Everything President Trump has tweeted (and what it was about)

President Trump promoted via Twitter an interview with his son Eric Trump just before it aired Saturday night on Fox News’ “Justice with Judge Jeanine.”

Eric Trump called into the show to defend his father from criticism prompted by the first government shutdown in more than four years, as well as a series of Women’s March events that saw protesters in dozens of cities take to the streets to oppose the president’s policies.

Speaking to host Jeannine Piro — who is reportedly an old friend of the president’s — Eric Trump offered effusive praise for his father, ticking off glowing statistics to illustrate the strength of the U.S. economy and gains against Islamic State fighters overseas.

“My father’s working like no one’s ever worked before to bring back this country and to fulfill his promise to make America great again,” said the executive vice president of the Trump Organization.

He also repeated a sentiment recently expressed on Twitter by his father: That Democratic lawmakers forced a government shutdown on the anniversary of the president’s inauguration in a bid to distract from his achievements.

“You look at this whole government shutdown, and the only reason they want to shut down government is to distract and to stop his momentum,” Eric Trump said. “I mean, my father has had incredible momentum. He’s gotten more done in one year than arguably any president in history.”

President Trump hailed the nationwide Women’s March gatherings Saturday.

On Twitter, the president called it “a perfect day for all Women to March,” seeming to imply that those taking part were celebrating his administration’s accomplishments:

Participants in the marches across the United States were actually seeking to deliver a powerful rebuke to Trump’s policies and mount a crucial mobilization for this year’s midterm elections.

But Trump continued to tout his administration’s “unprecedented success” in tweets sent later in the day:

In addition to the roll call of major American cities where women’s marches took place — including New York, Washington, Los Angeles, Dallas, Philadelphia, Chicago, San Francisco, Atlanta — protesters also raised their voices in suburbs and small towns, reflecting the aim of coalescing a broad-based movement on the anniversary of Trump’s inauguration to oppose the president’s stance on immigration, healthcare, racial divides and an array of other issues.

Read More— This post contains reporting from Times staff writer Laura King.

President Trump is blaming Democrats for the government shutdown — tweeting that they wanted to give him “a nice present” to mark the one-year anniversary of his inauguration:

That comes after Senate Democrats late Friday killed a GOP-written House-passed measure that would have kept agencies functioning for four weeks. Democrats were seeking a stopgap bill of just a few days in hopes that would build pressure on Republicans, and they were opposing a three-week alternative offered by GOP leaders.

Democrats have insisted they would back legislation reopening the government once there’s a bipartisan agreement to preserve protections against deporting about 700,000 immigrants — known as “Dreamers” — who arrived in the United States illegally as children.

Trump on Saturday accused Democrats of “holding our Military hostage over their desire to have unchecked illegal immigration”:

Democrats are laying fault for the shutdown on Republicans, who control both chambers of Congress and the White House and have struggled with building internal consensus.

In a series of tweets hours after the shutdown began, the president tried to make the case for Americans to elect more Republicans to Congress in November “in order to power through this mess”:

He noted that there are 51 Republicans in the 100-member Senate, and it often takes 60 votes to advance legislation:

The stopgap spending measure won 50 votes in the Senate, including five from Democrats.

Although the House and Senate were in session Saturday, it was unclear whether lawmakers would take any votes of consequence.

Trump had been set to leave Friday afternoon for a fundraiser at his estate in Palm Beach, Fla., where he intended to mark the inauguration anniversary. But he remained in Washington and ended up scrapping his plans to attend the Saturday fundraiser.

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President Trump appeared to cast doubt on the likelihood of reaching a deal to avert a government shutdown Friday night in a tweet.

Trump also sought to blame Democrats for what would be the first shutdown since 2013.

His message came just hours before the midnight deadline by which lawmakers must pass a measure to fund government agencies, or some operations will cease.

Despite last-minute negotiations Friday between Trump and Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer, Congress remained deadlocked over a spending bill and the federal government was headed toward a shutdown at midnight.

Senate Democrats — joined by some GOP deficit hawks and immigration allies — were set to filibuster a stopgap funding bill approved by the House on Thursday. A Senate vote was planned for 10 p.m. Eastern, and even White House officials predicted it would fail.

Read More— This post contains reporting from Times staff writer Lisa Mascaro.

President Trump on Friday signed a bill into law to renew a foreign intelligence surveillance program, announcing his action in the latest in a series of confusing tweets about the spy program:

Trump’s tweet on Jan. 11 created chaos in the House just before it voted to reauthorize what is known as Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. He linked the intelligence program to a dossier that alleges his presidential campaign had ties to Russia.

That caused people to wonder if he didn’t support the program that allows U.S. spy agencies to collect intelligence on foreign targets abroad.

Trump and other Republicans have alleged that Obama administration officials improperly shared the identities of Trump presidential transition team members mentioned in intelligence reports. Democrats say there is no evidence that happened.

Shortly before the House vote, and after conferring with House Speaker Paul Ryan, Trump did an apparent about-face.

“This vote is about foreign surveillance of foreign bad guys on foreign land,” he tweeted. “We need it! Get smart!”

In his tweet announcing that he had just signed the bill, Trump wrote: “This is NOT the same FISA law that was so wrongly abused during the election. I will always do the right thing for our country and put the safety of the American people first!”

There are no obvious links between the dossier Trump spoke of, which includes salacious but unsubstantiated allegations against him, and the reauthorization of the spying program, or between the program and Trump’s oft-repeated claims that the Obama administration conducted surveillance on Trump Tower during the presidential campaign.

After a surprise meeting with President Trump as a government shutdown loomed, Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) said Friday that “progress” had been made and negotiations would continue.

Schumer dashed to the White House earlier in the day at the invitation of Trump. Schumer cut a previous budget deal with Trump last fall over the strong objections of GOP leaders.

“We discussed all of the major outstanding issues,” Schumer told reporters. “We made some progress. But we still have a good number of disagreements. The discussions will continue.”

With less than seven hours before the shutdown deadline, Trump tweeted that he’d had an “excellent preliminary meeting” with Schumer and was “making progress.”

But the president said he still preferred a four-week stopgap bill that was passed Thursday by the House but was expected to be blocked Friday in the Senate.

The meeting came as Congress pushed the federal government to the brink of a shutdown. Senate Democrats — joined by some GOP deficit hawks and immigration allies — were set to filibuster the stopgap funding bill ahead of a midnight deadline in Washington.

Lawmakers scrambled to assign blame for what would be the first federal shutdown since 2013, when Republicans led the unpopular 16-day closure in their failed effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare.

Republicans assailed Democratic senators for holding the funding “hostage” as Democrats demanded deportation protections for “Dreamers,” the young immigrants brought to the United States illegally as children. Their protected status could expire soon as Trump ends the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.

Trump tweeted Friday morning:

The Trump administration is scrambling to soften the blow of a possible shutdown with plans to keep as much of the government open as possible. Their blueprints, though, could quickly unravel.

“We are going to manage this shutdown differently,” said Mick Mulvaney, the White House budget director, who accused the previous administration of using the 2013 budget stalemate to score political points, making the repercussions more painful for Americans than necessary.

“We are not going to weaponize it. We are not going to try to hurt people,” he told reporters at the White House.

Trump shared via Twitter a link to the briefing:

Whatever the White House’s intentions, however, some hurt from a shutdown is unavoidable. The law places the federal government under extremely restrictive constraints.

“Shutting down the government is a very serious thing,” Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) told CNN on Thursday night. “People die, accidents happen. You don’t know. Necessary functions can cease. … There is no specific list you can look at and make a judgment: ‘Well, everything is going to be just fine.’ You can’t make that judgment.”

Trump quoted Feinstein in a tweet:

A spokesman for Feinstein on Friday said that the senator “was trying to get at the uncertainty that a government shutdown could create,” but that she “remains committed” to voting against the funding bill because it doesn’t include protections for Dreamers.

While Democrats led the opposition, a few Republican senators also said they would reject the measure.

A mix of immigration advocates, including Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and deficit hawks such as Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), have announced their opposition. Other Republicans may join them. Sen. Jeff Flake of Arizona, who has worked with Graham and Democrats for years on immigration issues, said he was “not inclined” to support the monthlong spending bill and wanted a short extension for a few days to keep government running while immigration talks continued.

Trump’s vulgar comments during an Oval Office meeting last week — he said he didn’t want immigrants coming to the U.S. from “shithole” countries — left a bipartisan working group skeptical the GOP would act in time to protect Dreamers.

Read More—This post contains reporting from Times staff writers Lisa Mascaro, Evan Halper and Sarah D. Wire.

President Trump on Friday delivered new support to the anti-abortion movement he once opposed, telling thousands of activists demonstrating in the annual March for Life, “We are with you all the way.”

In an address broadcast from the White House Rose Garden, Trump said he’s committed to building “a society where life is celebrated, protected and cherished.”

The moment marked the president personally stepping to the forefront of the anti-abortion movement in the United States as the anniversary of his inauguration approaches. Last year, Vice President Mike Pence addressed the crowd in Trump’s absence. In the year since, Trump has delivered on rules and policies he had promised in an effort to help curb abortion rights legalized 45 years ago. Chief among them is the confirmation of conservative Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch.

Trump’s administration on Friday also announced more actions in line with long-standing demands from social and religious conservatives.

The Department of Health and Human Services spelled out plans to protect medical providers who refuse to perform procedures such as abortions because of moral or religious scruples. HHS also pulled back an Obama-era policy that posed a legal roadblock to conservative states trying to cut Medicaid funds for Planned Parenthood.

The White House press office was once again forced to walk back a tweet from President Trump on Thursday morning after he described a trip to Pennsylvania later in the day as a political one — a statement that would force the Republican Party, not taxpayers, to pay for the journey.

The White House had said Trump was going to an industrial equipment company outside of Pittsburgh to highlight the good economy and new tax cuts, making it an official, policy-oriented event.

It was widely assumed that the trip had a political cast — the area is holding a special election to fill a congressional seat vacated by a Republican who resigned. Trump, by his tweet, seemed to confirm that politics was the whole purpose:

Trump later shared via Twitter a pair of video clips of his speech at H&K Equipment, in which he touted the tax cuts he signed into law just before Christmas and tried to turn the conversation back to his accomplishments after weeks dominated by distractions, including questions about his mental health and comments about immigration that some considered racist:

The Republican National Committee, rather than the White House, is supposed to pay for political travel so that taxpayers are not financing party activities; for trips that combine policy and politics, parties have split the cost under past presidents. Neither the RNC nor the White House responded to emails sent Thursday asking who would pay.

