Trump Talk™

Sorry Nasui, I'm taller than Hillary, about as broad in the hips, and come in at under 180.

Yeah but do your legs have girth comparable to the size of California redwoods?

Donald Trump spent more than a quarter-million dollars from his charitable foundation to settle lawsuits that involved the billionaire’s for-profit businesses, according to interviews and a review of legal documents.

Those cases, which together used $258,000 from Trump’s charity, were among four newly documented expenditures in which Trump may have violated laws against “self-dealing” — which prohibit nonprofit leaders from using charity money to benefit themselves or their businesses.

In one case, from 2007, Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club faced $120,000 in unpaid fines from the town of Palm Beach, Fla., resulting from a dispute over the height of a flagpole.

In a settlement, Palm Beach agreed to waive those fines — if Trump’s club made a $100,000 donation to a specific charity for veterans. Instead, Trump sent a check from the Donald J. Trump Foundation, a charity funded almost entirely by other people’s money, according to tax records.

In another case, court papers say one of Trump’s golf courses in New York agreed to settle a lawsuit by making a donation to the plaintiff’s chosen charity. A $158,000 donation was made by the Trump Foundation, according to tax records.

The other expenditures involved smaller amounts. In 2013, Trump used $5,000 from the foundation to buy advertisements touting his chain of hotels in programs for three events organized by a D.C. preservation group. And in 2014, Trump spent $10,000 of the foundation’s money for a portrait of himself bought at a charity fundraiser.

Or, rather, another portrait of himself.

Several years earlier, Trump had used $20,000 from the Trump Foundation to buy a different, six foot-tall portrait.

If the Internal Revenue Service were to find that Trump violated self-dealing rules, the agency could require him to pay penalty taxes or to reimburse the foundation for all the money it spent on his behalf. Trump is also facing scrutiny from the New York attorney general’s office, which is examining whether the foundation broke state charity laws.

More broadly, these cases­ also provide new evidence that Trump ran his charity in a way that may have violated U.S. tax law and gone against the moral conventions of philanthropy.

“I represent 700 nonprofits a year, and I’ve never encountered anything so brazen,” said Jeffrey Tenenbaum, who advises charities at the Venable law firm in Washington. After The Washington Post described the details of these Trump Foundation gifts, Tenenbaum described them as “really shocking.”

“If he’s using other people’s money — run through his foundation — to satisfy his personal obligations, then that’s about as blatant an example of self-dealing [as] I’ve seen in awhile,” Tenenbaum said.

The Post sent the Trump campaign a detailed list of questions about the four cases but received no response.

The New York attorney general’s office declined to comment when asked whether its inquiry would cover these new cases­ of possible self-dealing.

Trump founded his charity in 1987 and for years was its only donor. But in 2006, Trump gave away almost all the money he had donated to the foundation, leaving it with just $4,238 at year’s end, according to tax records.

Then, he transformed the Trump Foundation into something rarely seen in the world of philanthropy: a name-branded foundation whose namesake provides none of its money. Trump gave relatively small donations in 2007 and 2008, and afterward, nothing. The foundation’s tax records show no donations from Trump since 2009.

Its money has come from other donors, most notably pro-wrestling executives Vince and Linda McMahon, who gave a total of $5 million from 2007 to 2009, tax records show. Trump remains the foundation’s president, and he told the IRS in his latest public filings that he works half an hour per week on the charity.

The Post has previously detailed other cases in which Trump used the charity’s money in a way that appeared to violate the law.

In 2013, for instance, the foundation gave $25,000 to a political group supporting Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi (R). That gift was made about the same time that Bondi’s office was considering whether to investigate fraud allegations against Trump University. It didn’t.

Tax laws say nonprofit groups such as the Trump Foundation may not make political gifts. Trump staffers blamed the gift on a clerical error. After The Post reported on the gift to Bondi’s group this spring, Trump paid a $2,500 penalty tax and reimbursed the Trump Foundation for the $25,000 donation.

In other instances, it appeared that Trump may have violated rules against self-dealing.

In 2012, for instance, Trump spent $12,000 of the foundation’s money to buy a football helmet signed by then-NFL quarterback Tim Tebow.

And in 2007, Trump’s wife, Melania, bid $20,000 for the six-foot-tall portrait of Trump, done by a “speed painter” during a charity gala at Mar-a-Lago. Later, Trump paid for the painting with $20,000 from the foundation.

