Trump knew companies need H1B Author, publisher served cease and desist notice
TELLALL ACCOUNT In a new book, the US president is quoted as saying that tech firms “really need these visas”
WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump is a critic of the H-1B visa programme and his administration has proceeded to dismantle it bit by bit, or strangle it with restrictive rules.
But there was a time Trump believed American companies needed these visas. And he said so in a telephone call to media mogul Robert Murdoch, whom he admires and whose approval he has constantly sought, after a key meeting with tech industry titans at the Trump Tower in December 2016.
Details of that conversation figure in the upcoming book Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House by journalist Michael Wolff. The book has upended Trump’s world with explosive details about the president, his advisers, children, hair—how he managed the strange orangeblonde hue —and his diet (there is a new detail about why he prefers Mcdonalds — it has something to do with his fear of being poisoned).
Asked how the meeting with tech industry leaders went, Trump told Murdoch, “Oh, great, just great … These guys really need my help. Obama was not very favourable to them, too much regulation. This is really an opportunity for me to help them.”
“Donald,” said Murdoch, “for eight years these guys had Obama in their pocket. They practically ran the administra- tion. They don’t need your help.”
“Take this H-1B visa issues.” Trump, then president-elect, said, according to the book. “They really need these H-1B visas.”
When Murdoch suggested helping them on H-1B issue could go against his position on immigration and his base, an unconcerned Trump replied, “We’ll figure it out.”
The media mogul reportedly shrugged and swore about the president being a “f*** idiot” after hanging up.
Since then, Trump went in a completely different direction regarding the H-1B issue. He has ordered a review of the programme to prevent alleged abuse, and his administration has changed rules, or plans to do so. A new plan, which is still being discussed, to deny extensions to those awaiting their Green Cards (permanent residency), could potentially lead to mass deportation of an estimated 500,000 to 750,000 Indians.
Trump has said as a a businessman he used H-1B visas and during the Republican presidential debates he had acknowledged the need to keep talented foreigners studying in the top schools and colleges in the US. But his position evolved over time to become what it is now.
The book portrays a picture of Trump as someone who was not prepared for the job. He was prepared to lose the race. And when the verdict came, Trump himself and those around him were anything but overjoyed. Russians offered Donald Trump Jr dirt on Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and a meeting on this was held in Trump Tower. On this,
said: “Even if you thought that this was not treasonous, you should have called the FBI” "Shortly after 8pm on Election Night, when the unexpected trend – Trump might actually win – seemed confirmed, told a friend that his father, or DJT, as he calls him, looked as if he had seen a ghost. Melania was in tears” “Trump did not enjoy his own inauguration. He was angry that A-level stars had snubbed the event, disgruntled with the accommodations at Blair House, and visibly fighting with his wife, who seemed on the verge of tears. Throughout the day, he wore what some around him had taken to calling his golf face: angry and pissed off, shoulders hunched, arms swinging.” Trump's daughter and her husband Jared Kushner have struck a deal for her to run for president in future, Wolff says in the book She also made fun of her father's alleged "scalp-reduction surgery" and “comb-over” and treated him with “a degree of detachment, even irony” Trump looked up to
but the News Corp chief didn’t think much of him. During a phone call with the Wolff writes that Trump found the White House to be “vexing and even a little scary” and retreated to a separate bedroom. “In the first days, he ordered two television screens in addition to the one already there, and a lock on the door, precipitating a brief standoff with the Secret Service, who insisted they have access to the room.” president, Murdoch suggested that taking a liberal approach to H-1B visas might be hard to square with his promise to and close the borders. But Trump assured Murdoch, ‘We'll figure it out.’ ‘What a f*** idiot,’ said Murdoch as he got off the phone. WASHINGTON: President Trump has bristled at the suggestion that Steven Bannon crafted his unlikely victory and that, as chief strategist, he was the brain behind the presidency in its initial months.
“When he was fired, he not only lost his job, he lost his mind,” Trump said, adding that Bannon was a “staffer” who joined his campaign only after he had all but wrapped up the nomination.
Trump’s lawyers followed up with a letter to the author Michale Wolff and the publisher of his upcoming book, asking them to “cease and desist from any further publication, release or dissemination” of the book, which is to be released on January 9. In the book, Bannon described as “treasonous” a meeting of Donald Trump Jr, the president’s eldest son, son-in-law Jared Kushner and erstwhile campaign chair Paul Manafort with some Russians in the Trump Tower.
“The three senior guys in the campaign thought it was a good idea to meet with a foreign government inside Trump Tower in the conference room on the 25th floor – with no lawyers. They didn’t have any lawyers,” Bannon said, according to an excerpt of the book published by The Guardian. “Even if you thought that this was not treasonous, or unpatriotic, or bad s***, and I happen to think it’s all of that, you should have called the FBI immediately,” he added.