters)
GET SMART FAST:
- Michael Bloomberg is donating $1.8 billion to Johns Hopkins University to support financial aid. The former New York mayor, who is seriously considering a 2020 run for president, hopes the record donation will make his alma mater’s admissions process “forever need-blind.” (Nick Anderson)
- Nissan ousted chairman Carlos Ghosn amid accusations that he underreported his income, causing the company to file false reports with Japanese authorities. Japan’s public broadcaster reported that Ghosn had been arrested for his alleged misconduct. (Wall Street Journal)
- The next tell-all book from a Trump White House veteran is expected in January. “Team of Vipers” is written by former communications aide Cliff Sims, who first joined Trump during his campaign and kept hundreds of pages of notes during his time in the White House. (New York Times)
- A group of Mexican demonstrators descended on an emergency shelter where some members of the migrant caravan are staying — referring to the migrants as “drunks and meth-heads, stoners and drug addicts.” The demonstrators clashed with anti-riot police, who they accused of being unpatriotic for attempting to protect the migrants. (Daily Beast)
- The Kansas governor joined a growing chorus calling for the resignation of a Leavenworth County commissioner who made a reference to “the master race” during a hearing. Louis Klemp is seen on video telling a black planning consultant named Triveece Penelton, “I don’t want you to think I’m picking on you because we’re part of the master race. You know you got a gap in your teeth. You’re the masters. Don’t ever forget that.” (Cleve R. Wootson Jr. and Kristine Phillips)
- A former Ohio judge who went to prison for assaulting his wife in 2014 has been taken into custody after he was released and she was found dead. Lance Mason was also fired from his job as Cleveland’s minority business administrator after the body of his estranged wife, schoolteacher Aisha Fraser, was discovered. (NBC News)
- A new drug is showing the potential to ameliorate potentially deadly reactions in children with severe peanut allergies. Two-thirds of a group of children who received the treatment were able to ingest the equivalent of about two peanuts without having a reaction. (New York Times)
- Asheville is experiencing North Carolina’s worst outbreak of chickenpox in more than 20 years. Thirty-six cases of the disease have been reported at the Asheville Waldorf School, where many families claim religious exemption from the chickenpox vaccine and other such immunizations. (Isaac Stanley-Becker)
- Michelle Obama’s book tour is offering T-shirts, onesies and candles with the former first lady’s likeness to her many fans. The former first lady completed her third book-tour stop with a Washington visit this weekend. Barack Obama made a surprise appearance at the first. (Helena Andrews-Dyer)
- Former secretary of state Condoleezza Rice said she is “not ready to coach” after a report emerged the Cleveland Browns are considering her for their head coach position. “I love my Browns — and I know they will hire an experienced coach to take us to the next level,” Condi said in a statement from Stanford, where she teaches. “On a more serious note, I do hope that the NFL will start to bring women into the coaching profession as position coaches and eventually coordinators and head coaches.” (CNN)
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| ‘It looks like a war zone’: Search and rescue teams continue work in California fire |
CALIFORNIA ON FIRE:
-- The death toll in California’s Camp Fire rose to 76 as more than 1,000 people remain missing. Tim Craig, Annie Gowen and Frances Stead Sellers report: “As firefighters battle to contain the deadly Camp Fire, authorities intensified efforts to identify the lost and the dead. Teams of volunteers in white protective gear searched blackened ground and family members came to makeshift DNA centers where their mouths were swabbed to help identify victim remains. On Saturday, Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea said that the list of people unaccounted for was up to 1,276 and that 63 victims have been tentatively identified. On Friday authorities released more than 600 names in an effort to identify those who had been found by friends and relatives. The astonishing tally raised fears that the death toll would rise exponentially.”
-- The garage of one family who fled the fire became a safe haven for an ambulance crew and their patients. Allison Klein reports: “A few hours [after leaving their home], [Desiree] Borden got a Facebook message from someone she didn’t know: ‘I know this is random,’ it read. ‘Is your house at ... Chloe Court in paradise?’ Borden replied: ‘Yes. Is it gone. Are you ok?’ Then the response came: ‘We got trapped there. It saved our life.’ … It turned out that in an act of desperation, a paramedic had broken into Borden’s home that day, Nov. 8, through a doggie door. The ambulance crew then loaded three patients into the garage. They were joined by others, and ultimately 13 people took refuge from the fire.”