In those cases, tax experts said, Trump was not allowed to simply keep these items and display them in a home or business. They had to be put to a charitable use.

Trump’s campaign has not responded to questions about what became of the helmet or the portrait.

The four new cases of possible self-dealing were discovered in the Trump Foundation’s tax filings. While Trump has refused to release his personal tax returns, the foundation’s filings are required to be public.

The case involving the flagpole at Trump’s oceanfront Mar-a-Lago Club began in 2006, when the club put up a giant American flag on the 80-foot pole. Town rules said flagpoles should be 42 feet high at most. Trump’s contention, according to news reports, was: “You don’t need a permit to put up the American flag.”

The town began to fine Trump, $1,250 a day.

Trump’s club sued in federal court, saying that a smaller flag “would fail to appropriately express the magnitude of Donald J. Trump’s . . . patriotism.”

They settled.

The town waived the $120,000 in fines. In September 2007, Trump wrote the town a letter, saying he had done his part as well.

“I have sent a check for $100,000 to Fisher House,” he wrote. The town had chosen Fisher House, which runs a network of comfort homes for the families of veterans and military personnel receiving medical treatment, as the recipient of the money. Trump added that, for good measure, “I have sent a check for $25,000” to another charity, the American Veterans Disabled for Life Memorial.

Trump provided the town with copies of the checks, which show that they came from the Trump Foundation.

In Palm Beach, nobody seems to have objected to the fines assessed on Trump’s business being erased by a donation from a charity.

“I don’t know that there was any attention paid to that at the time. We just saw two checks signed by Donald J. Trump,” said John Randolph, the Palm Beach town attorney. “I’m sure we were satisfied with it.”

In the other case in which a Trump Foundation payment seemed to help settle a legal dispute, the trouble began with a hole-in-one.

In 2010, a man named Martin Greenberg hit a hole-in-one on the 13th hole while playing in a charity tournament at Trump’s course in Westchester County, N.Y.

Greenberg won a $1 million prize. Briefly.

Later, Greenberg was told that he had won nothing. The prize’s rules required that the shot had to go 150 yards. But Trump’s course had allegedly made the hole too short.

Greenberg sued.

Eventually, court papers show, Trump’s golf course signed off on a settlement that required it to make a donation to a group of Martin Greenberg’s choosing. Then, on the day that the parties informed the court they had settled their case, a $158,000 donation was sent to the Martin Greenberg Foundation.

That money came from the Trump Foundation, according to the tax filings of both Trump’s and Greenberg’s foundations.

Greenberg’s foundation reported getting nothing that year from Trump personally or from his golf club.

Both Greenberg and Trump have declined to comment.

Several tax experts said that the two cases­ appeared to be clear examples of self-dealing, as defined by the tax code.

The Trump Foundation had made a donation, it seemed, so that a Trump business did not have to.

Rosemary E. Fei, a lawyer in San Francisco who advises nonprofit groups, said both cases­ clearly fit the definition of self-dealing.

“Yes, Trump pledged as part of the settlement to make a payment to a charity, and yes, the foundation is writing a check to a charity,” Fei said. “But the obligation was Trump’s. And you can’t have a charitable foundation paying off Trump’s personal obligations. That would be classic self-dealing.”

In another instance, from 2013, the Trump Foundation made a $5,000 donation to the D.C. Preservation League, according to the group and tax filings. That nonprofit group’s support has been helpful for Trump as he has turned the historic Old Post Office Pavilion on Pennsylvania Avenue NW into a luxury hotel.

The Trump Foundation’s donation to that group bought a “sponsorship,” which included advertising space in the programs for three big events that drew Washington’s real estate elite. The ads did not mention the foundation or anything related to charity. Instead, they promoted Trump’s hotels, with glamorous photos and a phone number to call to make a reservation.

“The foundation wrote a check that essentially bought advertising for Trump hotels?” asked John Edie, the longtime general counsel for the Council on Foundations, when a Post reporter described this arrangement. “That’s not charity.”

The last of the four newly documented expenditures involves the second painting of Trump, which he bought with charity money.

It happened in 2014, during a gala at Mar-a-Lago that raised money for Unicorn Children’s Foundation — a Florida charity that helps children with developmental and learning disorders.

The gala’s main event was a concert by Jon Secada. But there was also an auction of paintings by Havi Schanz, a Miami Beach-based artist.

