WASHINGTON, Aug 2: President Donald Trump has told members of his New Jersey golf club that he spends so much time away from Washington because the White House is a “real dump.”

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the account, which appeared in a lengthy article posted on the website golf.com. The story on Trump’s complicated love for golf also appears in Sports Illustrated magazine.

The story recounts a scene in which Trump was chatting with some club members. Trump told the members he makes such frequent appearances at the property in Bedminster, New Jersey, because: “That White House is a real dump.”

Trump has spent nearly every weekend of his presidency visiting various properties he owns and leases, including Bedminster.-AP

NEW YORK, July 26: US Muslims say they have experienced widespread suspicion about their faith in the first months of Donald Trump’s presidency, but also have received more support from individual Americans, and remain hopeful they can eventually be fully accepted in American society, a new survey finds.

Nearly three-quarters of US Muslims view Trump as unfriendly to them, according to a Pew Research Center report released Wednesday. Sixty-two percent say Americans do not view Islam as part of the mainstream after a presidential election that saw a surge in hostility toward Muslims and immigrants.

At the same time, nearly half of Muslims said they had received expressions of encouragement from non-Muslims in the past year, an increase over past polls. And Muslims remain optimistic about their future. Seventy percent believe hard work can bring success in America, a figure largely unchanged for a decade.

“There’s a sense among the American Muslim population that others are beginning to understand them and beginning to sympathize with them,’” said Amaney Jamal, a Princeton University political scientist and adviser to Pew researchers. Prejudice against Muslims has “pushed the average American to say, ’This is really not fair. I’m going to knock on my neighbor’s door to see if they’re all right,” Jamal said.

The Pew survey is its third on American Muslims since 2007, and its first since Trump took office Jan. 20. He promised to fight terrorism through “extreme vetting” of refugees and had a plan to temporarily ban travelers from six Muslim-majority countries.

The latest poll of 1,001 adults was conducted by phone, both landline and cellphones, between Jan. 23 and May 2, in English, Arabic, Farsi and Urdu, and has a margin of error of plus or minus 5.8 percentage points.

The last several months have seen an uptick in reports of anti-Muslim harassment, including arson and vandalism at mosques and bullying at schools. In the Pew survey, nearly half of US Muslims say they have faced some discrimination in the last year, such as being treated with distrust, threatened or called an offensive name. That percentage is only a slight increase over previous surveys.

However, the figure is much higher for respondents who said they were more visibly identified as Muslim, for example by a head covering, or hijab, for women. Sixty-four percent of those with a more distinct Muslim identity said they had recently faced some type of discrimination.

Still, the survey found evidence of a growing sense of Muslim belonging in the United States. Eighty-nine percent said they were proud be both Muslim and American and nearly two-thirds said there was no conflict between Islam and democracy.

A larger share of American Muslims told Pew they had registered to vote and actually voted. Forty-four percent of Muslims eligible to vote cast ballots in last year’s presidential election, compared to 37 percent in 2007. Those numbers on Muslim voting are compared to 60 percent of eligible voters overall who cast ballots in 2016.”

American Muslim leaders, alarmed by anti-Muslim rhetoric in the campaign, made an unprecedented push to register voters in mosques and at community events. Turnout overall was higher after the highly contested 2016 campaign.

Muslims overwhelmingly backed Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, who drew 78 percent of their vote compared to 8 percent for Trump.

Following a trend found in other American faith groups, a slight majority of US Muslims now accept homosexuality, a dramatic reversal from a decade ago when 61 percent said same-sex relationships should be discouraged.

Pew researchers estimate the number of US Muslims has been growing by 100,000 per year, reaching 3.35 million, or 1 percent of the American population. Just over half of US Muslims identify as Sunni, while 16 percent say they are Shiite. Nearly six in 10 adult American Muslims were born outside the US.

