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Daily Beast: Trump’s Attorney Denies Marital Rape Exists, Threatens Reporter

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A bombshell report by The Daily Beast offers a glimpse into Donald Trump’s marriage to Ivana, and his bullying lawyer who reportedly threatened a journalist.

Editor’s note: See update at the bottom

Monday night The Daily Beast published a story, “Ex-Wife: Donald Trump Made Me Feel ‘Violated’ During Sex,” that is shocking on so many levels.

In the early ’90s, during a divorce deposition, Ivana Trump, who married Donald in 1977, said he raped her, and that once during sex she felt violently assaulted, The Daily Beast reports, citing a 1993 book, Lost Tycoon: The Many Lives of Donald J. Trump.

Daily Beast reporters Tim Mak and Brandy Zadrozny write that “Ivana Trump once used ‘rape’ to describe an incident between them in 1989. She later said she felt ‘violated’ by the experience.”

Michael Cohen, special counsel at The Trump Organization, defended his boss, saying, “You’re talking about the frontrunner for the GOP, presidential candidate, as well as a private individual who never raped anybody. And, of course, understand that by the very definition, you can’t rape your spouse.”

“It is true,” Cohen added. “You cannot rape your spouse. And there’s very clear case law.”

Actually, marital rape is actually legally recognized. A spouse can rape his or her spouse, and the courts do recognize it as rape.

“Marital rape today is illegal in all 50 states and non-consensual sex between spouses does in fact constitute rape,” CNN reports in an article about the Daily Beast story.

The Daily Beast continues:

The book, by former Texas Monthly and Newsweek reporter Harry Hurt III, described a harrowing scene. After a painful scalp reduction surgery to remove a bald spot, Donald Trump confronted his then-wife, who had previously used the same plastic surgeon.

“Your fucking doctor has ruined me!” Trump cried.

What followed was a “violent assault,” according to Lost Tycoon. Donald held back Ivana’s arms and began to pull out fistfuls of hair from her scalp, as if to mirror the pain he felt from his own operation. He tore off her clothes and unzipped his pants.

“Then he jams his penis inside her for the first time in more than sixteen months. Ivana is terrified… It is a violent assault,” Hurt writes. “According to versions she repeats to some of her closest confidantes, ‘he raped me.’”

In researching the story, the reporters reached out to Donald Trump’s attorney Michael Cohen, special counsel at The Trump Organization, who just last night appeared on CNN as his spokesperson. What followed is stunning.

“I will make sure that you and I meet one day while we’re in the courthouse. And I will take you for every penny you still don’t have. And I will come after your Daily Beast and everybody else that you possibly know,” Cohen said. “So I’m warning you, tread very fucking lightly, because what I’m going to do to you is going to be fucking disgusting. You understand me?”

“You write a story that has Mr. Trump’s name in it, with the word ‘rape,’ and I’m going to mess your life up… for as long as you’re on this frickin’ planet… you’re going to have judgments against you, so much money, you’ll never know how to get out from underneath it,” he added.

Later in the Daily Beast article, more from Trump’s attorney:

Cohen, Trump’s attorney, said that “there is nothing reasonable about you wanting to write a story about somebody’s usage of the word ‘rape,’ when she’s talking [about how] she didn’t feel emotionally satisfied.”

“Though there’s many literal senses to the word, if you distort it, and you put Mr. Trump’s name there onto it, rest assured, you will suffer the consequences. So you do whatever you want. You want to ruin your life at the age of 20? You do that, and I’ll be happy to serve it right up to you,” he added.

“I think you should go ahead and you should write the story that you plan on writing. I think you should do it. Because I think you’re an idiot. And I think your paper’s a joke, and it’s going to be my absolute pleasure to serve you with a $500 million lawsuit, like I told [you] I did it to Univision,” Cohen continued.

The Daily Beast reporters note:

When Lost Tycoon was about to be printed, Donald Trump and his lawyers provided a statement from Ivana, which was posted on the first page of the book. In it, Ivana confirms that she had “felt violated” and that she had stated that her husband had raped her during a divorce deposition. But Ivana sought to soften her earlier statement.

