Trump continues to make questionable remarks

On Monday, President Trump said, “It's the toughest -- the toughest calls I have to make are the calls where this happens, soldiers are killed. It's a very difficult thing. Now, it gets to a point where, you know, you make four or five of them in one day -- it's a very, very tough day. For me, that's by far the toughest. So, the traditional way -- if you look at President Obama and other Presidents, most of them didn't make calls, a lot of them didn't make calls. I like to call when it's appropriate, when I think I'm able to do it.” 

Now, Trump is facing all kinds of trouble, which presidents called, which ones didn’t call? Cable news goes nuts because anything that Trump says is held against him. I know Trump doesn’t understand yet, but any time he mentions Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton he’s going to get smashed. 

President Donald Trump falsely claimed on Monday that former President Barack Obama didn't call the families of fallen service members. 

"If you look at President Obama and other presidents, most of them didn't make calls — a lot of them didn't make calls — I like to make calls when it's appropriate," Trump said at a press conference in the Rose Garden when asked about why he had not addressed the recent deaths of American troops in Niger. 

However, a former senior Obama administration disputed Trump's claim. 

"President Trump's claim is wrong," the ex-official said. "President Obama engaged families of the fallen and wounded warriors throughout his presidency through calls, letters, visits to Section 60 at Arlington, visits to Walter Reed, visits to Dover, and regular meetings with Gold Star Families at the White House and across the country."

Puerto Rico Hurricane Recovery

Here is the problem with the Puerto Rico Hurricane Recovery, the infrastructure is terrible. The federal government doesn’t have enough money or manpower to go down and take that island over. If you look at Texas and Florida, the recovery there has been much better and much more effective in those states because there was an infrastructure that worked in place, where in Puerto Rico there isn’t any infrastructure. 

President Trump's approval rating on his response to hurricanes has dropped 20 points since a devastating storm slammed into Puerto Rico, a CNN poll released Monday finds. 

In September, 64 percent approved of Trump's hurricane response after Harvey and Irma hit the U.S. mainland. 

But now just 44 percent approve, after a third storm, Hurricane Maria, ravaged the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico. 

The poll found Trump's approval on his response down 9 points among Republicans, 22 points among independents and 25 points among Democrats. 

The death toll from Hurricane Maria has risen to 48 in Puerto Rico, the territory's Department of Public Safety said Saturday. 

Puerto Ricans still face a daily struggle for food, water and other necessities while coping with the devastation to their homes and businesses more than three weeks after the powerful hurricane slammed ashore on the US commonwealth. 

Among the recent deaths was a patient unable to get to dialysis treatment on time, and another person complaining of chest pains died after bad road conditions delayed a trip to the hospital, the department said. 

The number of deaths may rise, with about 117 people unaccounted for after last month's hurricane. 

More than 1.2 million people are without potable water. Some people line up daily to fill up buckets with water from tank trucks, while others collect water from mountain streams. 

Power outrages are widespread. Nearly 85% of the island lacks electricity, according to the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority. 

About 19,000 civilian and military personnel are supporting the federal relief mission, according to the Federal Emergency Management Agency. 

The Army Corps of Engineers is installing power generators and temporary roofs to damaged structures. 

FEMA approved a $70 million assistance package for the Puerto Rico Aqueduct and Sewer Authority for emergency repairs 

The former director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) under Bill Clinton said he would give President Trump’s administration an A-plus grade for their handling of hurricanes in Texas, Florida and Puerto Rico.

FBI Confirms That Comey Drafted Statement On Clinton Probe Months Before Investigation Ended

We’re just finding out that James Comey was writing his exoneration of Hillary Clinton 2 months before he gave it. This was even before all of the FBI interviews were completed in the case. 

The FBI released documents Monday proving former FBI Director James Comey began drafting a letter regarding Hillary Clinton's email investigation months before conducting several key interviews, including speaking to Clinton herself.

The document release was titled “Drafts of Director Comey’s July 5, 2016 Statement Regarding Email Server Investigation Part 01 of 01.”

The contents of the email were largely unclear as nearly all of it was redacted. 

The now-public records show the email titled “Midyear Exam --- UNCLASSIFIED” was sent by Comey on May 2, 2016, to Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, general counsel James Baker and chief of staff and senior counselor James Rybicki. 