White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders released a statement later Thursday suggesting that taxpayers would foot the bill. She insisted that Trump would be conducting government business while in Pennsylvania.

Read More— This post contains reporting from the Associated Press and Times staff writer Noah Bierman.

In a series of tweets Thursday morning, President Trump undercut a deal by Republican lawmakers to keep the government open past Friday and contradicted his chief of staff’s comments that Trump had “evolved” on his promised border wall.

By slamming the proposed government-funding plan, Trump also undermined White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who told reporters Wednesday that the president supported the Republicans’ strategy.

Their bill would provide short-term funding for government operations and a six-year extension of the Children’s Health Insurance Program, which Republican leaders had attached to help attract support, particularly from Democrats who pushed for the program.

But Trump wrote on Twitter that funding for the program should be part of “a long term solution,” not the stopgap measure:

Some speculated that perhaps the president was not aware that the CHIP funding would be extended for six years, rather than the four weeks of the spending bill.

Republican leaders in Congress already were scrambling to gather votes for their plan to fund the government for another month until a longer-term deal can be made on federal spending and immigration. Trump’s comments threw voting into jeopardy, raising the odds of a shutdown.

Trump also pushed back against his own chief of staff, John F. Kelly, who told lawmakers Wednesday that Trump’s border wall promise was “uninformed” and Mexico was unlikely to pay for a wall. Kelly repeated his comments during a Fox News interview Wednesday night, saying Trump had “evolved” and changed his views on “a number of things” since entering the White House.

But Trump, in a note of discord with his top-ranking aide, denied he’s “evolved” on building a wall across the U.S.-Mexico border.

And he falsely claimed that Mexico is “now rated the number one most dangerous country in the world”:

A few hours later, the Mexican government fought back to challenge Trump.

The country released a statement — emailed to journalists, not posted on social media — that corrected Trump’s error and took the United States to task for its role in Mexico’s violence.

“Although Mexico has a significant problem of violence, it is openly false that Mexico is the most dangerous country in the world,” said the statement, released by Mexico’s Foreign Ministry.

The statement noted that although bloodshed is on the rise in Mexico — the country recorded more homicides in 2017 than in any year on record — other nations, including Venezuela and El Salvador, have much higher homicide rates.

The statement also pointed out what the Mexican government believes are major drivers of its violence: U.S. guns and U.S. demand for drugs.

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President Trump announced the recipients of his “Fake News Awards” Wednesday night.

Trump tweeted a link to the winners list, which was hosted on GOP.com. The web page promptly went offline.

The “award” recipients included a mix of reporters for the New York Times, ABC News and the Washington Post, as well as reports published by CNN, Time, Newsweek and the New York Times. The winners list also included one topic: “Russia Collusion,” which the list called “perhaps the greatest hoax perpetrated on the American people.”

Here’s what the page looked like before it went offline:

Under the winners was a list of 10 of Trump’s accomplishments, among them the passage of the GOP tax cuts and the appointment of Neil M. Gorsuch to the Supreme Court.

Trump listed the highlights in subsequent tweets:

Earlier Wednesday, the president also shared some examples of what he considers “good news,” tweeting links to reports on companies that have announced plans to increase U.S. investment as a result of the tax cuts, as well as one on a jump in holiday retail sales:

Trump has battled the news media since taking office. He often accuses outlets of circulating “fake news” following the publication of stories that are critical of or unflattering to his administration.

The president first announced plans for his self-proclaimed “most dishonest & corrupt media awards of the year” via Twitter on Jan. 2.

He originally pledged to name the winners that Monday, but later delayed the reveal to Jan. 17, tweeting: “The interest in, and importance of, these awards is far greater than anyone could have anticipated!”

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Former Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole knew the art of the deal before President Trump published the 1987 book of the same name.

The two shared a stage under the Capitol dome Wednesday as Dole, 94, accepted Congress’ highest civilian honor, the Congressional Gold Medal, for his World War II service and decades of work in the House and Senate.

Trump later praised Dole in a tweet, attaching to his message a video composed of clips from the ceremony:

At the ceremony, the president saluted Dole as “a patriot” and gave tribute to Dole’s struggle as a veteran who worked his way back from a grievous shoulder wound he suffered in Italy.

“He knows about grit,” said Trump.

But it was Dole’s penchant for working across the aisle that earned him his latest award, according to the legislation.

“Bob Dole was known for his ability to work across the aisle and embrace practical bipartisanship,” reads the legislation Trump signed in September. Some of the award’s 300 recipients include George Washington and Mother Teresa, according to the Congressional Research Service.

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President Trump promoted an appearance by his son, Eric Trump, on Fox News’ “Fox & Friends.”

Eric Trump appeared on the morning talk show to defend his father against accusations that he is racist.

He also denounced the news media, echoing past comments by his father.

The Trump administration on Tuesday released a report attempting to link terrorism with migration, arguing that it was evidence of the need to dramatically reshape the nation’s immigration system.

The report, ordered by President Trump in an executive order last year, said that 75% of the 549 people convicted of terrorism charges since 9/11 were born outside the U.S. Administration officials called that a sign that the U.S. needs to scrap its policy of family preferences for visas, which they call “chain migration,” and a diversity visa lottery program.

But the report did not specify how many — if any — of the convicted terrorists entered the country through those means. It also did not detail how many of the convictions were related to attacks or plans in the U.S. versus overseas and how many involved people who went to fight overseas for the Islamic State or another terrorist group. Those details were not available, officials said.

The report, due last year, is being released in a highly charged moment in the immigration debate, as Trump and some Republicans in Congress seek tough new border and immigration measures in return for a deal protecting the 690,000 people in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.

Trump also fired off a pair of tweets on the topic earlier Tuesday:

“The focus of our immigration system should be assimilation,” a senior administration official said on Tuesday, speaking on condition that his name not be used. He said the nation should give priority to potential immigrants who speak English, who have an education and those who are “committed to supporting our values — not family members of people already here.”

The official said the timing of the report was coincidental.

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President Trump said Tuesday that he and the president of Kazakhstan are united in a shared determination to prevent North Korea from “threatening the world with nuclear devastation.”

Trump and President Nursultan Nazarbayev discussed North Korea along with other issues during meetings at the White House.

Trump said Kazakhstan, once part of the Soviet Union, is a “valued partner in our efforts to rid the Korean peninsula of nuclear weapons.”

“Together we are determined to prevent the North Korean regime from threatening the world with nuclear devastation,” he said, as both presidents addressed journalists between meetings.

Nazarbayev noted that his country once had one of the world’s largest nuclear arsenals but voluntarily gave it up after the Soviet Union collapsed. He said his country is in talks with Iran, which was the focus of a global deal that lifted some economic sanctions in exchange for Iran’s curbing its nuclear program.

Trump has sharply criticized the Iran nuclear deal and threatened last week to pull out soon unless other countries fix what he says are “terrible flaws.”

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President Trump proclaimed Tuesday “religious freedom day.”

The date was chosen because it was the 232nd anniversary of the adoption of Thomas Jefferson’s Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, according to the text of the proclamation.

President Trump lashed out at the news media Tuesday morning in a tweet denouncing the special counsel investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election and possible collusion among members of his campaign team.

It wasn’t immediately clear exactly what prompted the president’s tweet, but it appeared as though he was watching “Fox & Friends.”

A short time later, Trump tweeted a headline from a report that aired during that morning’s episode:

The segment focused on the latest survey results from conservative watchdog Media Research Center, which purportedly analyzed the evening news broadcasts on ABC, CBS and NBC from Jan. 20 to Dec. 31 and found that 90% of the statements made about Trump were negative.

“But believe it or not, through all this negative coverage, they did a survey of 600,000 people about how black America views this president,” co-host Brian Kilmeade said. “His numbers have actually doubled in approval.”

Trump highlighted the statement in another tweet:

But it’s not true.

The claim appears to have originated from a misreading of data from the online polling firm SurveyMonkey, according to factcheck.org.

The firm polled 600,000 Americans in 2017 and found that Trump’s approval rating among blacks actually dropped from 23% early in his presidency to about 17%, as of the week ending Jan. 3.

Some conservative outlets, including Breitbart, produced an average from those and other SurveyMonkey figures and compared them to the scores Trump received from black voters in the 2016 exit polls.

That methodology is not sound. And since the statistics measure different things, the comparison is misleading.

President Trump turned his Twitter torment Monday on the Democrat in the room where immigration talks with lawmakers took a famously coarse turn, saying Sen. Richard J. Durbin misrepresented what he had said about African nations and Haiti and, in the process, undermined the trust needed to make a deal.

“Senator Dicky Durbin totally misrepresented what was said at the DACA meeting,” Trump tweeted, using a nickname to needle the Illinois senator. “Deals can’t get made when there is no trust! Durbin blew DACA and is hurting our Military.”

Trump was referring to the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which protects young people who came to the United States illegally as children. Members of Congress from both parties are trying to strike a deal that Trump would support to extend that protection.

Trump also cast doubt on the likelihood of reaching an agreement in tweets sent earlier Monday:

On a day of remembrance for the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., Trump spent time at his golf course with no public events, bypassing the acts of service that his predecessors staged in honor of the civil rights leader. Instead, Trump dedicated his weekly address to King’s memory, saying King’s dream and America’s are the same: “A world where people are judged by who they are, not how they look or where they come from.”

That message was a distinct counterpoint to words attributed to Trump by Durbin and others at a meeting last week, when the question of where immigrants come from seemed at the forefront of Trump’s concerns. Some participants and others familiar with the conversation said Trump challenged immigration from “shithole” countries of Africa and disparaged Haiti as well.

Without explicitly denying using that word, Trump lashed out at the Democratic senator, who said Trump uttered it on several occasions.

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President Trump thanked Fox News personality Stuart Varney after Varney praised Trump during an appearance on “Fox & Friends.”

In a pair of tweets early Sunday, Trump quoted from Varney’s commentary, in which he argued that Trump deserves more credit for the booming economy.

