USS John McCain kept from Trump's sight? Didn't know but don't mind, he says

Not into hero warship

President Donald Trump said he was "not informed" before the White House Military Office worked with Navy officials to make sure he'd never notice the presence of the USS John McCain during his visit Tuesday to a base in Japan. "I never would have done that," he said.

So does it bother Trump that officials in his administration fear he's so thin-skinned that the mere sight of the late political foe's name on a ship or a sailor's uniform insignia would cause him to explode in rage? 

Nah.

"Somebody did it because they thought I didn’t like him, OK? And they were well-meaning, I will say," the president said. They weren't wrong about Trump's feelings either. His venting of venomous views of McCain didn't end when the Arizona senator and war hero died last August.

"I was very angry with John McCain because he killed health care," Trump said, referring to a decisive Senate vote in 2017 against repealing Obamacare. "I was not a big fan of John McCain in any way, shape, or form." (Click here for video clip.)

Trump even took an indirect but subtle-as-a-sledgehammer shot at McCain in a tweet marking the death of former Sen. Thad Cochran of Mississippi. Trump said Cochran "even flew back to Senate from Mississippi for important Healthcare Vote when he was desperately ill. Thad never let our Country (or me) down!"

McCain's eldest daughter, Meghan McCain, tweeted that Trump was "a child who will always be deeply threatened by the greatness of my dad's incredible life." 

Janison: Chief petty officer

There's not much mystery about why subordinates figured that with someone Trump loathed so much, they dare not let him see his name, writes Newsday's Dan Janison. The president's profuse pettiness is plain for anyone to see, from his nose-thumbing on Twitter to his rants at rallies. 

His targets often include prominent Republicans who are not in his mold — which is to say a lot of those who were on the scene before Trump redefined the party in his own image. Besides McCain, Trump has showered contempt on Mitt Romney, former President George W. Bush and former House Speaker Paul Ryan.

Fake spews

A day after special counsel Robert Mueller voiced what he hoped would be his last words on the Russia investigation — including a pointed refusal to say Trump committed no crimes — Trump had plenty more words about Mueller.

"I think he is a total conflicted person," Trump said angrily. "He’s somebody that didn’t get a job that he requested that he wanted very badly, and then he was appointed." 

That's a repeat of Trump's false claim that Mueller wanted the FBI director's job after James Comey was fired. He did not — the White House had invited him in to offer his perspective on the FBI, which he led for a dozen years until his retirement in 2017.

The other "conflict" — laughed off as "silly" by former White House counsel Don McGahn and other aides when Trump first raised it — was that Mueller requested a refund for unused time when he gave up a membership at Trump's Sterling, Virginia, golf club in 2011. For more, see Newsday's story by Laura Figueroa Hernandez.

So help him

Was it an admission or a Trumpian slip? Twitter watchers perked up Thursday morning at this line in a tweet complaining about the "Witch Hunt Hoax" Russia investigation: "I had nothing to do with Russia helping me to get elected."

When Trump emerged from the White House a short time later, reporters pressed him to say more. It was as if the tweet didn't exist.

“Russia did not help me get elected. You know who got me elected? You know who got me elected? I got me elected. Russia did not help me at all,” Trump said indignantly.

Tariff Man rides again

Trump tweeted he plans to slap Mexico with new tariffs on June 10 as part of an attempt to force the country to crack down on a surge of Central American migrants seeking asylum in the United States.

The Washington Post reported some White House aides have tried to talk him out of the move, arguing it would rattle financial markets and potentially imperil passage of the USMCA trade agreement, which would replace NAFTA, the report said. For more, see Figueroa's story for Newsday.

Trump took a step Thursday toward pushing Congress to ratify the USMCA pact, Politico said. That's raising tension with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other Democrats who want the administration to first address problems that they have raised with the agreement.

They didn't count on this

The discovery of computer files that belonged to a Republican redistricting expert who died last year suggests the Trump administration's effort to add a citizenship question to the census were aimed at giving an edge to white people and Republicans, opponents charged in court.

A 2015 study by Thomas Hofeller for the conservative news outlet Washington Free Beacon said that adding the citizenship question and basing redistricting on the count of citizens, not total population, would benefit “non-Hispanic whites” and Republicans.

The same expert shaped arguments used by the Justice Department in fighting the suits, which charge the citizenship question is aimed at intimidating Latino immigrants.

The New York Times reported the files were discovered by his estranged daughter, Stephanie Hofeller, who believed her dad was undermining American democracy.

What else is happening:

• Attorney General William Barr told CBS News that Mueller "could've reached a decision" on whether Trump obstructed justice regardless of long-standing Justice Department policy that prohibits the indictment of a sitting president. Mueller said he decided that it wouldn't be fair to accuse someone who couldn't clear their name in court.
• Trump said Thursday he "can't imagine the courts allowing" Congress to impeach him. But the Constitution doesn't give the courts any say about it. Trump also called impeachment a "dirty, filthy, disgusting word."
• Republican Sen. Martha McSally, a former fighter pilot who now holds McCain's former seat, called for an investigation of the effort to hide the warship named for McCain and his admiral father and grandfather from Trump. “I am appalled to hear of the allegations surrounding the USS John S. McCain," she said.
• Though Bernie Sanders ranks second in most Democratic 2020 polls, he's struggling to expand his base of supporters from 2016 as voters consider other progressive candidates, The Washington Post reports. The 77-year-old Sanders also faces resistance from fellow seniors, according to Politico.
• The Democratic National Committee is doubling its minimum requirements of polling numbers and fundraising for candidates to qualify for its September debates. That's expected to dramatically winnow the current field of nearly two dozen.