On May 16, the documents showed a response email from Rybicki, saying “Please send me any comments on this statement so we may roll into a master doc for discussion with the Director at a future date. Thanks, Jim.” 

The existence of the documents, reported by Newsweek, were first brought to light by Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., also a member of the committee, after they reviewed transcripts of interviews with top Comey aides who alluded to the email’s existence. 

The Senate Judiciary Committee is investigating Comey in his role as FBI director and President Trump’s decision to fire him in May. 

The senators penned a letter on Aug. 30 to newly-appointed FBI Director Christopher Wray noting their findings, saying that “it appears that in April or early May of 2016, Mr. Comey had already decided he would issue a statement exonerating Secretary Clinton. That was long before FBI agents finished their work,” the letter said. “The outcome of an investigation should not be prejudged while FBI agents are still hard at work trying to gather the facts.” 

Clinton, the Democratic presidential candidate in 2016, was investigated by the FBI for using a private email address and server to handle classified information while serving as secretary of state. 

In July 2016, Comey famously called Clinton’s email arrangement “extremely careless” though he decided against recommending criminal charges. 

The existence of such an email draft raised questions about Comey’s Senate testimony in June 2017 regarding his decision to go public with findings in the Clinton email investigation.

At the time, Comey testified that he was inclined to publicly announce the results of the probe to “protect the credibility of the investigation,” after then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch and former President Bill Clinton had an unscheduled meeting on a tarmac in Arizona.

Trump says Marino has withdrawn as drug czar nominee

President Donald Trump on Tuesday announced that Rep. Tom Marino has withdrawn his name from consideration to become the administration's next drug czar, after CBS' "60 Minutes" and The Washington Post reported that the lawmaker championed a law that hobbled federal efforts to combat the abuse of opioids. 

"Rep. Tom Marino has informed me that he is withdrawing his name from consideration as drug czar. Tom is a fine man and a great Congressman!" Trump tweeted on Tuesday morning. 

The bill passed in February of 2014 is called the Ensuring Patient Access and Effective Drug Enforcement Act, and it had been fought against by the DEA for years, but then a leadership change at the DEA paved the way for the bill to become law.  

The bill raised the standards for the DEA to suspend drug shipments by requiring that the DEA establish “a significant and present risk of death or serious bodily harm that is more likely than not to occur.” 

Previously, the DEA could freeze drug shipments that posed an “imminent danger” to the community, which gave the DEA broad authority. 

Now, the DEA has to prove a substantial likelihood of an immediate threat, which is much harder for the DEA to prove. 

The bill passed because of aggressive lobbying by the drug shipment industries. PACs representing these industries gave nearly $100,000 to Marino alone.  

In April 2016, a handful of members of Congress, allied with the nation’s major drug distributors, prevailed upon the DEA and the Justice Department to agree to the more industry-friendly legislation, undermining efforts to stanch the flow of pain pills, according to the Post/“60 Minutes” investigation. 

The DEA had opposed the effort for years. 

The industry worked behind the scenes with lobbyists and key members of Congress, pouring more than $1 million into their election campaigns.

The chief advocate of the law that hobbled the DEA was Marino, who spent years trying to move it through Congress. 

It passed after Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah) negotiated a final version with the DEA.

Top officials at the White House and the Justice Department have declined to discuss how the bill came to pass. 

The DEA's top official at the time, acting administrator Chuck Rosenberg, declined repeated requests for interviews. 

A senior DEA official said the agency fought the bill for years in the face of growing pressure from key members of Congress and industry lobbyists. But the DEA lost the battle and eventually was forced to accept a deal it did not want. 

The DEA and Justice Department have denied or delayed more than a dozen requests filed by The Post and "60 Minutes" under the Freedom of Information Act for public records that might shed additional light on the matter. 

Some of those requests have been pending for nearly 18 months.

The Post is now suing the Justice Department in federal court for some of those records. 

The bill sailed through Congress and was passed by unanimous consent, a parliamentary procedure reserved for bills considered to be noncontroversial.  