“During a deposition given by me in connection with my matrimonial case, I stated that my husband had raped me,” the Ivana Trump statement said. “[O]n one occasion during 1989, Mr. Trump and I had marital relations in which he behaved very differently toward me than he had during our marriage. As a woman, I felt violated, as the love and tenderness, which he normally exhibited towards me, was absent. I referred to this as a ‘rape,’ but I do not want my words to be interpreted in a literal or criminal sense.”

ABC News producer John Santucci late Monday night reported this from the Trump campaign:

 

UPDATE:
Ivana Trump Defends Ex-Husband Donald Over Daily Beast’s Sexual Violation Story

 

This article has been updated to include the CNN reference.

Image by iprimages via Flickr and a CC license
Hat tip: Raw Story and Little Green Footballs

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‘Depraved Lie’: White House Claims Democrats Are Blaming Trump for Texas Floods

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An increasingly “anxious” White House is lashing out at Democrats and the media, accusing them—without providing evidence—of blaming President Donald Trump for the catastrophic Texas floods that have killed over 90 people, including many children.

Critics are questioning whether cuts to the National Weather Service (NWS) by the Trump administration hampered accurate forecasting and slowed emergency warnings. Others point to failures by local officials to communicate timely alerts to the flood-stricken area along the Guadalupe River.

“Former federal officials and outside experts have warned for months that President Donald Trump’s deep staffing cuts to the National Weather Service could endanger lives,” the Associated Press reported Monday afternoon. “The Trump administration has cut hundreds of jobs at NWS, with staffing down by at least 20% at nearly half of the 122 NWS field offices nationally and at least a half dozen no longer staffed 24 hours a day. Hundreds more experienced forecasters and senior managers were encouraged to retire early.”

READ MORE: ‘Authoritarian’: Trump Treasury Chief Ripped for Call to Punish Private Citizen’s Speech

“The website for the NWS office for Austin/San Antonio, which covers the region that includes hard-hit Kerr County, shows six of 27 positions are listed as vacant,” the AP also reported, noting, however, that there were the usual number of staff members on hand the night of the flood.

Now, veteran foreign policy journalist Laura Rozen writes that the White House is “very anxious that administration/DOGE massive staffing cuts to national weather service and related agencies not be seen as connected to flooding deaths in Texas, inadequate warning.”

Senate Democratic Minority Leader Chuck Schumer on Monday, in a letter to Roderick Anderson, the Commerce Department’s acting inspector general, urged him to immediately “open an investigation into the scope, breadth, and ramifications of whether staffing shortages at key local National Weather Service (NWS) stations contributed to the catastrophic loss of life and property during the deadly flooding,” The Hill reported.

“He noted that The New York Times reported that key forecasting and coordination positions at the San Antonio and San Angelo offices of the NWS were vacant at the time of the Friday storm,” The Hill also reported. “Those local offices were missing a warning coordination meteorologist, a science officer and a senior hydrologist, among other ‘vital forecasting, meteorology and coordination roles.'”

Only once in Schumer’s letter does he mention Trump, and it is not to blame him for the flooding.

But White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt on Monday strongly suggested Senator Schumer was indeed directly blaming Trump for the flooding.

READ MORE: ‘What First Amendment?’: 140 EPA Workers Suspended After Opposing Trump Agenda

“Unfortunately, in the wake of this once in a generation natural disaster, we have seen many falsehoods pushed by Democrats such as Senator Chuck Schumer and some members of the media. Blaming President Trump for these floods is a depraved lie, and it serves no purpose during this time of national mourning,” Leavitt told reporters (video below).

U.S. Senator Ted Cruz on Monday also falsely claimed that President Trump is being blamed for natural disasters, telling reporters, “you see that with a hurricane, with a tornado, with a wildfire, with this flooding, where people immediately say, ‘Well, the hurricane is Donald Trump’s fault.'”

Critics pushed back at the White House.

“Nobody is blaming Trump for the floods,” wrote journalist and environmentalist Michael Dominowski. “But he did decimate National Weather Service forecast offices, despite being told doing so would hamper the agency’s ability to accurately predict storms. He did it anyway. Look at what happened. Cause/effect is a thing.”