One was of Marilyn Monroe. The other was a four-foot-tall portrait of Trump: a younger-looking, mid-’90s Trump, painted in acrylic on top of an old architectural drawing.

Trump bought it for $10,000.

Afterward, Schanz recalled in an email, “he asked me about the painting. I said, ‘I paint souls, and when I had to paint you, I asked your soul to allow me.’ He was touched and smiled.”

A few days later, the charity said, a check came from the Trump Foundation. Trump himself gave nothing, according to Sharon Alexander, the executive director of the charity.

Trump’s staff did not respond to questions about where that second painting is now. Alexander said she had last seen it at Trump’s club.

“I’m pretty sure we just left it at Mar-a-Lago,” she said, “and his staff took care of it.”

The website TripAdvisor provides another clue: On the page for Trump’s Doral golf resort, near Miami, users posted photos from inside the club. One of them appears to show Schanz’s painting, hanging on a wall at the resort. The date on the photo was February 2016.

(Newser) – The word "unprecedented" has been used many times in association with Donald Trump's presidential run, and now Politico* has another to add to the list. The site found the GOP nominee's campaign has paid $8.2 million out to his own family's businesses, or about 7% of the total $119 million his campaign has spent. These Trump company payments include $1.3 million for rent for his campaign's offices, $544,000 for event and meeting venues and victuals, and $333,000 paid to Trump staffers helping with the campaign. And while this mixture of business and politics may not be illegal—though Politico notes it's hard to tell, as Trump hasn't released his taxes, which could shed light on how his businesses are structured—its practice has "raised eyebrows" of campaign finance experts, as the New York Times put it in June when it first talked about Trump's self-funding efforts.

"It's unique to have somebody who is independently wealthy and is able to so thoroughly integrate a privately held company into their campaign," a GOP election lawyer tells Politico. Some point suspiciously to a statement Trump made in 2001 in which he noted: "It's very possible that I could be the first presidential candidate to run and make money on it." A Campaign Legal Center rep told the Times Trump could turn a profit with his run, while an NYU election law expert noted it's "something to keep an eye on": Once donor money is kept for one's self (or one's family), it "crosses the line." While Hillary Clinton hasn't yet addressed the Politico report, she noted Trump's finance finagling in June, tweeting: "What is Trump spending his meager campaign resources on? Why, himself, of course."

“Basically, they will, if they see — you know, they are proactive and if they see a person possibly with a gun or they think may have a gun, they will see the person, and they will look, and they will take the gun away,” Trump said in an interview with "Fox and Friends."

“They will stop, they will frisk, and they will take the gun away, and they don’t have anything to shoot with.”

So trump want to take your guns (Is the Hill left/right?)...

...
I would love to see the new statistics on the 10% that were actually carrying something illegal were they carrying guns or drugs? Or what?

I think that even 1% is a big enough number if it meant saving lives but I just don't see how this sort of policy would save any lives....

What's less clear is the policy's impact on the lower crime rate. The number of stops in the city rose dramatically from 97,296 in 2002 to 685,724 in 2011, a seven-fold increase, according to data compiled by the New York Civil Liberties Union based on police reports.
But the number of homicides did not fall in proportion to the soaring number of stops, dropping from 587 in 2002 to 515 in 2011. Moreover, the NYCLU also found that in the more than 5 million stops between 2002 and 2013, guns were found in only 0.2% of the cases.