On Monday Orrin Hatch said the legislation provided a balance by clarifying the DEA could no longer suspend narcotic shipments using a vague phrasing under former law that said the order can come only in times of "an imminent danger to the public health or safety." 

The DEA can now suspend shipments as long as they present "substantial likelihood of an immediate threat," meaning death, serious bodily harm, or abuse would otherwise occur. This would prevent people who have legitimate use for the drugs from being cut off, Hatch said, noting the legislation had been specifically approved by DEA and Department of Justice lawyers. 

The Post report, he said, "does not explain that prior to the bill, DEA had basically carte blanche authority to impose this measure," he said. "It also does not explain that DEA has other enforcement tools available."

Monica Crowley comments on today’s hot topics:

President Trump tends to speak before thinking, but he needs to understand that no matter what he does or says, the press is going to jump all over him. To Trump’s credit he did walk back the statement about the KIA, but the problem with him is that he can never just say I made a mistake. He ends up shifting the blame to someone else and it’s really unattractive. 

When asked about Trump’s reaction to Puerto Rico, Monica had this to say. Trump is sending all necessary things to Puerto Rico, troops, medicine, food, support, it’s all on the ground so the president is actually delivering for this country, but to make his remark about saying we won’t be around forever for support came off as insensitive.

FBI reports that violence on police officers is on the rise

118 law enforcement officers died in the line of duty last year in the United States, the FBI reported on Monday. That was up 37 percent from the 86 law enforcement officers who died in the line of duty in 2015. 

Another 57,180 officers were assaulted in the line of duty in 2016, and 16,535 (or about 29 percent) sustained injuries from that assault. 

"All of these numbers increased from figures reported in 2015, when 45 officers died accidentally and 41 were feloniously killed in the line of duty," the FBI said. 

A total of 50,212 assaults were reported in 2015. 

Of the 66 officers killed by criminal acts in 2016:

• 62 of the 66 were killed by firearms;
• 51 were wearing body armor at the time they were killed;
• 4 were killed intentionally with vehicles;
• 17 were killed in ambushes, 13 were killed answering disturbance calls, and 9 were killed investigating suspicious people or circumstances. 

Of the 52 officers who were killed in accidents in 2016, 26 were killed in auto accidents, 12 were struck by vehicles, and 7 died in motorcycles accidents. 

Through its Uniform Crime Reporting Program, the FBI collects data about the circumstances surrounding assaults against law enforcement and officer deaths. The data is collected from campus, local, state, tribal, and federal law enforcement agencies, as well as FBI field offices and non-profit organizations that track line-of-duty deaths. 

The FBI data is used in officer safety training. 

I believe that the hatred from the far left has been one of the causes of this rise in deaths among police officers. 

US immigration population hits record of 60 million, 1-of-5 in nation

A huge boom in immigration, legal and illegal, over the past 16 years has jumped the immigrant population to over 43 million in the United States, according to a new report. 

And when their U.S.-born children are added, the number grows to over 60 million, making the immigrant community nearly one-fifth of the nation's population, according to federal statistics reviewed by the Center for Immigration Studies.

The new report does not break down the percentage of legal and illegal immigrants in the U.S., although there are an estimated 12 million undocumented aliens in the country. 

It found that since 2000, the U.S. immigrant population has increased 8 million and a sizable number came from Mexico and Latin America, the source of most illegal immigrants. 

Key findings:

The nation's immigrant population (legal and illegal) hit a record 43.7 million in July 2016, an increase of half a million since 2015, 3.8 million since 2010, and 12.6 million since 2000. 

As a share of the U.S. population, immigrants (legal and illegal) comprised 13.5 percent, or one out of eight U.S. residents in 2016, the highest percentage in 106 years. 

As recently as 1980, just one out of 16 residents was foreign-born. 

Between 2010 and 2016, 8.1 million new immigrants settled in the United States. 

New arrivals are offset by the roughly 300,000 immigrants who return home each year and annual natural mortality of about 300,000 among the existing foreign-born population. 

As a result, growth in the immigrant population was 3.8 million 2010 to 2016. 

In addition to immigrants, there were slightly more than 16.6 million U.S.-born minor children with an immigrant parent in 2016, for a total of 60.4 million immigrants and their children in the country. Immigrants and their minor children now account for nearly one in five U.S. residents. 