Watch the video below or at this link.

READ MORE: Democratic Strategist Warns Trump Could Try to Impose Martial Law Before 2026 Midterms

 

 

 

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Ted Cruz Blasted for Defending Trump, Dodging Questions on Flood Warning System Failures

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U.S. Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) is under fire for remarks he made in the wake of deadly Texas flooding that has killed over 80 people, claiming that now is not the time to politicize—or even examine—the tragedy, while also defending President Donald Trump.

Some are asking if the Trump administration’s staffing cuts to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and specifically, the National Weather Service (NWS), which provides local weather forecasts and warnings across the country, were to blame for a possibly stunted response to the flash flooding on the Guadalupe River.

“State and local officials are calling out federal forecasters amid deadly flooding in the Texas Hill Country over the extended Fourth of July weekend,” Texas NBC affiliate KXAN reported on Friday. “The criticism comes, as funding cuts and staff shortages plague the National Weather Service and other emergency management agencies nationwide.”

READ MORE: ‘Authoritarian’: Trump Treasury Chief Ripped for Call to Punish Private Citizen’s Speech

On Monday at Public Notice, Noah Berlatsky wrote: “Retired federal scientists warned that the cuts could hamstring forecasts and make extreme weather events less predictable and more dangerous.”

“The New York Times reported that ‘crucial positions at the local offices of the National Weather Service were unfilled as severe rainfall inundated parts of Central Texas … prompting some experts to question whether staffing shortages made it harder for the forecasting agency to coordinate with local emergency managers as floodwaters rose,” Berlatsky added. “Did Trump’s cuts cause excess deaths in Texas? It will probably be some time before we have a definitive answer to that question, if we ever do at all.”

Meanwhile, Senator Cruz on Monday told reporters (video below), “I think any time you’re dealing with major rivers, there’s a risk of flooding, and there’s always been a risk of flooding, particularly on the Guadalupe River.”

“One of the things that’s predictable is that you see some people engaging in, I think partisan games, and trying to blame their political opponents for a natural disaster. And you see that with a hurricane, with a tornado, with a wildfire, with this flooding, where people immediately say, “Well, the hurricane is Donald Trump’s fault.”

Cruz also insisted that there’s an “ordering of things,” and that not until after the search and rescue and not until after rebuilding can there be a “retrospective” to determine what could have been done differently.

READ MORE: ‘What First Amendment?’: 140 EPA Workers Suspended After Opposing Trump Agenda

Critics blasted Cruz, with one noting that he “was asked a non-partisan question about a safety/warning system. His response was to be defensive and political in defending Trump.”

Others noted that Americans aren’t blaming the President for natural disasters, but for what some see as a hampered response given the drastic cuts made to the National Weather Service.

“No one is saying Trump caused the storm, Ted,” wrote “On Democracy” podcaster Fred Wellman. “We are asking if more could have been done to warn people? They were literally relying on a system of upstream camps calling one’s further down. It’s 2025. They should have had sirens, cell coverage improvements, and more. The county posted the warning on Facebook. Your job is to ask those questions not gaslight.”

“OK,” wrote actress Morgan Fairchild, “but was it ever communicated to you that it was a priority to have [a] warning system? Especially since the area is called Flood Alley…”

“Ted Cruz slams people for ‘engaging in partisan games’ just minutes after he praised Donald Trump as in essence the greatest president and said Trump made it clear he would be there for Texas,” observed SiriusXM host Dean Obeidallah.

Watch the videos below or at this link.

READ MORE: Democratic Strategist Warns Trump Could Try to Impose Martial Law Before 2026 Midterms

 

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‘Authoritarian’: Trump Treasury Chief Ripped for Call to Punish Private Citizen’s Speech

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In what some critics describe as an example of “cancel culture,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent—a high profile official in the Trump administration—is calling for an apology or the firing of a private citizen: Larry Summers, a Democrat who, coincidentally, once held Bessent’s current position and later served as president of Harvard University.