The largest share of immigrants come from South Asian countries such as Pakistan, India and Bangladesh, while others have come from Iraq, Iran, sub-Saharan Africa and Europe. American-born blacks comprise about 13 percent of all Muslims in America, but their share is shrinking. Overall, eight in 10 are US citizens, according to the survey.

Eight in 10 American Muslims said they were concerned about Islamic extremism and more than 70 percent said they were very or somewhat concerned about Islamic extremism in the US However, three of 10 said that most of those arrested recently on suspicion of planning a terrorist attack had been tricked by law enforcement authorities and did not represent a real threat.-AP

WASHINGTON, July 22: White House press secretary Sean Spicer abruptly resigned Friday over President Donald Trump’s decision to tap a camera-ready financier to lead the beleaguered White House communications team. The departing spokesman said the president “could benefit from a clean slate” as he seeks to steady operations amid the Russia investigations and ahead of a health care showdown.

Spicer, whose daily briefings once dominated cable television and delighted late-night comics, quit in protest over the hiring of Anthony Scaramucci as the new White House communications director. Spicer denounced what he considered Scaramucci’s lack of qualifications, according to people familiar with the situation who were not authorized to speak publicly about it.

As his first act on the job, Scaramucci, a polished television commentator and Harvard Law graduate, announced from the White House briefing room that Sarah Huckabee Sanders would take Spicer’s job. She had been Spicer’s deputy.

The shake-up among the president spokespeople comes as Trump is suffering from dismal approval ratings and struggling to advance his legislative proposals. As his effort to replace Barack Obama’s health care law crumbled this week, the president continued to vent frustration about the attention devoted to investigations of allegations of his election campaign’s connections to Russia. Trump has blamed his own messengers — as well as the “fake news” media — for his woes.

Trump, who watches the press briefings closely and believes he is his own best spokesman, saluted Spicer’s “great ratings” on TV and said he was “grateful for Sean’s work on behalf of my administration and the American people.”

Later, Trump tweeted, “Sean Spicer is a wonderful person who took tremendous abuse from the Fake News Media – but his future is bright!”

Scaramucci, who said Spicer had been gracious in showing him around on Friday, quickly took center stage, parrying questions from reporters and praising Trump in a 37-minute charm offensive. He flashed the television skills that Trump has long valued: He commended Trump’s political instincts and competitiveness, cracked a few self-deprecating jokes and battled with reporters who categorized the West Wing as dysfunctional, saying “there is a disconnect” between the media and the way the public sees the president.

“The president has really good karma and the world turns back to him,” Scaramucci said.

Spicer said during a brief phone conversation with The Associated Press that he felt it would be best for Scaramucci to build his own operation “and chart a new way forward.” He tweeted that it had been an “honor” and “privilege” to serve Trump and that he would remain in his post through August.

His decision to quit took advisers inside and outside the White House by surprise, according to people with knowledge of the decision. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the personnel matter publicly.

Spicer’s daily press briefings had become must-see TV until recent weeks when he took a more behind-the-scenes role. Sanders has largely taken over the briefings, turning them into off-camera events.

The White House had been looking for a new communications director for several weeks, but struggled to attract an experienced Republican hand. Scaramucci, a former Democrat — like Trump — who once called his new boss a “hack politician,” began seriously talking to the White House about the position this week, and the president offered him the job Friday morning.

A person with knowledge of the decision said Trump has been impressed by Scaramucci’s defense of the White House on television and by his handling of a recent incident with CNN. The cable channel retracted a story about Scaramucci and fired three journalists.

A shift in briefing-room tone and style was immediate. Scaramucci’s delivery was smooth and polished. Spicer, who displayed a sometimes-fiery and occasionally flustered demeanor in on-camera exchanges with reporters, became widely known, particularly through an impersonation by Melissa McCarthy on NBC’s “Saturday Night Live.” McCarthy’s signature move was to plow down reporters with the podium when exasperated by questioning.