Mexican immigrants (legal and illegal) were by far the largest foreign-born population in the country in 2016. 

Mexico is the top sending country, with 1.1 million new immigrants arriving from Mexico between 2010 and 2016, or one out of eight new arrivals. However, because of return migration and natural mortality among the existing population, the overall Mexican-born population has not grown in the last six years.

Steven Camarota weighs in on the latest immigration issues

Steven Camarota, the Director of Research for the Center for Immigration Studies, says 1 out of 3 children in poverty live in an immigrant household. This shows that the U.S. government has to spend a lot of money on immigrants. It also reshapes the political culture since immigrants vote approximately 2-1 for the Democratic Party. 

Las Vegas guard Jesus Campos vanished after visiting urgent-care clinic, union leader says

The Mandalay Bay security guard who disappeared last week moments before he was scheduled to break his silence in television interviews has not been heard from since he went to a walk-in health clinic, his union president said. 

David Hickey of the Security, Police, and Fire Professionals of America (SPFPA) told reporters Friday that he got a text the night before saying Jesus Campos was taken to a UMC Quick Care facility, though he did not specify where or whom the text came from. 

A spokesperson at the UMC Quick Care, which has eight locations throughout the Las Vegas area, told Fox News on Monday that they had "heard nothing" about Campos visiting them. 

Multiple requests from Fox News for SPFPA to comment on the matter were not returned Monday. 

Hickey said Campos had requested to go public and wanted to tell his story and move on from the Oct. 1 shooting investigation. 

Hickey said he was with Campos on Thursday, coordinating a series of interviews that the guard was scheduled to give about the attack. 

They included appearances on the Sean Hannity show on Fox, as well as news shows on CNN, CBS, ABC and NBC. Campos was staying in a suite in a Las Vegas hotel, Hickey said. 

Hickey said he was attending a meeting with MGM representatives in one room of the suite as Campos waited with a security guard — hired by MGM — and another union member in the living room. 

When the meeting ended about 2 p.m., Hickey said Campos was no longer in the room 

Campos was last photographed in public on Oct. 10, accepting an “SPFPA Hero Award” for bravery in the line of duty, while dining with Hickey and others at a high-end Vegas steakhouse. 

The LA Times noted that Campos lived in a residential northern Las Vegas neighborhood and, on Sunday, a white truck with a white towel covering the license plate was parked outside the residence.

A man sitting in the truck said he had been hired to guard the house and ensure members of the media did not enter the property. 

Initially, investigators said that Campos was shot after Paddock opened fire on the Route 91 Harvest festival concert. 

Then, Sheriff Joseph Lombardo said Campos was shot at 9:59 p.m., six minutes before the concert began. 

Finally, at a brief news conference last Friday, he said Campos was shot by the gunman at 10:05 p.m. 

Lombardo's revision on Friday was made a day after MGM Resorts, which owns Mandalay Bay, disputed the department's timeline. 

In a statement, MGM said the time of 9:59 p.m. came from a hotel report that was created manually and was not accurate. Casino officials said the gunman was firing at concertgoers "at the same time as, or within 40 seconds after," Campos reported the gunfire over his radio. 

Lombardo also said the guard had been investigating an alarm for a door that had been left ajar on the 32nd floor, where the shooting occurred. He also said that Paddock had checked into the hotel on Sept. 25, not Sept. 28 as had been previously reported.

Mail Time!

• Bill, I know you said the NFL protests are dying and I’m sure they are, but I think in a lot of ways the league may never recover from the damage that has been done. For myself, I will always feel that standing to totally insincere when the players do it now. They would be standing for their paychecks not for any love of country. 

• Bill, you disagreed with me when I said Colin Kaepernick should never play football again as that is not the American way. I would ask you, is what Kaepernick did the American way? 

• Bill, since I’m one of the “deplorables” living in California, I must speak to your comments regarding the devastating fires we’re having here. I live about 50 miles south of the fires which are raging in Napa Valley. The smoke is so bad where I live we’re being warned not to go outside and to close all of our windows. There’s an entire residential subdivision in Santa Rosa which has been burned to the ground. Sadly, the home of the wonderful Charles Schultz was lost in the fire.