The pundit, who also hosts a show on Fox Business Network, cited moves by some corporations to raise workers’ minimum wage or pay out one-time bonuses in response to the GOP tax cuts.

Varney was reacting to a quote from House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco), who on Thursday called the bonuses handed down to workers “pathetic” in comparison to the gains corporations are expected to see from the tax cuts.

“In terms of the bonus that corporate America received versus the crumbs that they are giving to workers to kind of put the schmooze on is so pathetic,” Pelosi told reporters. “It’s pathetic.”

Varney shot back Sunday that the bonuses, along with “explosive” stock market growth, are “enriching all Americans.”

“This is a huge shot in the arm, it’s the result of this tax cut deal and I think President Trump should get the credit for it,” he said.

The sweeping tax plan passed last month lowers the corporate tax rate from 35% to 21% and cuts personal income taxes.

Analysts say the benefits will largely flow to corporations and the wealthy, as they’re more likely to be in positions to share in corporate profits.

For instance, Wells Fargo & Co., which responded to news of the tax overhaul by announcing it will raise workers’ pay to at least $15 an hour, also reported that it expects to pay an effective tax rate of 19% this year, down from about 31% in previous years. That should amount to tax savings of more than $3 billion annually.

On average, middle-class Americans are expected to see a very small tax cut in the near term and a tax increase after 2025, when all of the tax cuts for individuals expire. The tax cuts for corporations, however, are permanent.

— This post contains reporting from Times staff writer James Rufus Koren.

President Trump tweeted Sunday that a program that protects immigrants who were brought to the United States illegally as children is “probably dead,” casting a cloud over already tenuous negotiations just days before a deadline on a government funding deal that Democrats have tied to immigration.

At issue is the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program created by President Obama to shield hundreds of thousands of these individuals, known as “Dreamers,” from deportation.

Trump, who has taken a hard stance against illegal immigration, announced last year that he will end the program unless Congress comes up with a solution by March.

Republicans and Democrats were already at odds over funding the government, and the negotiations became more complicated after Democrats — whose votes are needed to pass a government funding bill — insisted immigration be included. Government funding expires at midnight Friday without a deal in place, and some government functions will begin to go dark.

Further roiling the talks are comments by Trump during an Oval Office meeting in which he questioned the need to admit more Haitians to the U.S., along with Africans from “shithole” countries, according to people briefed on the conversation but not authorized to describe it publicly. He also said in the Thursday meeting that he would prefer immigrants from countries like Norway instead. The White House has not denied that Trump said the word “shithole,” though Trump did push back on some depictions of the meeting.

The president also rejected as insufficient an immigration deal drafted by the bipartisan group of lawmakers who attended that meeting. The deal had included a pathway to citizenship for Dreamers that would take up to 12 years, as well as $1.6 billion for border security, including Trump’s promised wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. Trump’s staunchest supporters consider any route to citizenship for the Dreamers amnesty for lawbreakers.

Trump has said any deal must include funding for the wall as well as changes to make the immigration system a more merit-based structure.

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President Trump is disputing a quote attributed to him during a newspaper interview about relations with North Korea’s leader.

The Wall Street Journal on Thursday quoted Trump as saying: “I probably have a very good relationship with Kim Jong Un.”

Trump tweeted Sunday:

White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders and the newspaper have released separate audio clips.

The Wall Street Journal says it stands by its reporting.

President Trump is continuing to denounce an unflattering new book on his presidency, as well as media outlets that have reported on its contents.

Michael Wolff’s “Fire and the Fury: Inside the Trump White House,” portrays the 45th president as surrounded by aides who believe he’s unfit for the office he holds. The White House has called it “complete fantasy.”

In a tweet Saturday afternoon, Trump called Wolff “a mentally deranged author, who knowingly writes false information.”

The book has prompted questions about Trump’s own mental fitness.

Trump has pushed back, tweeting that he’s “a very stable genius.”

And earlier in the week, he said he’s going to be taking “a strong look at our country’s libel laws,” blasting the current standards as “a sham and a disgrace.”

On Friday, Trump received his first medical checkup at Walter Reed military hospital, and a White House physician declared him in “excellent health.”

Read More— This post contains reporting from the Associated Press and Times staff writer Alex Wigglesworth.

President Trump on Saturday sought to blame “all talk and no action” Democrats for the lack of an immigration deal.

“I don’t believe the Democrats really want to see a deal on DACA. They are all talk and no action,” Trump tweeted from Florida as he arrived at his private golf club in West Palm Beach.

Trump last year ended the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which provided young immigrants with protection from deportation along with the ability to work legally in the United States. He gave Congress until March to come up with a legislative fix.

On Thursday, he rejected a bipartisan immigration deal drafted by six senators.

During a closed-door meeting to discuss the proposal, Trump reportedly questioned why the U.S. would accept more immigrants from Haiti and “shithole countries” in Africa.

The comments revived charges that Trump is racist and roiled the already tenuous immigration talks.

The senators had been working for months on how to balance protections for young immigrants with Trump’s demands for border security, an end to a visa lottery aimed at increasing immigrant diversity, and limits to immigrants’ ability to sponsor family members to join them in America.

The president has previously described the U.S. immigration system as a threat to national security. He’s also faulted immigrants for taking Americans’ jobs and driving down wages.

Early Saturday, he tweeted:

The slogan, which Trump started using in the later months of his presidential campaign, despite requests from the Anti-Defamation League that he drop it, has an anti-Semitic and isolationist history going back to the years before the U.S. entry into World War II.

Trump also sought Saturday to draw attention to the U.S. economy, highlighting an announcement by Fiat Chrysler that it will move production of heavy-duty trucks from Mexico to Michigan in response to the passage of the GOP tax cuts.

Trump predicted that other companies will follow suit, tweeting: “American business is hot again!”

One of the six senators who crafted the bipartisan immigration deal, Democrat Michael Bennet of Colorado, said Saturday that the proposal “has everything the president asked for on the border.” He said if Trump can’t support it, “it’s difficult to see how we could get him to agree to anything that could pass in Congress.”

It was unclear now how a deal might emerge, though both sides insist the clock is ticking. Failure could affect government operations.

Lawmakers have until Friday to approve a short-term government spending bill, and Republicans will need Democratic votes to push the measure through. Some Democrats have threatened to withhold support unless an immigration pact is forged.

President Trump signed a proclamation Friday for Martin Luther King Jr. Day, noting the contributions of a “great American hero.”

Overshadowing the event was mounting backlash from Trump’s comments during a private meeting with lawmakers the day before.

A short time after the meeting, which was called to discuss a possible immigration deal, reports emerged that Trump had asked participants why the United States should accept immigrants from “shithole countries” in Africa, Central America and the Caribbean. Illinois Sen. Richard Durbin, the Senate’s second-ranking Democrat, appeared to confirm those reports on Friday.

Trump did not respond Friday to several questions about the incident, including whether he actually used vulgar language to describe African nations, or if he is racist.

The president said at the White House that “love was central” to the slain civil rights leader. Trump said the nation celebrates King for “standing up for the self-evident truth Americans hold so dear, that no matter what the color of our skin or place of our birth, we are all created equal by God.”

— This post contains reporting from Times staff writer Noah Bierman.

President Trump conceded early Friday that he used “tough” language during a closed-door immigration meeting the day before, but implied that reports he complained about the United States accepting migrants from “shithole countries” were wrong.

Trump tweeted:

In other tweets posted Friday morning, Trump complained about a bipartisan immigration deal that senators outlined to him at the White House meeting.

He said it would force the U.S. “to take large numbers of people from high crime … countries which are doing badly.”

The tweets backed up the notion that Trump views immigration policy in terms of favorable and unfavorable countries, not on the individual merit of would-be immigrants, as he says.

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President Trump confirmed via Twitter late Thursday that he will no longer attend the opening of the new U.S. Embassy in London.

Trump wrote that he decided to cancel his trip because he believes the Obama administration made a “bad deal” in choosing to sell the old embassy and build a new one:

With a budget of about $1 billion for the entire project, the new U.S. Embassy in London is one of the most expensive ever built.

That’s in part because Congress ruled in 2011 that all U.S. embassies must sit behind a 100-foot “seclusion zone” in order to protect staff and visitors.

The State Department said it proved simply too expensive to renovate the old embassy to the standards required and the new location was chosen because it was a blank canvas.

Other U.S. government properties in London, including the old embassy site, were sold so that the project could be financed without taxpayer money.

Trump’s tweet followed reports in British media that he had canceled his visit to London, expected to take place next month, amid fears of mass protests.

Trump drew widespread condemnation from British lawmakers and members of the public in November, when he retweeted a trio of inflammatory videos posted by a leader of anti-Muslim hate group Britain First.

– This post contains reporting from Times special correspondent Christina Boyle and staff writer Alex Wigglesworth.

President Trump hit out at Democrats on Thursday night in a tweet calling for stricter immigration rules.

Trump wrote that members of the party “seem intent on having people and drugs pour into our country” from the border with Mexico:

It wasn’t immediately clear exactly what prompted the tweet.

Earlier Thursday, Trump rejected a bipartisan compromise to resolve the standoff over so-called Dreamers, young immigrants who were brought to the United States illegally as children but have temporary permits to work, attend school or serve in the military.

The president drew widespread condemnation after reports emerged that he had asked participants in an Oval Office meeting about the proposal why the United States should accept immigrants from “shithole countries” in Africa, Central America and the Caribbean.

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President Trump publicly contradicted a major policy position of his administration Thursday — the second time he did so in a week in which the White House has sought to beat back questions about his stability and grasp of policy details.

The incident provided a new and striking example of the contradiction between Trump’s dueling identities as an individual often guided by impulses, grievances and what he sees on television and Trump the president, responsible for taking a broader view of government and security issues.

The events began Thursday morning when Trump sent a tweet that rattled the national security community and Republican lawmakers, nearly derailing a vote in the House on one of the administration’s top national security priorities — renewing the National Security Agency’s broad authority to conduct surveillance of foreigners, without warrants, including those communicating with U.S. citizens:

The bill eventually passed the House, 256-164, but only after Speaker Paul D. Ryan and others intervened with Trump, prompting him to send a second tweet that partly walked back his earlier criticism of the surveillance law:

The extension of surveillance authority still faces uncertainty in the Senate, where Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, a Republican, has threatened a filibuster.

