Hundreds protest Trump’s inauguration from capital
Amid the defiance and solidarity, sadness bubbled to the surface for many of Wellington’s expat Americans over the weekend.
Hundreds gathered in the capital on Saturday in support of the Women’s March Global movement, and to protest the inauguration of new United States president Donald Trump.
Raised in Los Angeles but now a Green Party MP, Julie Ann Genter found it hard to hide her tears before she spoke to those who had gathered at Parliament.
‘‘Politics is not a war, not a sport. We are not in it to win; it’s about working together,’’ she told the 600-plus crowd.
Timed to coincide with Trump’s first day in office, the rally was in response to the rising rhetoric of far-Right populism around the world, which many believe has overtones of misogyny.
One of the protesters, Ingrid Downey from Arizona, said she came to New Zealand 10 years ago but she has family ‘‘still there, living through it’’.
‘‘I never thought this would happen. I feel guilty that I get to live here and enjoy New Zealand and all its diversity. It’s an emotional time for me.’’
DeNeen Baker-Underhill, originally from San Diego and a Kiwi since 1989, wanted her children to see what it meant to stand up for equality. ‘‘I feel a little guilty I didn’t exercise my right to vote. I’ve been a Kiwi so long, and I thought it would be a landslide for Hillary [Clinton],’’ she said.
‘‘I want him [Trump] to know people are watching. I want him to know we are nipping at his heels.’’
Emily Bergan, 25, of New Hampshire, was holding up a sign that read: ‘‘Girls just want to have fundamental rights’’.
‘‘Not only is this about standing up to Trump, it’s about celebrating US culture and values. It feels nice to know people here and around the world have got our back.’’
March organiser Bette Flagler, from Chicago, found the number of young people connecting with the march’s ideals heartening. ‘‘We are thrilled with the turnout but, at the same time, we’re disappointed we have to be doing this.’’
UNITED STATES: On his first full day in office, President Donald Trump visited the Central Intelligence Agency’s headquarters to express his gratitude for the intelligence community, which he had repeatedly railed against and recently likened to Nazis.
What Trump delivered yesterday was a campaign-style, streamof-consciousness airing of grievances - at the Senate for delaying confirmation of his nominees; at critics for questioning whether he is smart and vigorous; and at journalists, whom he called ‘‘the most dishonest human beings on earth’’ and accused of lying about the size of his inauguration crowd.
Trump claimed falsely that the crowd for his swearing-in stretched down the National Mall to the Washington Monument and totalled more than 1 million people. It did not. Trump accused television networks of showing ‘‘an empty field’’ and reporting that he drew just 250,000 people to witness Saturday’s ceremony.
‘‘It looked like a million, a million and a half people,’’ Trump said, falsely claiming that his crowd ‘‘went all the way back to the Washington Monument.’’
Speaking from the lobby of CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, before a wall of stars honouring intelligence officers who died in service, Trump declared, ‘‘I have a running war with the media. They are among the most dishonest human beings on earth, right?’’
The audience that included about 400 intelligence officers as well as some of Trump’s White House aides applauded in approval. At one point, Trump claimed that most of the people in the room had voted for him.
‘‘They sort of made it sound like I had a feud with the intelligence community,’’ Trump said. ‘‘I just want to let you know, the reason you’re the number one stop is it is exactly the opposite.’’
In fact, Trump repeatedly vilified the intelligence community throughout much of his transition in an attempt to push back against what he saw as politically charged conclusions by the CIA and other agencies about Russia’s hacking of Democratic Party emails to interfere with the 2016 election.
Trump has taken particular issue with the CIA’s determination that Moscow intervened not only to disrupt this country’s election, but to help Trump defeat Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.
At a January 11 news conference, Trump accused US intelligence officials of being behind a Nazi-like smear campaign against him. He has put quotation marks around the word ‘‘intelligence’’ in referring to such officials. And last weekend, for instance, Trump attacked CIA Director John Brennan - who resigned on Friday at the conclusion of President Obama’s term - in a pair of tweets, suggesting he was ‘‘the leaker of Fake News.’’
Trump journeyed to Langley on his first in what aides said would be a series of visits to federal departments and agencies - to show his solidarity with career intelligence officials.
‘‘There is nobody that feels stronger about the intelligence community and the CIA than Donald Trump,’’ Trump said. ‘‘There is nobody.’’
He added, ‘‘I am so behind you. I know maybe sometimes you haven’t gotten the backing that you’ve wanted and you’re going to get so much backing. Maybe you’re going to say, ‘Please, don’t give us so much backing. . President, please, we don’t need so much backing.’’’
Trump vowed to lead the fight against the Islamic State, a rallying cry for intelligence officers: ‘‘We’ve been fighting these wars for longer than any wars we’ve ever fought. We have not used the real abilities that we have. We’ve been restrained. We have to get rid of ISIS.’’
He added, ‘‘Radical Islamic terrorism - and I said it yesterday has to be eradicated, just off the face of the earth. This is evil.’’
Trump also asserted his oftstated belief that the United States bungled its exit from Iraq by not taking it’s oil. ‘‘If we kept the oil, we wouldn’t have had ISIS in the first place,’’ Trump reasoned.
- Washington Post