-- Trump incorrectly suggested California could prevent wildfires by following Finland’s example and raking forests. Avi Selk reports: “‘We go through this every year; we can’t go through this,’ Trump said Saturday as he toured the state’s massive wildfire zones. ‘We’re going to have safe forests.’ … ‘You’ve got to take care of the floors. You know the floors of the forests, it’s very important,’ Trump told reporters ... Trump went on to explain that the president of Finland, whom he met on an overseas trip a week earlier, told him about raking the forest floors. ‘He called it a forest nation,’ Trump said, ‘and they spent a lot of time on raking and cleaning and doing things, and they don’t have any problem.’ Finnish President Sauli Niinisto later disputed this. He told a local newspaper that he had briefed Trump on Finland’s efforts to surveil and care for its forests ... but said he can’t recall anything being mentioned on raking.”
-- Finland instead focuses on removing dead trees from forest floors and providing early warning of fires. The New York Times’s Patrick Kingsley explains: “The secret to the Finns’ forest management system lies instead in its early warning system, aerial surveillance system and network of forest roads, said Professor Henrik Lindberg, a forest fires researcher at the Häme University of Applied Sciences, a college in southern Finland. At times of high incendiary risk, the Finnish authorities are highly effective at delivering warnings across most forms of media.”
A man holds a poster showing images of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, describing the prince as “assassin” and Khashoggi as “martyr.” (Emrah Gurel/AP)
THE NEW WORLD ORDER:
-- Trump said he will not listen to the “suffering tape” of Post contributing columnist Jamal Khashoggi’s murder inside the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul. Felicia Sonmez and Karen DeYoung report: “Based in part on the tape and other intercepted communications, the CIA has concluded that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman ordered last month’s killing of Khashoggi … But Trump maintained in an interview on ‘Fox News Sunday’ that the crown prince had told him ‘maybe five different times’ and ‘as recently as a few days ago’ that he had nothing to do with the killing. Aides have said Trump has been looking for ways to avoid pinning the blame on Mohammed, a close ally who plays a central role in Trump’s Middle East policy.
“‘We have the tape. I don’t want to hear the tape. No reason for me to hear the tape,’ Trump said in the Fox interview ... He described it as ‘a suffering tape’ and told Fox host Chris Wallace, ‘I know everything that went on in the tape without having to hear it . . . . It was very violent, very vicious and terrible.’ Still, Trump demurred when Wallace asked about Mohammed’s role in the killing and whether the crown prince may have been lying to Trump about his lack of involvement. ‘Well, will anybody really know?’ Trump said. ‘You saw we put on very heavy sanctions, massive sanctions on a large group of people from Saudi Arabia. But, at the same time, we do have an ally, and I want to stick with an ally that in many ways has been very good.’”
-- Trump’s comments underscored how hesitant he is to break with MBS after building his Middle East strategy around the crown prince. From the New York Times’s Mark Landler: “[The 33-year-old heir] has become the fulcrum of the administration’s strategy in the Middle East — from Iran to the Israeli-Palestinian peace process — as well as a prolific shopper for American military weapons, even if most of those contracts have not paid off yet. [The president’s comments] also showed how stubbornly Mr. Trump has decided to stick with his ally. He does not even want to listen to evidence that could shake his confidence, even if it creates rifts with intelligence officials.”
-- Mike Pence and Chinese President Xi Jinping escalated their trade attacks during this weekend’s Pacific Rim trade summit. The New York Times’s Damien Cave reports: “[Xi and Pence] both made their cases to the global leaders assembled in Papua New Guinea — then they dug in and refused to compromise. That left the group of 21 nations in disarray, unable to agree on even a routine joint statement like those that had closed every other Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit since 1989. Countries caught in the trade-war crossfire between China and the United States are becoming increasingly exasperated. … Experts said the stalemate at [APEC] would set up a high-stakes showdown at the Group of 20 conference in Argentina this month, which Mr. Xi and [Trump] are expected to attend.”
-- China’s continued success has defied U.S. predictions that its economic model would not last. The New York Times’s Philip P. Pan reports: “The pattern is familiar to historians, a rising power challenging an established one, with a familiar complication: For decades, the United States encouraged and aided China’s rise, working with its leaders and its people to build the most important economic partnership in the world, one that has lifted both nations. During this time, eight American presidents assumed, or hoped, that China would eventually bend to what were considered the established rules of modernization: Prosperity would fuel popular demands for political freedom and bring China into the fold of democratic nations. Or the Chinese economy would falter under the weight of authoritarian rule and bureaucratic rot. But neither happened. Instead, China’s Communist leaders have defied expectations again and again.”
-- John Bolton has centralized national security decision-making in Trump’s administration, a move that has been criticized by some of his colleagues. The Wall Street Journal’s Dion Nissenbaum reports: “Mr. Bolton, who turns 70 years old Tuesday, has pared back the number of people accustomed to playing a bigger role in important national security debates and has convened fewer meetings than his predecessor of the White House ‘Principals Committee’ … Although Mr. Bolton has scored key policy victories during his short White House tenure, his consolidation of authority has irked other administration officials, who say he and his National Security Council aren’t serving as honest brokers in coordinating the administration’s national security policies.”