Trump’s initial tweet insisted, angrily and contrary to all known evidence, that the NSA’s surveillance program might have been used to spy on his campaign during the 2016 election.

The tweet came shortly after “Fox & Friends,” Trump’s favorite program and a frequent inspiration for his Twitter account, aired a segment in which Andrew Napolitano, a commentator, offered scathing criticism of the surveillance program.

“Mr. President, this is not the way to go,” he said, looking at the camera:

White House officials would not say whether Napolitano’s comment prompted Trump’s tweet.

Trump also tweeted about several other topics covered during Thursday morning’s episode of “Fox & Friends.”

He waded back into the controversy surrounding a dossier of salacious allegations about his ties to Russia, tweeting a series of questions about the document’s provenance:

That followed a “Fox & Friends” segment speculating about whether the FBI used information in the dossier as a pretext to spy on Trump’s presidential campaign.

It featured an appearance from Trump advisor Kellyanne Conway:

Trump also touted a new Quinnipiac poll that shows 66% of voters feel the economy is excellent or good:

That too was discussed during Conway’s interview:

Trump also tweeted what appeared to be a direct quote from “Fox & Friends” reporting a 45-year low in illegal immigration. He appended the show’s Twitter handle to his message:

The statistic was cited by the acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Thomas Homan, who appeared on “Fox & Friends” to discuss a series of federal immigration actions staged Wednesday at 7-Eleven locations across the nation:

“Under this president, we had a 45-year low in illegal immigration on the border this year,” Homan said. “That is not a coincidence. He is successful, he has allowed us to do our job.”

Trump appeared to be watching “Fox & Friends” again later Thursday.

In a tweet sent more than 12 hours after he wrapped up his early-morning volley of messages, Trump quoted from a segment featuring Adam Levine, a contributor to blog the Federalist:

Levine appeared on the show to discuss an op-ed he penned for the Federalist on how it was more difficult for him to come out as a Trump supporter than it was to tell his family and friends that he is gay.

Trump also renewed his attack against Sen. Dianne Feinstein after Fox News reported that the San Francisco Democrat had “seemed to blame a ‘bad cold’” for her decision to release testimony from the co-founder of Fusion GPS, the research firm behind the notorious dossier.

In a tweet, Trump wrote that Feinstein’s move was “very disrespectful” to members of the Senate Judiciary Committee “and possibly illegal:”

Feinstein has said that she didn’t do anything illegal: She had the ability to release the transcripts as the top Democrat on the committee, and her staff helped conduct the interview.

Republicans have argued that the tangled history of Fusion GPS’s research — it was first backed by anti-Trump Republicans and then by Democrats during the 2016 race — raised doubts about the credibility of investigations into whether any of Trump’s aides assisted Russia’s efforts to meddle in the election.

Feinstein said in a statement Tuesday that she released the testimony to counteract “innuendo and misinformation” about the co-founder’s testimony.

—This post contains reporting from Times staff writers Noah Bierman, Lisa Mascaro, Chris Megerian, David S. Cloud, Joseph Tanfani and Alex Wigglesworth.

President Trump praised a plan by Wal-Mart Stores Inc. to lift its minimum wage to $11 an hour for its U.S. workers and provide them with a one-time cash bonus of up to $1,000 due to expected gains from the new tax law.

Trump shared via Twitter a video clip of a Fox Business Network report on the announcement:

The nation’s largest retailer, with about 1.5 million U.S. employees and nearly $500 billion in global revenue, also said it would expand its workers’ maternity and parental leave benefits.

“We are building on investments we’ve been making in associates, in their wages and skills development,” Wal-Mart Chief Executive Doug McMillon said in a statement.

The new tax law lowers the U.S. corporate tax rate to 21% from 35%, among other things, and McMillon said Wal-Mart was “in the early stages of assessing the opportunities tax reform creates for us to invest in our customers and associates and to further strengthen our business, all of which should benefit our shareholders.”

Later, Trump also thanked Fiat Chrysler after the company announced it is moving production of heavy-duty trucks from Mexico to Michigan and paying bonuses to U.S. workers in response to the passage of the tax cuts:

The automaker will invest $1 billion in its Warren Truck Assembly Plant to make the Ram Heavy Duty Truck starting in 2020. That truck is currently made in Saltillo, Mexico, where workers will continue to make commercial vehicles.

FCA says the Warren plant will add 2,500 new jobs.

The company also plans to pay $2,000 bonuses this spring to about 60,000 hourly and salaried U.S. employees.

In his tweets, Trump suggested that other corporations will follow suit:

“All business is just at the beginning of something really special!” he pledged:

— This post contains reporting from Los Angeles Times staff writer James F. Peltz and the Associated Press.

President Trump signed legislation Wednesday aimed at giving Customs and Border Protection agents additional screening devices and other tools to stop the flow of illicit drugs.

Speaking at a surprise bill-signing ceremony while flanked by members of Congress from both parties in the Oval Office, Trump described the bill as a “significant step forward” in the fight against powerful opioids such as fentanyl, which he called “our new big scourge.”

He echoed that language Thursday in a tweet:

The legislation will pay for new portable and fixed chemical screening devices to detect and intercept fentanyl at ports of entry and in the mail, along with other laboratory equipment and personnel, including scientists.

Trump has made fighting the opioid epidemic a centerpiece of his administration, though critics say he hasn’t dedicated nearly enough money or resources to make a difference.

Trump suggested during his remarks on Wednesday that he’d like to take a more aggressive approach to the drug crisis — but the country’s not ready for what he has in mind.

“So we’re going to sign this. And it’s a step. And it feels like a very giant step, but unfortunately, it’s not going to be a giant step, because no matter what you do, this is something that keeps pouring in,” he said.

“And we’re going to find the answer. There is an answer. I think I actually know the answer, but I’m not sure the country’s ready for it yet,” he added. “Does anybody know what I mean? I think so.”

Japanese automakers Toyota and Mazda on Wednesday announced plans to build a mammoth, $1.6-billion joint-venture plant in Alabama that will eventually employ about 4,000 people.

President Trump lauded the news in a tweet:

Several states had competed for the project, which will be able to turn out 300,000 vehicles per year and produce the Toyota Corolla compact car for North America and a new small SUV from Mazda. Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey and company executives held a news conference to announce that the facility is coming to the Huntsville area not far from the Tennessee line.

Production is expected to begin by 2021.

The decision to pick Alabama is another example of foreign-based automakers building U.S. factories in the South. To entice manufacturers, Southern states have used a combination of lucrative incentive packages, low-cost labor and a pro-business labor environment, because the United Auto Workers union is stronger in Northern states.

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President Trump praised Norway’s prime minister in a tweet on Wednesday after Erna Solberg became the first foreign leader to visit with the president in 2018.

Trump also shared via Twitter a video clip of a joint news conference he held with Solberg on Wednesday afternoon.

In the clip, Trump responds to a question from a reporter by saying there can be no bipartisan immigration deal absent funding for his long-promised wall along the U.S. border with Mexico.

Republican and Democratic lawmakers have been seeking a solution for hundreds of thousands of so-called Dreamers, young people who were brought to the United States as children and are living here illegally.

“We need the wall for security, we need the wall for safety, we need the wall for stopping the drugs from pouring in,” Trump said Wednesday. “… Any solution has to include the wall because without the wall, it all doesn’t work.”

On Tuesday, Trump drew widespread attention when he said during a meeting with a bipartisan group of lawmakers that he would be “agreeable” to signing a stand-alone bill to protect the Dreamers, before moving on to a more comprehensive immigration bill.

That contradicted the Republican consensus that Dreamers’ fate needed to be part of a broader immigration bill that would include some version of Trump’s promised border wall and other immigration reforms.

Trump backed away from a stand-alone Dreamer bill in subsequent tweets and public comments.

Read More— This post contains reporting from Los Angeles Times staff writer Noah Bierman.

President Trump promoted a meeting of his Cabinet on Wednesday, sharing via Twitter a link to a video of the session posted on the White House YouTube account.

In his tweet, Trump thanked his Cabinet “for working tirelessly on behalf of our country” and wrote that the last year has been one “of monumental achievement.”

The former reality television star continued to dispense accolades at the meeting Wednesday, greeting reporters in the Cabinet Room by saying: “Welcome back to the studio.”

Then he proceeded to relive a Cabinet Room session from the prior day, when he had allowed reporters and TV cameras to stick around for much of his meeting with a bipartisan group of legislators on the thorny issue of immigration.

“It was a tremendous meeting. Actually, it was reported as incredibly good. And my performance — you know, some of them called it a performance — I consider it work,” Trump said.

Trump went on to say he had received letters from news anchors calling it “one of the greatest meetings they’ve ever witnessed.” He added that “the media will ultimately support Trump in the end, because they’re going to say, if Trump doesn’t win in three years, they’re all out of business.”

Asked for examples of letters received from news anchors, the White House said it had received “private communications.” It also offered a series of positive on-air comments and tweets from journalists about the unusual access to the meeting.

During his remarks, Trump swung from praising his own meeting coverage to telling journalists that they were dependent on his presidency for ratings to threatening a “strong look” at libel laws.

Still, Trump thanked the journalists in front of him, joking: “You’ve gotten very familiar with this room. I appreciate your nice comments yesterday.”

President Trump lashed out at investigations by the Justice Department and Congress into potential coordination between Russia and the Trump campaign.

In a tweet Wednesday morning, Trump urged Republicans to take control of the inquiries and repeated his contention that they are a “witch hunt.”

In a separate tweet, Trump accused Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) of being “underhanded and a disgrace” for disclosing details of a dossier of allegations about his ties to Russia during the presidential campaign.

A day earlier, Feinstein, who faces a primary challenge in her reelection this year, released the transcript of the Senate Judiciary Committee’s closed-door August interview with an official from the political opposition research firm Fusion GPS, which commissioned the dossier. She released the transcript of Glenn Simpson’s interview over the objections of the committee’s Republican chairman, Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley.

The material wasn’t classified, and Feinstein said Wednesday that she didn’t do anything illegal. And as the top Democrat on the committee, she didn’t need authorization from Grassley to release it. Her staff helped conduct the interview with Simpson, who had also asked for the interview to be released.

Still, the release was a blow to the two lawmakers’ earlier attempts at bipartisanship on the committee’s Russia investigation. Feinstein told reporters that she didn’t tell Grassley beforehand, and “I owe him an apology and I will give him an apology as soon as I see him.”

