Vancouver snubs Trump Tower
People carrying anti-Trump signs took part in a raucous demonstration to the sound of reggae music outside the grand opening of the Trump Tower in Vancouver on Tuesday.
Some protesters carried signs reading “Love Trumps Hate” and “Deport Racism” behind metal barriers protecting the 69-storey building, which has become a focal point for demonstrations against U.S. President Donald Trump.
The $360-million hotel and condominium development, with a unique twisting design by late architect Arthur Erickson, had a soft launch last month. Trump’s sons, Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, and his daughter Tiffany attended the grand opening.
“We’ve had an unbelievable past year on so many fronts as a family. We’ve opened so many great properties,” Eric Trump told the official opening.
There was no city hall representation at the opening.
“None of us will be there,” Vancouver councillor Kerry Jang said. “It’s got bad karma, that place.”
Vancouver’s Trump International Hotel and Tower was built by developer Joo Kim Tiah, the president and CEO of Holborn Group, who is the son of one of Malaysia’s wealthiest businessmen. The Trump Organization does not own the tower, but licensed its name for branding and marketing, while the Trump Hotel Collection operates the 147-room hotel.
DEAD ON ARRIVAL
The Trump administration’s first budget reveal is already in big trouble.
“It’s dead on arrival, it’s not go- ing to happen, it would be a disaster,” Republican Senator Lindsey Graham said Tuesday before Trump’s inaugural address to Congress. “This budget destroys soft power, it puts our diplomats at risk and it’s going nowhere.”
Trump’s proposal for deep cuts in spending for diplomacy and foreign aid to help pay for increased military spending calls for slashing 37 per cent of the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development budgets, official said. Development assistance would take the biggest hit.
Graham said there were many other Republicans and Democrats who will join him in the effort to save State Department and foreign assistance funding.
“When the Trump administration has a budget that basically destroys soft power, it’s unnerving to me, because clearly they don’t understand how soft power is essential to winning the war,” he said. “It’s a budget proposal that will probably meet the same fate as Obama’s proposals.”
COUCH-GATE
White House adviser Kellyanne Conway found herself the subject of outrage after she was spotted with her feet up on a sofa in the Oval Office while the president met representatives of historically black colleges and universities.
Photos of Conway kneeling on an Oval Office couch with her shoes on have sparked an online debate about decorum in the executive mansion.
Some Twitter users were quick to highlight the photos as evidence of a lack of respect for the office from Conway and the Trump administration. Other users have countered with numerous photos of former president Barack Obama resting his feet on the office’s famed Resolute desk at various times during his eight years in office.
Conway has yet to weigh in on the criticism.
OBAMA ‘BEHIND’ PROTESTS
Trump says he believes former president Barack Obama is behind some of the protests against Republican lawmakers across the country.
In an interview with Fox News Channel’s Fox & Friends that aired Tuesday, Trump responded to a question about the protests, saying, “I think that President Obama is behind it, because his people are certainly behind it.” He adds that he thinks Obama loyalists are also behind White House leaks.
Trump concedes, “I also understand that’s politics. And in terms of him being behind things, that’s politics. And it will probably continue.”
PHONE CHECKS
Trump denies that there’s a “major leak process” at the White House following reports that White House press secretary Sean Spicer targeted leaks from his own staff.
In an interview with Fox & Friends, Trump said Spicer convened an “emergency meeting” after details of a planning meeting got out, and conducted a “phone check” to prove they hadn’t been leaking information.
He says he “would have handled it differently than Sean. But Sean handles it his way and I’m OK with it.”
Trump says “Sean Spicer is a fine human being,” but adds, “I would have gone one-on-one with different people.”