-- New U.S. sanctions on Iran are having a severe impact on medical imports. Erin Cunningham reports: “The trade of humanitarian goods is allowed under U.S. sanctions, according to Treasury Department guidelines, permitting Iran to import food, medicine and medical devices without punishment. But the far-reaching sanctions on Iranian financial firms reimposed two weeks ago could endanger the flow of humanitarian goods as foreign banks and outside suppliers abandon business ties with their partners in Iran, analysts and experts warn. In recent months, some European banks have refused to process payments even from Iranian firms that are exempt from sanctions out of fear of U.S. penalties, according to people familiar with the transactions. … Some say they fear transactions with outside banks could cease altogether, prompting shortages of vital goods, including medicine.”
-- The Trump administration’s opposition to U.N. aid for Palestinian refugees has sparked a debate over who gets to define refugees. Loveday Morris and Suzan Haidamous report: “Despite the fact that many were born and raised in Lebanon, Palestinian residents remain reliant on the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), an entity that provides aid to millions of Palestinians around the region, particularly for basic services like health care and education. Now, however, the Trump administration is trying to dismantle that lifeline, leaving many Palestinians fearing for their futures. … These efforts have sparked debate over what it means to be a Palestinian refugee and highlighted questions on resettlement, and whether residency or citizenship in another country would diminish their claim to a future Palestinian state.”
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| Lawmakers share mixed reviews on acting attorney general Whitaker |
THERE’S A BEAR IN THE WOODS:
-- Trump said he would not intervene if acting attorney general Matt Whitaker moved to curtail special counsel Bob Mueller’s investigation. Felicia Sonmez reports: “‘Look, it’s going to be up to him. . . . I would not get involved,’ Trump said in an interview on ‘Fox News Sunday.’ The president also publicly mocked a House Democrat who criticized Whitaker, deriding Rep. Adam B. Schiff (Calif.) as ‘little Adam Schitt’ in a tweet. … Trump said in Sunday’s interview that he ‘did not know [Whitaker] took views on the Mueller investigation as such’ before he appointed him. Trump essentially shut the door to sitting down with Mueller, telling host Chris Wallace that his written answers mean ‘probably this is the end’ of his involvement in the inquiry. ‘I think we’ve wasted enough time on this witch hunt and the answer is probably: We’re finished,’ Trump said. He said that he had given ‘very complete answers to a lot of questions’ and that ‘that should solve the problem.’”
-- Ben Terris profiles Rep. Elijah Cummings, the Maryland Democrat who is in line to become chairman of the House Oversight Committee: “With a healthy heart, and in control, Cummings has limitless possible targets: hush money paid to a porn star on Trump’s behalf, citizenship questions on the census, security clearances revoked from the president’s critics, and dozens of other oh-yeah-remember-thats that slipped out of the churning news cycle unanswered. The difficulty won’t be finding things to look into. It will be figuring out what’s worth looking into. Cummings knows by now the risks that come with opening wounds voluntarily. After he recovered from heart surgery, he checked back into the hospital for another procedure — this time on his knee. But something went wrong. The knee got infected, and Cummings spent another three months at Hopkins. He emerged more aware than ever that there’s only a finite amount of time in this world.”
-- Criticism of how Facebook has reacted to manipulation of its platform during the 2016 election has caused tension between CEO Mark Zuckerberg and COO Sheryl Sandberg. The Wall Street Journal’s Deepa Seetharaman reports: “The 34-year-old CEO believes Facebook didn’t move quickly enough at key moments this year and increasingly is pressing senior executives to ‘make progress faster’ on resolving problems such as slowing user growth and securing the platform ... It also has led to confrontations with some of his top reports, including Ms. Sandberg, who has long had considerable autonomy over the Facebook teams that control communications and policy. This spring, Mr. Zuckerberg told Ms. Sandberg, 49, that he blamed her and her teams for the public fallout over Cambridge Analytica, the research firm that inappropriately accessed private data on Facebook users and used it for political research, according to people familiar with the exchange.”
-- Eli Saslow traces the roots of a satirical website started by liberal bloggers that has become popular among Trump supporters: “In the last two years on his page, America’s Last Line of Defense, [Christopher] Blair had made up stories about California instituting sharia, former president Bill Clinton becoming a serial killer, undocumented immigrants defacing Mount Rushmore, and former president Barack Obama dodging the Vietnam draft when he was 9. ‘Share if you’re outraged!’ his posts often read, and thousands of people on Facebook had clicked ‘like’ and then ‘share,’ most of whom did not recognize his posts as satire. Instead, Blair’s page had become one of the most popular on Facebook among Trump-supporting conservatives over 55.” |
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