Trump has derided the dossier as a politically motivated hit job. Following his lead, several GOP-led committees are now investigating whether the dossier formed the basis for the FBI’s initial investigations. That has angered Democrats, who say those charges are distractions from the Russia investigations.

In a statement accompanying the release of the transcript, Feinstein said that she was trying to set the record straight after speculation about the interview.

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President Trump denounced the federal courts Wednesday as “broken and unfair” after a district judge in San Francisco issued a nationwide injunction keeping protections in place for so-called Dreamers.

Trump tweeted:

On Tuesday night, U.S. District Judge William Alsup in San Francisco temporarily blocked the Trump administration’s decision to phase out the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, known as DACA, which has protected from deportation some 700,000 people who came to the country illegally as children.

Alsup granted a request by the state of California, the University of California and other plaintiffs to stop Trump from ending DACA on March 5.

The administration’s decision to end DACA, which was announced in September, was based on a “flawed” legal analysis, Alsup wrote in his decision. Dreamers would be irreparably harmed if their DACA protections, which allow them to live and work legally in the U.S., were stripped away before the courts had a chance to fully consider their claims, he ruled.

The action is the mirror image of a ruling in 2015 by a federal judge in Texas who ruled in favor of that state when it sought to block President Obama from expanding DACA to include the parents of Dreamers. Trump administration officials praised that judicial ruling. By contrast, they sharply criticized Alsup’s decision.

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President Trump thanked a bipartisan group of lawmakers for participating in a meeting on immigration legislation on Tuesday.

Much of the discussion involved so-called Dreamers, an estimated 700,000 young people who were brought to the country illegally as children and are now facing deportation.

In a tweet, Trump wrote that “there was strong agreement to negotiate” a bill to protect Dreamers, as well as put into place some of the reforms favored by Republicans.

The most notable exchange of the meeting came when Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the San Francisco Democrat, asked Trump whether he would be “agreeable” to signing a stand-alone bill to protect the Dreamers, before moving on to a more comprehensive immigration bill.

“Yeah, I would like to do it,” Trump responded.

The statement drew widespread attention because it contradicted the Republican consensus that Dreamers’ fate needed to be part of a broader immigration bill that would include some version of Trump’s promised border wall and other immigration reforms.

Trump later backed away from a stand-alone Dreamer bill, tweeting that a wall along the U.S. border with Mexico must be part of any deal:

Pressure has been mounting for Congress to broker an immigration deal by Jan. 19 as part of a must-pass budget package to fund the government.

—This post contains reporting from Times staff writer Noah Bierman.

President Trump doled out a slew of accolades Tuesday via Twitter.

He thanked the nation’s law enforcement officers, including in his message a hashtag denoting a day of appreciation organized by a national support group for law enforcement families.

Trump later expressed gratitude for federal immigration agents, in particular:

The president thanked veterans as he cited his administration’s efforts to curb the number of veteran suicides by improving mental health treatment for the high-risk group:

Trump’s tweet included photos of the president signing an executive order Tuesday directing the secretaries of Defense, Homeland Security and Veterans Affairs to develop a plan to provide “seamless” access to mental health and suicide prevention resources for 12 months for members leaving the armed forces.

Also on Tuesday, Trump touted a law he signed the day before designating the birthplace of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. a national historic park:

And he thanked House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Bakersfield) for sharing a video compilation comprised of clips of politicians and commentators praising the GOP’s tax cut bill:

— This post contains reporting from the Associated Press and Times staff writer Alex Wigglesworth.

Connecting with rural Americans, President Trump on Monday hailed his tax overhaul as a victory for family farmers.

“Farm country is God’s country,” Trump told the annual convention of the American Farm Bureau Federation.

Trump became the first president in a quarter-century to address the federation’s convention. His Southern swing also included a stop in Atlanta for the national college football championship game.

Joined by Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue, Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) and a group of Tennessee lawmakers, Trump said most of the benefits of the tax legislation are “going to working families, small businesses, and who — the family farmer.”

The package Trump signed into law last month provides generous tax cuts for corporations and the wealthiest Americans, and more modest reductions for middle- and low-income individuals and families.

The president vastly inflated the value of the package in his speech, citing “a total of $5.5 trillion in tax cuts, with most of those benefits going to working families, small businesses and who? The family farmer.”

The estimated value of the tax cuts is actually $1.5 trillion for families and businesses because of cuts in deductions and the use of other steps to generate offsetting tax revenue.

From Nashville, Trump traveled to Atlanta to watch Alabama’s Crimson Tide and Georgia’s Bulldogs face off Monday night in the College Football Playoff National Championship.

Before departing for the game, Trump referenced his ongoing defense of the American flag and the national anthem, saying there was enough space for people to express their views. “We love our flag and we love our anthem, and we want to keep it that way,” he said.

President Trump touted a drop in the unemployment rate for African Americans on Monday in a tweet.

The rate fell to 6.8% in December, the lowest level since the government began tracking such data in 1972.

The reasons range from a greater number of black Americans with college degrees to a growing need for employers in a tight job market to widen the pool of people they hire from.

Trump also hailed the development via Twitter on Saturday.

His latest tweet on the topic came about an hour after it was discussed during an episode of “Fox & Friends,” according to Mediaite.

With President Trump cheering from the sidelines, the White House on Sunday pressed its defense of the president’s fitness to govern, as fired former aide Stephen K. Bannon reversed course and apologized for his role in a new book’s explosive portrait of Trump.

The president’s critics, meanwhile, said Trump’s stream of taunts and insults in response to the book — “Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House,” released last week — served only to underscore the author’s unsettling portrayal of Trump’s year-old presidency, depicting a leader whose own aides consider him childish, ignorant and dangerously erratic.

Trump provided more ammunition Sunday morning, as he continued to attack the book via Twitter while preparing to depart Camp David for the White House:

The most vehement defense of Trump on Sunday came from senior advisor Stephen Miller, a onetime Bannon acolyte who distanced himself from his former mentor. In a combative appearance Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union,” Miller called the book “grotesque” and writer Michael Wolff “the garbage author of a garbage book.”

Trump is known to closely monitor aides’ televised performances in putting forth his case, and he gleefully weighed in within moments of Miller’s televised clash with host Jake Tapper. CNN has long been a particular target of Trump’s ire.

Trump’s reaction, however, seemed to bolster Tapper’s on-air depiction of Miller as using his appearance on the show to play to the president rather than addressing questions put to him. “I get it — there’s one viewer that you care about,” the host said exasperatedly after Miller turned the discussion repeatedly to negative news coverage of the president while deflecting specific queries.

Later on Twitter, Trump took up two themes that have been prevalent on his social media feeds recently.

The president again went after the news media, tweeting that the recipients of his self-proclaimed “most dishonest & corrupt media awards of the year,” which he promised earlier in the week to announce on Monday, would actually be revealed the following Wednesday:

Trump later lauded a New York Post opinion piece that compared him favorably with his predecessor, President Obama, as well as Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton. In quoting the op-ed, Trump initally misspelled “consequential” as “consensual,” but he deleted those tweets and re-sent the messages.

Trump also continued talking up the economy, which has been enjoying a period of strong gains.

In addition to Miller, other senior administration officials made the rounds of Sunday news talk shows to decry the claims made in Wolff’s book. CIA Director Mike Pompeo said Wolff’s characterization of Trump as averse to digesting classified briefing material was “ludicrous,” and the ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, insisted that that those around Trump “love their country and respect their president.”

Read More— This post contains reporting from Times staff writer Laura King.

President Trump declared himself a “very stable genius” on Twitter on Saturday and later in a televised news conference called the author of a book that questioned his mental fitness a “fraud.”

His comments came on a bone-cold day at Camp David during a weekend retreat with top administration officials and Republican congressional leaders strategizing on the year’s legislative agenda, including matters such as infrastructure, immigration, welfare reform and national security.

Still, Trump’s explosive rebuttal to author Michael Wolff’s claims not only opened the day, but it also ensured the president’s capability to fill the highest office in the land was a topic that would not go away.

In his early-morning tweets, Trump said two of his greatest assets “have been mental stability, and being, like, really smart.”

He noted that his former Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton, “played these cards [about competence] very hard and, as everyone knows, went down in flames. I went from VERY successful businessman, to top T.V. Star to President of the United States (on my first try).”

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President Trump used Twitter on Saturday morning to tout a drop in the unemployment rate for African Americans.

He also used the tweets as an opportunity to take digs at media outlets whose past coverage he has found to be critical.

The unemployment rate for African Americans fell to 6.8% in December, the lowest level since the government began tracking such data in 1972. The reasons range from a greater number of black Americans with college degrees to a growing need for employers in a tight job market to widen the pool of people they hire from.

Still, the rate for black workers remains well above those for whites and some other groups, something experts attribute in large part to decades of discrimination and disadvantages.

Robust job creation has lowered unemployment for all Americans. U.S. employers added nearly 2.1 million jobs in 2017 — the seventh straight year that hiring has topped 2 million.

In his tweet, Trump praised a report that noted the numbers, touting the fact that it appeared “in the Washington Post (of all places)”.

Minutes later, Trump renewed his attack on an ABC News reporter who was suspended last month after filing an erroneous report on Michael Flynn, Trump’s former national security advisor.

The reporter, Brian Ross, was reportedly reassigned within ABC News upon returning from his unpaid suspension. But on Saturday, Trump wrote that he should have been fired.

Trump’s tweets came hours before he was set to host congressional Republicans and administration officials at Camp David.

The meeting scheduled to begin at midmorning Saturday was expected to touch on the budget, infrastructure, immigration, welfare reform and the shape of the midterm election this fall.

President Trump commended Sen. Rand Paul after the Kentucky Republican announced plans to introduce legislation that would eliminate all U.S. aid to Pakistan.

Trump tweeted Friday night:

On Thursday, the Trump administration announced it was suspending security assistance to Islamabad until the country moves aggressively against local militants who have attacked U.S. troops in neighboring Afghanistan.

Trump has repeatedly expressed frustration at the apparent inability of Pakistani authorities to rein in militants who cross out of the country’s rugged tribal areas to attack U.S. troops in Afghanistan.

Read More— This post contains reporting from Times staff writer Tracy Wilkinson.