Never underestimate the politician's agony at not being talked about for five minutes. That's one explanation for Ted Cruz's decision to endorse Donald Trump -- he may be yearning for a return to the national scene.
It's certainly a surprising move given the two men's personal history. Donald Trump called Cruz a liar, a Canadian, implied that his wife was unattractive and hinted that his father might have been linked to the assassination of Jack Kennedy. Saint Cruz took revenge in his convention speech by withholding an endorsement. It was the highest point in his career. He should've stayed up there.
Instead, he has prostrated himself before Trump on Facebook. Why? Objectively, it makes some sense. If Trump was 10 points behind Clinton, Cruz would be wise to sit out the election and say "I told you so." The party would owe him some respect. But if Trump narrowly loses to Clinton, then Cruz could be blamed for the defeat -- with repercussions for his own re-election effort in Texas. Worse, if Trump actually wins -- Cruz will be frozen out of GOP politics for four, maybe even eight years. That's a big gamble to take.
But this is Cruz's problem: he's all tactics, no strategy. It seems smart to play the odds and come out for Trump just before the first debate -- it gets him attention and gets him into the big guy's good books. But when the historians come to tell the story of this election the endorsement is going to look like an odd mix of craven and vain. One does not assert statesmanship by selling one's soul in public.
And that's what this amounts to. What Cruz did at the convention was remarkable. Brave. To borrow some evangelical language, it was like Daniel walking among the lions. While most other Republicans either stayed away or surrendered to Caesar Trumpus, Cruz walked confidently into the convention hall and laid out the reasons why he couldn't endorse. It was subtle, lawyerly and -- yes, I'll admit it -- spoke to me personally.
Clinton is unacceptable to conservatives. But that doesn't mean that the Republican ticket is automatically preferable. Cruz implied that it is possible -- which conservatives read as preferable -- to remain loyal to the GOP precisely by repudiating Trump. If Trump is not a true Republican, then saying so is probably the best thing a conservative can do for the future of his/her party -- to say: "Because I love the Republican Party so much, I cannot support this current nominee."
I call this Cruz's greatest moment, not only because he said something I sympathize with, but because only Cruz could have said it and said it so well. Its power derived from his intellect and his association with ideological conservatism.
By endorsing Trump, he has now tarnished the memory of the best thing he ever did in politics. There is no point to him after this. And that, in the words of Trump, is "sad."
Not for Trump, of course. He continues to tempt Republicans over to the dark side and then wear their souls like a crown. Chris Christie was one of the first -- and now looks principled by comparison because he sold out so early. The Bushes and Mitt Romney continue to resist. If Hillary Clinton endorses Trump, we'll know he really is a political genius.

U.S. intelligence officials are seeking to determine whether an American businessman identified by Donald Trump as one of his foreign policy advisers has opened up private communications with senior Russian officials — including talks about the possible lifting of economic sanctions if the Republican nominee becomes president, according to multiple sources who have been briefed on the issue.

The activities of Trump adviser Carter Page, who has extensive business interests in Russia, have been discussed with senior members of Congress during recent briefings about suspected efforts by Moscow to influence the presidential election, the sources said....

The Cincinnati Enquirer endorsed Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential race, breaking from a nearly century-long tradition of backing Republicans.

When considering their decision this year, the editorial board of the Enquirer said they didn’t take breaking their tradition of endorsing GOP candidates lightly.

“But this is not a traditional race, and these are not traditional times,” they wrote.

The board called Clinton and her Republican rival, Donald Trump, “the most unpopular pair of presidential candidates in American history.” ...

Donald Trump committed perjury. Or he looked into the faces of the Republican faithful and knowingly lied. There is no third option.

It has become an accepted reality of this presidential campaign that Trump spins a near-endless series of falsehoods. For months, the media has struggled with this unprecedented situation—a candidate who, unlike other politicians who stretch the truth, simply creates his own reality. Trumps regularly peddles “facts” that aren’t true, describes events that never happened or denies engaging in actions that everyone saw him do. He utters his falsehoods so fast that before reporters have the chance to correct one, he has tossed out five or six more.

This time, it is different. Trump can’t skip past his perfidy here. There are two records—one, a previously undisclosed deposition of the Republican nominee testifying under oath, and the second a transcript/video of a Republican presidential debate. In them, Trump tells contradictory versions of the same story with the clashing accounts tailored to provide what he wanted people to believe when he was speaking....

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s luxury hotel company agreed Friday to pay a $50,000 settlement and beef up its security systems after investigators found that Trump’s hotels failed to notify customers that a hacker had stolen their credit card numbers and personal information from Trump Hotel computers.

Following the initial identity theft in 2015, Trump’s hotels never implemented the cybersecurity plan they were given to prevent a second attack. As a result, Trump’s hotels and some of his condo properties were hacked again less than a year later. When banks alerted the company to the second hack in March, Trump Hotel Collection waited three more months before telling potential victims about the second hack.

“It is vital in this digital age that companies take all precautions to ensure that consumer information is protected, and that if a data breach occurs, it is reported promptly to our office, in accordance with state law,” said New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman in a statement about the settlement on Friday. New York law requires that companies inform their customers as soon as possible about the suspected theft of personal information.

After they initially tried to cover up the first cyber attack, hotel employees did nothing to fix the vulnerabilities, despite having received written recommendations on how to protect their customers from hackers and thieves. This left Trump’s hotels defenseless when the hackers struck a second time. Once again, Trump waited months before alerting potential victims....