Spicer had long sought the strategic communications job for himself and had been managing that role along with his press secretary duties for nearly two months.

He had spent several years leading communications at the Republican National Committee before helping Trump’s campaign in the general election. He is close to White House chief of staff Reince Priebus, the former RNC chair.

Back in January, Spicer’s tenure got off to a rocky start. On Trump’s first full day in office, he lambasted journalists over coverage of the crowd size at the inauguration and stormed out of the briefing room without answering questions.

Spicer remained loyal to Trump but frequently battled perceptions that he was not plugged in to what the president was thinking.

The resignation comes a day after Mark Corallo, the spokesman for the president’s outside legal team, left his post. And in a separate move, former White House aide Katie Walsh is returning to the RNC, spokesman Ryan Mahoney said. Walsh will serve as an adviser on data and digital issues, and the appointment is unrelated to the White House personnel changes, he said.-AP

WASHINGTON, June 27: The White House issued a stern warning to Syrian President Bashar Assad on Monday night as it claimed “potential” evidence that Syria was preparing for another chemical weapons attack.

In an ominous statement issued with no supporting evidence or further explanation, Press Secretary Sean Spicer said the U.S. had “identified potential preparations for another chemical weapons attack by the Assad regime that would likely result in the mass murder of civilians, including innocent children.”

He said the activities were similar to preparations taken before an April 2017 attack that killed dozens of men, women and children, and warned that if “Mr. Assad conducts another mass murder attack using chemical weapons, he and his military will pay a heavy price.”

The White House offered no details on what prompted the warning and spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said she had no additional information Monday night.

Several State Department officials typically involved in coordinating such announcements said they were caught completely off guard by the warning, which didn’t appear to be discussed in advance with other national security agencies. Typically, the State Department, the Pentagon and U.S. intelligence agencies would all be consulted before the White House issued a declaration sure to ricochet across foreign capitals.

The officials weren’t authorized to discuss national security planning publicly and requested anonymity.

A non-governmental source with close ties to the White House said the administration had received intelligence that the Syrians were mixing precursor chemicals for a possible sarin gas attack in either the east of south of the country, where government troops and their proxies have faced recent setbacks.

Assad had denied responsibility for the April 4 attack on the town of Khan Sheikhoun in the rebel-held Idlib province that killed dozens of people, including children. Victims show signs of suffocation, convulsions, foaming at the mouth and pupil constriction.

Days later, President Donald Trump launched a retaliatory cruise missile strike on a Syrian government-controlled air base where U.S. officials said the Syrian military had launched the chemical attack.

It was the first direct American assault on the Syrian government and Trump’s most dramatic military order since becoming president months before.

Trump said at the time that the Khan Sheikhoun attack crossed “many, many lines,” and called on “all civilized nations” to join the U.S. in seeking an end to the carnage in Syria.

Syria maintained it hadn’t used chemical weapons and blamed opposition fighters for stockpiling the chemicals. Russia’s Defense Ministry said the toxic agents were released when a Syrian airstrike hit a rebel chemical weapons arsenal and munitions factory. Russia is a close ally of Assad.

The U.S. attack on a Syrian air base came after years of heated debate and deliberation in Washington over intervention in the bloody civil war. Chemical weapons have killed hundreds of people since the start of the conflict.

Earlier Monday, Trump had dinner with Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster and other top officials as he hosted Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the White House.

Tillerson and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov talked earlier Monday about the need to secure a cease-fire in Syria, fight extremist groups and prevent the use of chemical weapons, the Russian Foreign Ministry said.

Nikki Haley, the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, followed up Spicer’s statement with a Twitter warning: “Any further attacks done to the people of Syria will be blamed on Asaad, but also on Russia & Iran who support him killing his own people.”

Less than an hour after Spicer issued the statement, Trump was back to tweeting about the 2016 campaign, denouncing investigations into potential collusion between Moscow and his campaign aides as a “Witch Hunt!”-AP