President Trump is praising a major Republican donor family for distancing themselves from his former advisor Steve Bannon.

Trump tweeted Friday:

Trump has continued to lash out at Bannon over an explosive new book that quoted his former aide as questioning Trump’s competence and describing a June 2016 meeting at Trump Tower among Donald Trump Jr., Trump campaign aides and a Russian lawyer as “treasonous” and “unpatriotic.”

On Thursday, billionaire GOP donor Rebekah Mercer issued a statement distancing her family from Bannon. Mercer is a co-owner of Breitbart, the populist website Bannon helps run.

“I support President Trump and the platform upon which he was elected,” Mercer said. “My family and I have not communicated with Steve Bannon in many months and have provided no financial support to his political agenda, nor do we support his recent actions and statements.”

The book, “Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House,” quickly shot atop Amazon’s best-seller list, and the publisher moved up its release date by four days, to Friday.

Trump took up the topic again on Twitter on Friday night, denouncing both Bannon and the book’s author, Michael Wolff, in starkly personal terms:

Trump’s message linked to a meme depicting a parody book cover titled, “Liar and Phony,” that featured a photo of Wolff and disparaging quotes about the author.

In a tweet sent earlier Friday morning, Trump suggested the book was intended to serve as a distraction from the FBI’s investigation into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, which Trump wrote “is proving to be a total hoax.”

That came amid reports that Trump directed his White House counsel to tell Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions to not recuse himself from the Justice Department’s Russia investigation.

Trump’s effort to keep Sessions, a vocal and loyal supporter of his election bid, in charge of an investigation into his campaign offers special counsel Robert Mueller yet another avenue to explore as his prosecutors work to untangle potential evidence of obstruction.

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President Trump is praising the strength of the U.S. economy ahead of meetings at Camp David with congressional Republicans.

Trump tweeted early Friday:

The president also told reporters on the South Lawn that the “tax cuts are really kicking in” after Congress passed a package of tax cuts at the end of 2017.

And the president praised the December jobs report, which found U.S. employers added 148,000 jobs in December and the unemployment rate stayed at 4.1%, the lowest level since 2000.

The modest but steady pace of hiring is a reassuring sign for investors who have been buoyed by the just-passed Republican tax plan and have been sending stock market indexes roaring to uncharted heights.

The president is meeting with Republican congressional leaders and members of his Cabinet on Friday and Saturday to discuss the 2018 agenda.

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President Trump dispatched a congratulatory tweet as the Dow Jones industrial average rose above the 25,000-point mark Thursday, just five weeks after its first close above 24,000.

After the Dow closed above 25,000, Trump shared a graphic depicting the stock index’s record-setting rise.

Later in the day, the president was back on Twitter, complaining that news outlets had “barely” covered the stock market milestone.

He suggested that the strength of the economy would be the “biggest story on earth,” had it unfolded during the presidency of his predecessor.

The Dow broke past 1,000-point barriers in 2017 on its way to a 25% gain for the year, as an eight-year rally since the Great Recession continued to confound skeptics.

Strong global economic growth and good prospects for higher company earnings have analysts predicting more gains, although the market may not stay as calm as it has been recently.

The Dow has made a rapid trip since it reached 24,000 points Nov. 30, partly on enthusiasm over passage of the Republican-backed tax package, which could boost company profits this year with across-the-board cuts to corporate taxes.

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President Trump lashed out at the author of a soon-to-be-released book about the chaotic first year of his presidency Thursday night.

In a tweet, Trump called “Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House,” a “phony book” and claimed that he’d never spoken to its author, Michael Wolff.

“Look at this guy’s past and watch what happens to him and Sloppy Steve!” Trump wrote. He appeared to be referring to former White House chief strategist Stephen K. Bannon, whose stunning criticisms of Trump and his circle figure prominently in the title.

Trump’s tweet came hours after he had his lawyer demand that Henry Holt & Co. and Wolff stop publication the book.

Instead, the publisher expedited the book’s release to Friday, four days before it was slated to hit bookstore shelves, in response to “unprecedented demand.” Published excerpts on Wednesday and Thursday whetted that appetite and roiled Washington.

Bannon’s comments, including that it was “treasonous” and “unpatriotic” for Trump’s son Donald Trump Jr., son-in-law Jared Kushner and campaign manager Paul Manafort to have met in 2016 with Russians said to have “dirt” on Democratic rival Hillary Clinton, prompted Trump on Wednesday to rebuke his former advisor, saying Bannon had “lost his mind.”

Read More— This post contains reporting from Times staff writers Brian Bennett and Alex Wigglesworth.

President Trump tweeted thanks to Republican senators who attended a meeting about possible immigration legislation on Thursday.

In his message, Trump also listed his top priorities when it comes to any type of overhaul of the nation’s immigration system.

Trump’s tweet echoed his remarks at the beginning of Thursday’s meeting, when he insisted again that constructing a border wall and overhauling two legal immigration programs must be part of any deal with Democrats to protect the so-called Dreamers from deportation.

Two-year deportation protections and work permits given under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program begin to expire March 6 under an executive order. Trump announced in September that he was ending the Obama-era program, but told Congress to draft a law to continue protections for people brought to the country illegally as children — a group that has widespread public support.

Read More— This post contains reporting from Times staff writer Brian Bennett.

President Trump has resumed his Twitter war against NFL players who kneel during the national anthem to protest social injustice and racial inequality.

In a tweet early Thursday, Trump replied to a supporter who shared a meme that appears to depict family members lying on the grave of a fallen soldier with the caption: “This is why we stand.”

“Show this picture to the NFL players who still kneel!” Trump wrote.

The president has denounced players who kneel during the anthem in previous tweets. He’s also called for the firing of players who do so.

His latest message came amid news that the NFL finished the regular season with TV ratings that fell nearly 10% below the previous season.

Analysts attribute the drop to controversies facing the league, as well as changing viewing habits and a possible saturation point in the number of games available.

Read More— This post contains reporting from Times staff writers Stephen Battaglio and Alex Wigglesworth.

President Trump says his tough stance on nuclear weapons on the Korean peninsula is helping push North Korea and South Korea to talk.

Trump tweeted early Thursday:

That assertion is in conflict with some of the president’s own statements. Last year, he ridiculed Secretary of State Rex Tillerson for talking about negotiations with the North.

This week, Trump seemed open to the possibility of an inter-Korean dialogue after North Korean leader Kim Jong Un made a rare overture toward South Korea in a New Year’s Day address. But Trump’s ambassador to the United Nations insisted that talks won’t be meaningful unless the North is getting rid of its nuclear weapons.

The overture about talks came after Trump and Kim traded more bellicose claims about their nuclear weapons.

In his New Year’s Day address, Kim repeated fiery nuclear threats against the United States. Kim said he has a “nuclear button” on his office desk and warned that “the whole territory of the U.S. is within the range of our nuclear strike.”

Trump mocked that assertion Tuesday evening in a tweet.

One day after disbanding his troubled voter fraud commission without any findings of fraud, President Trump continued to call the U.S. voting system “rigged” and said states should require that Americans have voter-identification cards.

In two tweets on Thursday morning, Trump blamed the commission’s failure on the lack of cooperation from “mostly Democrat States” that refused to hand over voter rolls “because they know that many people are voting illegally.” However, voting supervisors in Republican-led states refused as well, objecting on privacy and other grounds.

Despite Trump’s assertions, analysts have not found evidence of widespread voter fraud.

Trump created the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity in May after alleging, without proof, that millions of illegal votes were cast for Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election. Trump was elected after winning a majority in the electoral college, but the nationwide count showed Clinton received nearly 3 million more votes.

The commission sought personal data on voters across the country and faced mounting lawsuits in recent months over privacy concerns.

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President Trump touted “another good day” for the stock market Wednesday in a tweet.

Big gains for technology and healthcare stocks helped U.S. indexes set records again Wednesday. Some analysts attributed the surge to investor enthusiasm for Trump’s $1.5-trillion tax cut.

All told, Wall Street analysts estimate the tax package should boost earnings for companies in the Standard & Poor’s 500 index by roughly 8% this year. That’s much more generous than the average tax cut of 1.6% that middle-class families will receive, according to the Tax Policy Center.

The public has been less enthusiastic about the tax law. A Monmouth University poll last month found that nearly half of Americans disapproved of it, with only 26% in support.

Still, as Trump also noted on Twitter, some workers have seen a benefit: So far, dozens of companies have announced bonuses and higher minimum wages as a result of the tax cut. AT&T, Comcast, Bank of America, and American Airlines have all pledged to pay $1,000 bonuses to their employees.

Investors also appear less concerned than many politicians about how the additional profits will be used. The Trump administration says it expects companies will plow much of the extra profit back into their businesses, purchasing more software, machinery, and other equipment. Those investments will make workers more productive and provide a key boost to the economy’s long-run growth. They should also boost wages and salaries for employees.

Opponents of the tax law respond that companies are more likely to pass the windfall on to shareholders in the form of higher dividend payments and share buybacks, which raise the price of those shares still in investors’ hands. Previous cuts in corporate tax rates, in the United States and overseas, haven’t always led to higher wages.

For Wall Street, it’s all good, at least in the short run. Most analysts take the view that either way, companies and the economy will benefit.

President Trump mourned the death of Mormon Church leader Thomas S. Monson on Wednesday evening.

Trump tweeted a link to a statement in which he said that Monson “demonstrated wisdom, inspired leadership, and great compassion” and delivered a message of “optimism, forgiveness, and faith.”

A church bishop at the age of 22, Monson became the youngest church apostle ever in 1963 at the age of 36. He served as a counselor for three church presidents before assuming the role of the top leader of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in February 2008.

After a life of church service, Monson died Tuesday at his home in Salt Lake City, according to church spokesman Eric Hawkins. He was 90.

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President Trump continued to express support for Iran’s anti-government protesters on Wednesday.

In a tweet, Trump commended the protesters and pledged that the United States will support them “at the appropriate time.”

Trump’s tweet Wednesday morning came as Iranian Ambassador Gholamali Khoshroo sent a letter to United Nations officials complaining that Washington was intervening “in a grotesque way in Iran’s internal affairs.”

“The President and Vice-President of the United States, in their numerous absurd tweets, incited Iranians to engage in disruptive acts,” the ambassador wrote to the U.N. Security Council president and U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.