At least eight times over the last 19 years, GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump’s properties have been subject to lawsuits for violating the Americans with Disabilities Act, court records show. Additionally, a federal inspection found ADA violations at one of his properties.

Only once did Trump come close to winning, in a suit that was dismissed at the request of both sides. Five of the cases were settled, while two ended in consent decrees requiring building modifications and one met its end in a Trump property bankruptcy.

When a disabled Purple Heart veteran filed a lawsuit in 2004 alleging that the Trump International Hotel and Tower in New York lacked proper handicapped-accessible emergency exits, guest rooms and restrooms, Trump dragged the case out for three years. He tried to get the lawsuit dismissed and counter-sued his own architects to try and shift liability to them, but a judge dismissed that attempt. Trump eventually settled and agreed to make changes to the hotel....

... “I spend millions a year, or millions of dollars on ramps,” [Trump} said in July, “and get rid of the stairs and different kinds of elevators all over and I’m gonna mock? I would never do that.”

Spending that money is a legal requirement: The Americans with Disabilities Act, which became law in 1990, requires that buildings and spaces used by the public meet specific disability access standards.

really need to stop reading huffpost. Your gonna lose brain cells from reading that garbage

During its 126-year history, The Arizona Republic, Arizona's largest newspaper, has always endorsed a Republican candidate for president.

But that all changed with Donald Trump.

For the first time ever, the newspaper's editorial board has announced it is endorsing a Democratic candidate: Hillary Clinton.

Referring to Trump, the board wrote, "The 2016 Republican candidate is not conservative and he is not qualified."

In the piece, the newspaper praises Clinton's political track record and her ability to withstand criticism throughout her career, including from Trump, who has often crossed generally accepted boundaries during this election cycle — hitting Clinton's personal and professional life in ways the paper describes as "demeaning."

"They are evidence of deep character flaws," the editorial board wrote, "They are part of a pattern."

"The challenges the United States faces domestically and internationally demand a steady hand, a cool head and the ability to think carefully before acting," the column reads. "Hillary Clinton understands this. Donald Trump does not."

The publication goes on to criticize Trump's many controversies on the campaign trail — many of which have prompted critics to question whether he is fit to be commander-in-chief.

"The president commands our nuclear arsenal," they wrote. "Trump can’t command his own rhetoric."

Apparently rebutting evidence that Trump appeals to down-trodden working-class voter who feel alienated by their government, the editorial board vaulted Clinton as a centrist who "knows how to compromise and to lead with intelligence, decorum and perspective."

"This is Hillary Clinton’s opportunity. She can reach out to those who feel left behind. She can make it clear that America sees them and will address their concerns."

Throughout the presidential election, the business dealings of Donald Trump’s namesake for-profit company have remained shrouded in mystery as a result of the Republican nominee refusing to release his tax returns. Still, that hasn’t stopped reporters from investigating the Trump Organization, revealing countless potential conflicts of interest around the world, and the billionaire’s private family foundation, uncovering evidence of potentially illegal “self-dealing.” Now, with less than six weeks until the presidential election, the Trump campaign is facing a host of new allegations about whether the candidate broke the U.S. embargo with Cuba in the late 1990s.

In another bombshell Newsweek exposé published Thursday, Kurt Eichenwald reports that Trump’s company, then called Trump Hotels & Casino Resorts (now a subsidiary of Carl Icahn’s Icahn Enterprises), allegedly paid for at least $68,000 in corporate expenditures in Havana, in 1998, when it sent a consulting firm there to explore possible business opportunities. Executives at the firm advised Trump Hotels that the business trip, which was illegal at the time, could be passed off as a charitable effort, Eichenwald reports, circumventing the embargo. At the time, several European companies had been in touch with Trump about a joint investment in Cuba, according to one former Trump Organization executive. With political pressure building to resume diplomatic relations, Trump was reportedly looking to get his foot in the door should the U.S. lift its embargo.


