Entries in the comments…
Toe-curling watch last night from the White House as poor Joe Biden was effortlessly upstaged by his younger, slicker, and more lucid predecessor. Kamala Harris seemed to forget her boss even existed as Obama triumphantly high-fived everyone within orbit. As Tucker Carlson put it, “make it stop, it’s awful”…
This morning ex-White House staffer Ben Rhodes told the Today programme that David Cameron and his aides asked Obama to say the infamous “back of the queue” line. A flick back through Craig Oliver’s Unleashing Demons (via @mrharrycole) shows that at the time Sir Craig claimed the opposite was true and briefed the press accordingly. He recalled:
“There’s some weird whingeing from the Leavers that the fact he said ‘queue’ instead of ‘line’ proves it was written by No 10. I slap it down. ‘Nonsense. The President can speak for himself’.
Who’s lying? Will enjoy hearing Sir Craig spin this one…
Confirmation from ex-White House staffer Ben Rhodes on the Today programme this morning that David Cameron and his aides asked Obama to say Brexit would put the UK “at the back of the queue” for a trade deal with the US. Can’t think why the Remain campaign working with foreign countries to diminish Britain wasn’t popular with voters.
Great find by PoliticsHome – Labour Shadow International Development Secretary Kate Osamor shamelessly plagiarising a Barack Obama speech at her election count last year. Bad day for the Osamors…
White House Press Sec talking about Obama using British GCHQ & not US agencies to spy on Trump so that there werent US fingerprints on it 😮😮 pic.twitter.com/KcLZt5KOZS
— CoxeyLoxey (@CoxeyLoxey) March 16, 2017
Donald Trump’s press secretary Sean Spicer is making news again this morning after repeating claims first made on Fox News that GCHQ had been involved in ‘wire tapping’ the then President Elect. The network’s ‘Senior Judicial Analyst‘ Judge Napolitano claimed on Tuesday that Fox had “three intelligence sources” for this. “What the heck is GCHQ?”, he asked.
.@Judgenap: Three intel sources have disclosed that Pres. Obama turned to British spies to get surveillance on Trump pic.twitter.com/IghCFm7qhO
— FOX & friends (@foxandfriends) 14 March 2017
Responding to Spicer, GCHQ took the step of issuing this statement overnight:
“Recent allegations made by media commentator Judge Andrew Napolitano about GCHQ being asked to conduct ‘wire tapping’ against the then President Elect are nonsense. They are utterly ridiculous and should be ignored.”
What’s the English for kompromat?