The U.S. didn’t immediately respond to the letter, which maintains that Washington “has crossed every limit in flouting rules and principles of international law governing the civilized conduct of international relations.”

At least 21 people have been killed and hundreds arrested in Iran during a week of anti-government protests and unrest over economic woes and official corruption. Meanwhile, tens of thousands of people took part in counter-demonstrations Wednesday backing the clerically overseen government, which has said “enemies of Iran” are fomenting the protests.

Trump has unleashed a series of tweets in recent days backing the protesters, saying Iran is “failing at every level” and declaring that it is “time for change” in the Islamic Republic.

President Trump congratulated Sen. Orrin Hatch for “an absolutely incredible career” upon news of Hatch’s impending retirement.

In a tweet Tuesday afternoon, Trump called Hatch “a tremendous supporter” and wrote that “he will be greatly missed” in the Senate.

Hatch’s decision to retire from the Senate after four decades lets the Utah Republican walk away at the height of his power after helping to push through an overhaul of the tax code and persuading Trump to downsize two national monuments.

Retirement also preserves the 83-year-old’s legacy by allowing him to avoid a bruising reelection battle that would have broken his promise not to seek an eighth term.

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President Trump played up “tremendous progress” in improving care for veterans in his first year on Tuesday in a tweet.

His message linked to an Instagram video describing eight accomplishments that show Trump is “fighting for our veterans.” But it overstates the impact of these steps.

Of the eight achievements cited, two are ceremonial proclamations recognizing National Veterans and Military Families Month and National Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day.

Two are pieces of legislation that extended the troubled Veterans Choice program on a temporary basis. This became necessary because the Trump administration repeatedly miscalculated the amount of taxpayer dollars available to pay for care from private doctors outside the Veterans Affairs system when veterans had to endure long waits for treatment at VA medical centers. The department’s poor budget planning caught lawmakers off guard.

A fifth claim involves “telehealth,” a step letting doctors practice medicine across state lines using digital technology. Announced in August, it has yet to take full effect because a proposed VA regulation hasn’t been completed. The VA wants authority to practice across state lines to come from legislation, not a regulation. On Wednesday, the Senate approved a telehealth measure that now goes to the House.

A sixth claim refers to legislation that streamlines the appeals process for disability compensation claims within the VA. This step has had limited effect so far because it applies to new disability claims, not the 470,000 pending claims.

The last two initiatives make it easier for the VA to discipline employees. The department has pointed to more than 1,300 employees who have been fired under Trump’s watch. Because their infractions are not detailed in public documents, the effect on veterans’ care is not fully known.

President Trump clearly didn’t resolve to change his Twitter habits this year.

With nine disparate tweets over three hours on Tuesday morning, the first working day of 2018, Trump continued to exploit social media to be the most aggressive commentator in chief in American history. For any other president, his posts would have made for a monumental day of (mis-)statements. Yet for Trump, the series — attacks on political foes and media, provocations of foreign leaders and self-praise for events he had nothing to do with — was all but unremarkable.

His Twitter barrage — sent between 7:09 a.m. and 10:16 a.m. — reflected a familiar gamut after nearly a year in office:

Attacks on political foes: Nearly 14 months after his election, Trump called for the jailing of Huma Abedin, “Crooked Hillary Clinton’s top aid” (his misspelling, another occasional feature of Trump tweets).

In the same tweet, he disparaged the “Deep State Justice Dept,” headed of course by his appointees, calling on it to “act” against James B. Comey, the FBI director he fired for investigating “the Russia thing.”

Diplomatic provocations: Trump again called North Korean leader Kim Jong Un “Rocket man,” ridiculed the volatile nuclear-armed foe for recent military defections and openly speculated about potential talks between North and South Korea.

“Perhaps that is good news, perhaps not — we will see!” Trump wrote.

Later Tuesday, Trump tweeted:

Also later Tuesday, Trump tweeted an attack on Pakistan, his second in as many days, and added a new one against Palestinians:

Undermining media: Trump offered “Congratulations!” to A.G. Sulzberger, who took over as publisher of the New York Times this week.

But the two-part post was really yet another slam against a perceived media foe: Trump said the paper had a “last chance” to fulfill its journalistic mission, and accused it of relying on phony sources and substandard reporters — just days after he granted another exclusive interview to the paper. As a bonus, the tweet contained a recycled falsehood, that the paper apologized after the election for reporting on him unfairly. It didn’t.

Trump later said on Twitter that he would soon announce the “most dishonest & corrupt media awards of the year…. Stay tuned!”

The president also tweeted a quote from Fox Business Network’s “Lou Dobbs Tonight,” which aired a segment praising Trump’s first-year accomplishments.

Dobbs reportedly joined Trump at Mar-a-Lago on Sunday for a gala to celebrate New Year’s Eve.

Taking credit: Trump congratulated himself for policing the border with Mexico, an area where his policies and anti-immigration rhetoric are believed to have had some effect on reducing illegal crossings.

He took credit for employee bonuses by companies after he signed Republican tax cuts into law last month.

But the jaw-dropper was Trump congratulating himself for planes not crashing.

It was the safest year on record worldwide, but the American streak without commercial jet passenger deaths goes back to 2009. Trump, who has promoted deregulation as one of his top accomplishments, has not signed off on any new airline safety regulations. The White House pointed to new security screening of passengers, to electronic devices to prevent terrorist attacks and to Trump’s support for privatizing air traffic control — a proposal that has gotten nowhere in Congress.

Falsehoods: Trump said President Obama, in brokering the 2015 nuclear arms limitation deal with Iran, “foolishly” gave money to the “brutal and corrupt Iranian regime.” He didn’t.

The nuclear deal, which included major U.S. allies as signators, released Iran’s own funds that had long been frozen.

Trump’s art of the deal: When Trump sees a big deal looming, he often blasts the other side — to gain leverage, as he’s written. This week he resumes a showdown with Democratic lawmakers over funding the government and immigration protections for so-called Dreamers, who were brought to the country illegally as children.

Trump, who in September ordered a gradual end of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, sought to shift blame for the resulting controversy, saying “Democrats are doing nothing for DACA” and are “just interested in politics.”

Trump has insisted that any help for Dreamers be paired with funding for a border wall and a crackdown on legal immigration. Democrats, and some Republicans, are opposed.

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President Trump says Iran is “failing at every level,” and he is voicing his support for the protesters there, saying it is “TIME FOR CHANGE.”

Trump tweeted Monday:

The protests began Thursday in Mashhad over economic issues and have since expanded to several cities. Hundreds of people have been arrested.

While some have shared Trump’s tweets, many in Iran distrust him, as he’s refused to re-certify the nuclear deal and because his travel bans have blocked Iranians from getting U.S. visas.

Trump sent the tweet about Iran — and a second taking aim at Pakistan — from Palm Beach, Fla., where he is spending the holidays.

The president is kicking off the new year at one of his golf clubs, where he is hosting two professional golfers: Fred Funk and his son Taylor Funk.

Trump plans to return to Washington later Monday.

The president faces a hefty legislative to-do list upon his return, with the new year, plus critical midterm elections and perilous threats abroad.

Pakistan lashed out Monday after President Trump accused its leaders of “lies & deceit” and suggested the United States would withdraw financial assistance to the nuclear-armed nation it once saw as a key ally against terrorism.

It was the president’s latest broadside against Pakistan after a speech in August in which he demanded its leaders crack down on the safe havens enjoyed by Taliban militants fighting U.S.-backed forces in neighboring Afghanistan.

U.S. Ambassador David Hale was summoned to the Foreign Ministry to discuss the president’s statement, U.S. Embassy spokesman Richard Snelsire said. Pakistan lodged a strongly worded protest and asked for clarification about Trump’s comments, according to two foreign office officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.

Pakistan’s prime minister, Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, called a Cabinet meeting for Tuesday and a meeting of the National Security Committee on Wednesday to discuss Trump’s New Year’s Day tweet.

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President Trump capped 2017 on Sunday with a New Year’s Eve message addressed to his “friends, supporters, enemies, haters, and even the very dishonest Fake News Media.”

In a tweet, Trump extended wishes for a happy and healthy holiday, writing: “2018 will be a great year for America!”

Earlier Sunday, Trump tweeted a video self-tribute touching on what he sees as the high points of his achievements and rhetoric from his first year in office. He gave a plug to American exceptionalism, too.

In the video running 3½ minutes, scenes of Trump with military personnel, Border Patrol agents and other world leaders are set to a stirring soundtrack as he declares of his country: “We gave birth to the modern world, and we will shape tomorrow’s world with the strength and skill of American hands.”

Trump cited his success in placing a new justice on the Supreme Court, his efforts to cut regulations and his big win on overhauling taxes, which he falsely described as the “largest tax cut in the history of our country.”

The president sounded a similar note earlier in the morning on Twitter. He suggested that he deserves credit for the stock market’s record-setting run, writing that had Democrat Hillary Clinton been elected president, “stocks would be down 50%”:

Trump also appeared preoccupied by next year’s midterm elections. Some analysts are predicting that his widespread unpopularity will drive big Democratic gains, threatening the Republican majority in Congress.

Trump warned voters against choosing Democrats to fill congressional seats, tweeting that “their policies will totally kill the great wealth created” since he’s taken office.

The president is spending the holidays in Palm Beach, Fla., where his Mar-a-Lago club hosts an annual New Year’s Eve bash. At the event last year, hundreds of guests gathered in the club’s grand ballroom, including action star Sylvester Stallone and romance novel model Fabio.

Tickets for this year’s event cost $600 for club members and $750 for guests, according to Politico, up from last year’s prices of $525 and $575, respectively.

President Trump expressed renewed support Sunday for protesters in Iran, declaring that “people are finally getting wise as to how their money and wealth is being stolen and squandered on terrorism.”

In a tweet from his Florida estate, Mar-a-Lago, the president said the nationwide economic protests that began on Thursday — and have taken on wider political overtones as they have grown in size — were a signal that Iranians “will not take it any longer.”

Trump has tweeted about the protests for three days straight as Iranians took to the streets despite a heavy police presence, tear gas and scores of arrests. The defiance gained urgency after two people were reported shot to death in the city of Dorud, about 200 miles southwest of Tehran.