Neither the Trump Organization nor Seven Arrows Investment and Development Corp., the firm that traveled to Cuba on Trump’s behalf, responded to Newsweek’s request for comment. But in an interview Thursday morning with The View, Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway seemed to confirm that the venture had occurred. “I think they paid money, as I understand from the story, they paid money in 1998,” she said. Conway denied that the Trump Organization had done anything treasonous, suggesting that the hotel itself never spent money in Cuba and Trump did not invest there. “The question is did he spend money. He is very critical of Cuba. He is very critical of Castro and he gave a speech the very next year to the Cuban-American National Foundation in Miami critical of those who want to do business with Castro and he has talked about the Cuban embargo even on this show,” Conway said. “But again, we are talking about did his hotel spend money in 1998 in Cuba? No.” (The statute of limitations for the allegations against Trump in the Newsweek story have reportedly expired.)

Hillary Clinton’s campaign was quick to comment. “Trump’s business with Cuba appears to have broken the law, flouted U.S. foreign policy, and is in complete contradiction to Trump’s own repeated, public statements that he had been offered opportunities to invest in Cuba but passed them up,” Jake Sullivan, Clinton’s senior policy adviser, wrote in a statement. “This latest report shows once again that Trump will always put his own business interest ahead of the the national interest—and has no trouble lying about it,” he added.

Even Republican senator Marco Rubio, who has endorsed Trump, jumped on the report. “I hope the Trump campaign is going to come forward and answer some questions about this, because if what the article says is true—and I’m not saying that it is, we don’t know with one hundred percent certainty—I’d be deeply concerned about it. I would,” the former Trump rival said on the ESPN/ABC Capital Gains podcast.

Donald Trump has one week to prepare for his next debate with Hillary Clinton. It is a critical event for him. Yet everything he’s done before and after the first debate sends a loud, clear message: He seems to think debate prep is for chumps.

A candidate charged with lacking discipline just spent the week providing evidence for the prosecution. His Friday morning tweet storm — beginning at 3:20 a.m. with a rant about unnamed sources and resuming just after 5 a.m., with a series of tweets that expanded his sexist attacks on a Latina former Miss Universe — punctuated a days-long spiral that has put at greater risk his hopes of winning the election.

To see some of his allies in the hours after Monday’s debate at Hofstra University was to recognize how let down they were with his performance. They could see the missed opportunities and knew that his problem wasn’t whether his advisers had tried to prepare him. It was his inability to follow the advice. They saw him fall into traps set for him by a Clinton campaign that has been studying his weaknesses for months.

No matter what his advisers try to do ahead of next Sunday’s town-hall debate at Washington University in St. Louis, his performance is utterly unpredictable. Those advisers can run him through mock debates and put him through murder-board, rapid-fire exercises. They can give him a dozen good ways to try to attack Clinton. They can prepare binders of background information, game out answers and give him as many flashcards to study as they can.

In other words, they can give him the best information and game plan in the world. But based on the first debate, they cannot trust him to execute. Trump’s weakness is his capacity to forget in the heat of battle the advice he’s been given. Clinton seemingly can knock him off stride with the flick of a phrase.

Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter has spent more than 30 years observing Donald Trump’s orange-tinted antics. With a month left to go before the election, he reports on some memorable lessons learned along the way.

....

Not surprisingly, it being the 80s, Trump was a recurring fixture in the pages of Spy. We ridiculed not just his fingers but also his business judgment, his jaw-dropping pronouncements, his inflated wealth, his hair, and his marital situations. There was a threatened lawsuit, resulting in a lot of back-and-forth legal letters between him and me. And we printed all of those. At one point we sent checks for $1.11 out to 58 of the “well-known” and “well-heeled” to see who would take the time to endorse and deposit the checks from a firm we called the National Refund Clearinghouse. The ones who deposited the $1.11 checks were sent 64-cent checks, and the ones who deposited those were sent checks for 13 cents. This being in the days before electronic deposits and such, the exercise took the better part of a year. At the end, only two 13-cent checks were signed—and we couldn’t believe our good fortune. One was signed by arms trader Adnan Khashoggi. The other was deposited by Donald Trump.

WARNING: This story contains graphic language(*).

(CNN)Donald Trump bragged about trying to have sex with a married woman and being able to grope women in previously unaired footage from 2005 that surfaced on Friday.

Trump is heard discussing women in vulgar terms during off-camera banter during the taping of a segment for "Access Hollywood," footage which was obtained by The Washington Post.

Trump dismissed the comments as "locker room banter" in a statement released by his campaign and sought to immediately deflect criticism onto the husband of his opponent Hillary Clinton....

I'm surprised he bothered with trying to apologize, of course if his goal was to come off as sincere he completely failed.