In remarks he made over the weekend, Summers likened the horrific Texas flooding fatalities—now over 80, with dozens reportedly still missing and more rain expected—to what experts say will be the result of President Donald Trump’s so-called “One Big, Beautiful Bill,” the GOP budget projected to lead to the deaths of tens of thousands of Americans annually.

“A Yale and University of Pennsylvania study estimated that restricting Medicaid and Affordable Care Act coverage, the repeal of nursing home staffing regulations, and other adjustments in the bill could result in 51,000 preventable deaths each year across the country, making it a top 10 cause of death in the U.S.,” The Daily Beast reported over the weekend.

READ MORE: ‘What First Amendment?’: 140 EPA Workers Suspended After Opposing Trump Agenda

Actually citing lower death projections, Summers on Sunday told ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos (video below) that the GOP budget bill, signed into law in an Independence Day ceremony complete with fighter jets and B-2 bombers soaring overhead, “is the biggest cut in the American safety net in history.”

He cited “estimates that it will kill, over 10 years, 100,000 people.”

“That is 2,000 days of death like we’ve seen in Texas this weekend. In my 70 years, I’ve never been as embarrassed for my country on July 4th,” Summers lamented.

He went on to call it “a shameful act by our Congress and by our president that is going to set our country back.”

Secretary Bessent, reportedly under consideration to replace Jerome Powell as Trump calls for the Federal Reserve Chairman’s exit, lashed out.

Calling Summers’ appearance on ABC News’ “This Week,” a “shockingly callous interview,” that portrayed “a lack of humanity and judgment,” Bessent charged, “Using the horrifying situation in Texas for cheap political gain is unfathomable.”

He offered no insight into what political advantage Summers hoped to gain, but alleged that Summers had “turned a human tragedy into a political cudgel,” characterized his remarks as “feckless and deeply offensive,” and demanded “a public apology for his toxic language.”

At no point did Secretary Bessent dispute the numbers Summers cited.

READ MORE: Democratic Strategist Warns Trump Could Try to Impose Martial Law Before 2026 Midterms

But he did demand an apology, and absent that, said his remarks should be “grounds for dismissal.”

“I hope the nonprofit and for-profit institutions with which he is affiliated will join me in this call. If he is unwilling or unable to acknowledge the cruelty of his remarks, they should consider Harvard’s example and make his unacceptable rhetoric grounds for dismissal,” the Treasury Secretary wrote.

Critics blasted Bessent.

“‘Shockingly callous’ isn’t pointing out the reality that Medicaid cuts will kill tens of thousands. Shockingly callous is cutting Medicaid without knowing this, or worse, cutting it despite knowing this,” wrote Professor of Economics and Brookings Institution Senior Fellow Justin Wolfers. “Notice something else: Not once does Bessent refute the numbers that Summers offers. He just finds the language offensive. Some may find the reality more offensive.”

“Thank goodness we’ve gotten rid of cancel cult…,” Wolfers also snarked. “oh, wait, the secretary of the treasury is pressuring a private university to strip a professor of tenure because he highlighted numbers in a way the regime never refuted, but found offensive.”

“It’s truly pathetic that a Treasury Sec is using a public account to launch ad hominem attacks on a former Treasury Sec,” wrote Neera Tanden, former Biden Director of the Domestic Policy Council. “Clearly Bessent can’t counter @LHSummers facts. Clearly the WH is so worried BBB is a political disaster they forced their toady Treasury Sec to attack.”

“This is none of your business, Scott,” charged writer and historian Joshua Decter. “Stop trying to interfere and meddle with independent academic institutions. These are neo-Stalinist or neo-Maoist tactics. This is not what should happen in America.”

“Calling for a private citizen to be punished for disagreeing with the Administration from his official government account is classic authoritarianism,” observed Fred Wellman, a graduate of West Point and the Harvard Kennedy School, a 22-year combat veteran who is now the host of the podcast “On Democracy.”

Civil liberties and national security journalist Marcy Wheeler charged: “Secretary: You ALL WERE WARNED. You were warned repeatedly about the deaths you were going to cause. You own them.”

Watch Summers’ remarks in the video below or at this link.

READ MORE: Trump Appeared Unaware His Budget Bill Cuts $1T From Medicaid: Report

 

Image via Reuters

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