As the conflict escalated, Iranian authorities on Sunday slapped a temporary ban on Instagram and the messaging app Telegram, which were widely used to fan protest fervor.

Iran’s leaders already are casting Trump’s increasingly effusive expressions of support for the demonstrators as opportunistic meddling and are painting the demonstrators as foreign pawns, adopting a strategy that some analysts say could jeopardize the legitimacy of the nascent antigovernment protests.

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A man fired more than 100 rounds at sheriff’s deputies in Colorado early Sunday, killing one and injuring four others, before being fatally shot himself in what authorities called an ambush. Two civilians were also injured.

President Trump expressed sorrow, writing on Twitter:

Douglas County Sheriff Tony Spurlock said deputies came under fire almost immediately after entering a suburban Denver apartment and trying to talk with the suspect, who was holed up inside a bedroom.

“I do know that all of them were shot very, very quickly. They all went down almost within seconds of each other, so it was more of an ambush-type of attack on our officers,” Spurlock said. “He knew we were coming and we obviously let him know that we were there.”

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President Trump defended his use of Twitter on Saturday in a tweet.

Trump tweeted that he uses social media “because it is the only way to fight a VERY dishonest and unfair ‘press.’ ”

“Many stories & reports a pure fiction!” he wrote.

Trump often refers to news coverage that is critical, or with which he disagrees, as “fake news.”

His latest tweet on the topic came a little more than an hour after he quoted from a Wall Street Journal report to make his case for the GOP tax overhaul:

Trump continued to boast about the economy later in the afternoon and evening:

The president has sought to turn attention toward his achievements as 2017 comes to a close.

Near the top of the list is the stock market, which just finished its strongest year since 2013. Some analysts have credited Trump’s economic policies, including deregulation and the promise of corporate tax cuts, with stoking investor optimism.

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President Trump again offered support Saturday for anti-government protesters in Iran, where a third day of demonstrations, the largest in years, spilled across the country amid fears of a crackdown.

“Oppressive regimes cannot endure forever, and the day will come when the Iranian people will face a choice. The world is watching!” Trump wrote on Twitter.

Trump took a break from playing golf near his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida to tweet clips from his speech to the United Nations General Assembly in September when he called for Iranian democratic reforms.

Iranian authorities warned of potential violence as the street demonstrations, which began over economic conditions, swelled into frustrations with the theocratic rule of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Trump has maintained a hawkish stance toward Iran, sharply criticizing the landmark nuclear disarmament accord that Tehran reached with then-President Obama and five other nations in 2015.

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Iranians protesting the country’s strained economy gathered in Tehran and another major city Friday for the second day of spontaneous, unsanctioned demonstrations placing pressure on President Hassan Rouhani’s government.

President Trump expressed support for the protesters Friday night in a tweet calling on the Iranian government to “respect their people’s rights”:

The semi-official Fars news agency reported that officials said around 300 protesters gathered Friday in the western city of Kermanshah, the scene of a devastating earthquake in November that killed more than 600 residents. In Tehran, fewer than 50 people protested at a public square.

Such mass protests without police permission are unusual in Iran, and those taking part face arrest.

Fars reported that protesters in Kermanshah chanted anti-government slogans such as “never mind Palestine, think about us,” “death or freedom” and “political prisoners should be freed.” They damaged some public property before police dispersed them.

Police also arrested a small number of demonstrators in Tehran protesting price hikes and the president’s economic policy.

The U.S. State Department condemned the arrests earlier Friday.

“Iran’s leaders have turned a wealthy country with a rich history and culture into an economically depleted rogue state whose chief exports are violence, bloodshed, and chaos,” State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said in a statement. “As President Trump has said, the longest-suffering victims of Iran’s leaders are Iran’s own people.”

President Trump claimed in a tweet Friday morning that he is “approximately” as popular as his predecessor. Most polls indicate that is not accurate.

Citing a “Fox & Friends” report, Trump boasted that his job approval rating on Dec. 28 was about the same as that enjoyed by former President Obama on Dec. 28, 2009.

Trump was referring to the Rasmussen Reports daily presidential tracking poll, which on Thursday put his approval rating at 46%. The poll had shown Obama’s approval rating to be 47% on the same date in 2009.

But Rasmussen surveys tend to show more favorable results for conservative candidates. The tracking poll has consistently shown Trump’s approval rating to be higher than most other polls, and during Obama’s presidency, it consistently showed his approval rating to be lower.

According to data from all the major national polls aggregated by Real Clear Politics, Trump’s approval rating averaged 39.3%, as of Thursday. Obama’s approval average was 49.9% on the same date in 2009.

Trump fired off a nearly identical tweet in mid-June, when Rasmussen Reports put his approval rating at 50%. At that time, his approval average, per Real Clear Politics, was a full 10 points lower.

President Trump says there won’t be protection for young immigrants brought into the country illegally unless he gets funding for a border wall and other items.

Trump tweeted Friday:

The battle over immigration has been delayed until next year. Democrats want protections for the young immigrants, who are referred to as “Dreamers.” But GOP demands for Trump’s border wall and for an increase in immigration agents have proved difficult to resolve.

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President Trump took aim at the United States Postal Service on Friday, admonishing the agency for its financial losses and for failing to charge more.

“Why is the United States Post Office, which is losing many billions of dollars a year, while charging Amazon and others so little to deliver their packages, making Amazon richer and the Post Office dumber and poorer? Should be charging MUCH MORE!” the president wrote on Twitter:

Amazon stock fell 6.1% in the hours following the tweet. A representative of the postal service did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

It is unclear why the president chose Friday to lash out at the postal service. The agency, which is completely self-funded through the sale of postal products and services, last reported its earnings on Nov. 17. During its 2017 fiscal year, spanning Oct. 1, 2016, to Sept. 30, the USPS recorded $69.6 billion in revenue, a decrease of $1.8 billion from the previous year. The postal service reported a net loss of $2.7 billion, a decrease in net loss of $2.8 billion compared with 2016.

In 2017, mail volumes also declined by approximately 5 billion pieces, or 3.6%, while package volumes grew by 589 million pieces, or 11.4%. This increase could be attributed to Amazon orders — the e-commerce giant announced this week that holiday shoppers broke spending records on its platform.

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President Trump says the East Coast “could use a little bit of that good old Global Warming” as bitter cold temperatures are expected to freeze large swaths of the country this holiday weekend.

In a Thursday-evening tweet, Trump wrote:

The president has repeatedly expressed skepticism about climate change science, calling global warming a “hoax” created by the Chinese to damage American industry.

He announced this year his intention to pull out of the landmark Paris climate agreement aimed at curbing greenhouse gas production.

Meanwhile, the United Nations’ climate and weather agency says 2017 is on track to be the hottest year on record, aside from those affected by the El Nino phenomenon.

President Trump promoted via Twitter a poll that put his job approval rating at 46% on Thursday:

The Rasmussen Reports daily presidential tracking poll, which has been consistently more favorable to the president than most other major surveys, also shows that 53% of likely U.S. voters disapprove of Trump’s job performance.

Even that is somewhat of an outlier, with several other recent polls showing the proportion of Americans who disapprove of Trump’s performance to be pushing 60%.

Real Clear Politics’ average of national polls put Trump’s job approval rating at 39.3%, as of Thursday, and his disapproval rating at 56.2%.

President Trump isn’t taking a holiday vacation from Twitter. In one of three tweets early Thursday from his West Palm Beach golf club, he charged that China was “caught RED HANDED” allowing oil shipments to reach North Korean ports.

Pronouncing himself “very disappointed,” Trump in effect was acknowledging the failure of his months-long effort to convince China to clamp down further on energy shipments going to the isolated country, which relies heavily on Beijing, as a way to pressure North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons program.

Also Thursday, Trump sought to remind the world that he’s long warned about the dangers posed by North Korea’s nukes by tweeting a compilation video that included edited footage of an interview he did with NBC’s “Meet the Press” nearly two decades ago.

In the interview, Trump said he’d be willing to launch a preemptive strike against North Korea if negotiating “like crazy” didn’t work. And he described the country as “sort of wacko.”

The compilation video juxtaposed Trump’s interview with a 1994 clip of then-President Clinton announcing a deal to stop North Korea’s nuclear program.

Trump’s tweets came after a South Korean newspaper published what it said were U.S. spy satellite images of Chinese ships selling oil to North Korean ships.

The United Nations Security Council, which includes China, has voted repeatedly to restrict fuel shipments to North Korea. Trump asked Chinese President Xi Jinping in November to cut off North Korea’s oil supply entirely, the American ambassador to the U.N., Nikki R. Haley, said at the time.

It is unclear if Trump’s admonishment of China was based on news reports or classified information he received from U.S. intelligence officials. There was no daily intelligence briefing on Trump’s public schedule Thursday.

Read More— This post contains reporting from Times staff writer Brian Bennett and the Associated Press.

President Trump touted a report that says shoppers set a new record for holiday spending this year.

In a tweet Thursday morning, Trump boasted that the economy is “going better than anyone ever dreamt” and told supporters: “you haven’t seen anything yet!”

Retail sales were up 4.9% this holiday season, the largest year-over-year gain since 2011, according to Mastercard’s SpendingPulse Report, which tracked sales activity across all payment types from Nov. 1 to Dec. 24.

The report said the increase represents a “new record for dollars spent” but did not give a dollar amount. Another research firm, Customer Growth Partners, said that from the start of the holiday season to Christmas Eve, shoppers spent $598 billion, up from $565 billion for the same period last year.

Trump’s tweet in the final days of 2017 comes as the major stock indexes are closing in on double-digit gains for the year, led by Apple, Facebook and other technology stocks.

Several factors have kept the market on an upward grind. The global economy rebounded, while the U.S. economy and job market continued to strengthen, which helped drive strong corporate earnings growth.

Investors also drew encouragement from the Trump administration’s and Republican-led Congress’ push to slash corporate taxes, roll back regulations and enact other pro-business policies. Congress passed the $1.5-trillion tax overhaul bill, which reduces the corporate tax rate from 35% to 21%, last week.

With the tax cuts, U.S. economic growth may get an extra short-term boost. But analysts warn that extra fiscal stimulus, coming at a time when the economy already is perking, could quickly lead to overheating.

Read More — This post contains reporting from the Associated Press and Times staff writers Tracey Lien, David Pierson and Don Lee.