Trump’s Easter tweet parade has him climbing the wall

Bees in his bonnet

The holy day began peacefully with barely a peep from sun-kissed Mar-a-Lago. “HAPPY EASTER!” said President Donald Trump’s tweet at 8:27 a.m.

Then he watched “Fox & Friends.” Tweet-storm clouds gathered. Trump thundered: “NO MORE DACA DEAL!” “NEED WALL!” And so on.

After watching the Fox segment about a group of Central American asylum-seekers moving toward the border, Trump complained Mexico “is doing very little, if not NOTHING,” to stop the flow of refugees or drugs. If they don’t, he warned, “I will stop their cash cow, NAFTA.” Renegotiating NAFTA is supposed to be about fixing what Trump calls an unfair trade balance, but let’s move on.

The next tweet claimed: “These big flows of people are all trying to take advantage of DACA. They want in on the act!”

That makes zero sense. To be eligible for DACA, young immigrants had to have resided in the United States since 2007. But Trump stuck to that fiction when he arrived at church for Easter services. “A lot of people are coming in because they want to take advantage of DACA,” he said.

See the story for Newsday by David M. Schwartz and Scott Eidler.

What’s the meaning of this?

As is often the case, it’s unclear whether Trump was making policy on the fly or just blowing off steam.

Trump announced last year he would end DACA, but courts so far kept it going. He has said he was open to negotiating on DACA as part of a broader deal on immigration and border security, but accuses Democrats of refusing to come to terms.

Outside of church Sunday, Trump said the Democrats “blew it” after having “had a great chance.” Then he added: “But we’ll have to take a look.”

Janison: Amazonkers

Trump’s offensive against Amazon has found a partial echo from the left side of the political spectrum. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), asked on CNN’s “State of the Union” if he thinks Amazon has gotten too big, replied, “Yeah, I do.”

“We’re seeing this incredibly large company getting involved in almost every area of commerce and I think it is important to look at the power and influence that Amazon has,” Sanders said.

For Trump, Amazon’s size is not the prime source of his enmity. It’s that Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos also owns what he calls “the Fake Washington Post.”

Trump’s attacks, which continued in weekend tweets, are laced with demonizing half-truths and outright falsehoods, writes Newsday’s Dan Janison.

There could be some envy in the mix too. Bezos can be said to have invented a business model enormously more profitable and successful than those of Trump, a lesser billionaire.

A Kushner hope crushed

Real estate mogul Charles Kushner hoped a pardon for federal crimes might be in his future when his son Jared Kushner went to work at the White House for father-in-law Trump, but the family has only faced more trouble, The New York Times writes.

Jared lost his security clearance and is embroiled in special counsel Robert Mueller’s inquiry. The family real estate empire is under more scrutiny over whether it sought to exploit Jared’s position to seek foreign sales and investors.

There are tensions between Jared and his brother Josh, who opposes Trump.

While the family downplays the rift, family feuds involving the Kushners have ended badly. Such as when Charles Kushner hired a prostitute to seduce his brother-in-law on video and sent the tape to his sister — an act that became part of the federal case of witness tampering, tax evasion and election-law violations that sent the patriarch to prison.

Yeah, I’m fired

Former Veterans Affairs Secretary David Shulkin said he did not resign from his post last Wednesday, and the firing — though widely predicted — was “somewhat of a surprise” because he had spoken to Trump “just a few hours before,” and “we had set up a meeting for the very next day.”

Yet Shulkin said he’s had “a very good relationship” with Trump. He blamed political appointees in the department pushing to privatize veterans’ services for using “subversive techniques” to undermine him. See the story for Newsday by Eidler and Schwartz.

Case of the Mondays 

From inside the Fox News echo chamber, Trump ranted full-blast early Monday on the same topics he tweeted about over the weekend. He sneered at and condemned questioning news media, Mexico, and even those who dared note that the postal service makes money on Amazon deliveries. 

What else is happening:

• National security and foreign affairs experts see Trump’s choices of John Bolton as national security adviser and Mike Pompeo to become secretary of state as a signal of a more hawkish approach on foreign policy matters, writes Newsday’s Laura Figueroa Hernandez.
• China plans to immediately impose new tariffs on U.S. products, including pork and certain fruits, in response to Trump's move for new trade restrictions. Chinese imports of American ethanol will be curbed, Reuters reports.
• Donald Trump Jr. will headline an August fundraiser for Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-Shirley), reports Newsday’s Rick Brand. The event is to be held at the Nissequogue mansion of insurance executive Steve Louro.
• California Gov. Jerry Brown's latest clash with Trump adds to his state's status as center of official resistance to White House policies on immigration, the environment and taxes.
• Trump’s presidential campaign in 2015 and 2016 spent $158,498.41 on office supplies from — wait for it — Amazon, according to CBS News.
• The Secret Service is investigating a vandalism incident outside the entrance to the Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach. Red paint was splattered on a sign.
• The Trump administration is siding with the Palestine Liberation Organization in urging the Supreme Court to reject an appeal from American victims of terrorist attacks more than a decade ago. The victims and families had won a $654 million verdict but an appeals court overturned it.
• Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said on “Fox News Sunday” that the United States needs to take a harder line on Russia because “whatever we are doing is not working and the president for some reason has a hard time pushing back against Putin.”
• Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) keeps a tight grip on the Senate, perhaps countering Trump's loose grip on the White House, a story in Politico suggests.