Does This Guy Remind You of Someone We know?
Posted by Michelle Moquin on August 4th, 2016
Good morning!
I don’t know about you, but this guy closely resembles Trump in more ways than one.
Here’s the write from Think Progress:
Britain’s New Foreign Secretary Says British Colonialism In Africa Wasn’t So Bad
In this Thursday, July 12, 2012 file photo, the mayor of London Boris Johnson poses for the media with a plate of food in the athletes’ dining hall during a media opportunity at the Olympic and Paralympic athlete’s village in London.
Following the resignation of British Prime Minister David Cameron, new PM Theresa May named her Cabinet Wednesday. One of the most notable names on the list was pro-Brexiter and former London Mayor Boris Johnson, who was appointed Foreign Secretary.
Critics of Johnson’s appointment have already pointed out his numerous gaffes and propensity for offending foreign leaders. Many media outlets published articles listing all the various countries that Johnson has offended during his reign as mayor.
In April, Johnson said President Barack Obama might have an ancestral dislike of Britain. Johnson didn’t attribute this to Obama’s feelings over U.S. independence in 1776, but to his Kenyan heritage.
“Some said it was a symbol of the part-Kenyan President’s ancestral dislike of the British empire – of which Churchill had been such a fervent defender,” Johnson wrote in the Sun about Obama’s purported removal of a Churchill bust from the White House. Obamareplaced Churchill with a bust of Martin Luther King, Jr.
But one of the most egregious comments made by the new Foreign Secretary relates to England’s colonial history in Africa.
In a 2002 commentary in the Spectator, Johnson argued that “Africa is a mess” (the entire continent of course) — and it has nothing to do with colonialism.
“The continent may be a blot, but it is not a blot upon our conscience. The problem is not that we were once in charge, but that we are not in charge any more,” he wrote. “The best fate for Africa would be if the old colonial powers, or their citizens, scrambled once again in her direction; on the understanding that this time they will not be asked to feel guilty.”
Not only does Johnson argue that Britain is completely faultless for the current conflicts on the continent, but he also drops other pearls of wisdom like that the British are not guilty of slavery, without the British planting of cash crops “the natives” would still be eating bananas, and the best way to spur the area’s economy would be to cater to British tourists.
As the BBC has reported, “during the last 20 years of the 19th century, Britain occupied or annexed Egypt, the Sudan, British East Africa (Kenya and Uganda), British Somaliland, Southern and Northern Rhodesia (Zimbabwe and Zambia), Bechuanaland (Botswana), Orange Free State and the Transvaal (South Africa), Gambia, Sierra Leone, Nigeria, British Gold Coast (Ghana) and Nyasaland (Malawi). These countries accounted for more than 30% of Africa’s population.”
Britain left behind many mass graves and destroyed records of all the brutality it had incurred at the hands of the African people. In Kenya alone, “it is clear that tens of thousands, possibly hundreds of thousands, of Kikuyu died in the [detainment] camps,” the Guardian reported.
Johnson certainly isn’t the first politician to blatantly ignore the history of imperialism, but that doesn’t make his comments, and his appointment as Foreign Secretary, any less astounding.
Readers: And for that reason, the racist creep was for the exit of the UK from the European Union. Thoughts? The forum is now open.
Blog me.
Before I sign off let me say…
🎉HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO OUR BELOVED PRESIDENT, BARACK OBAMA!🎉
Raquel: Thanks for your kind kudos. I am touched by your words. I always HOPE that this blog can do good for women, here and around the globe. Those stats you posted are horrific. I’m so grateful that the women banned together and voted in a woman president. I certainly HOPE the women here will do the same.
On another note, the Summer Olympics started yesterday. My wish is that it is a safe and fun place for all.
Health info: Thanks for the info. I was familiar with aluminum in deodorant and foods but not in my purified drinking water. Another thing to check out.
Peace out.
Lastly, greed over a great story is surfacing from my “loyal”(?) readers. With all this back and forth about who owns what, that appears on my blog, let me reiterate that all material posted on my blog becomes the sole property of my blog. If you want to reserve any proprietary rights don’t post it to my blog. I will prominently display this caveat on my blog from now on to remind those who may have forgotten this notice.
Gratefully your blog host,
michelle
Aka BABE: We all know what this means by now :)
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August 4th, 2016 at 11:16 am
Boris Johnson is like many republican politicians they make their political success by appealing to the racist element of the population.
August 4th, 2016 at 11:21 am
I heard this from Charles Blow, a columnist for the New York Times. It sums up all one needs to know about the so called trump phenomenon.
“Supporting Trump is indefensible and it makes you as much of a pariah as he is …Trump is a mirror. He is a reflection of – indeed a revealing of – the ugliness that you harbor, only it is possible that you ay have gone your life expressing it in ways that were more coded and politic.
August 4th, 2016 at 11:25 am
Joan, you sick bitch. You are the racist for calling all Trump’s supporters racists.
August 4th, 2016 at 11:33 am
Ruby, the proof is in the pudding. And bear in mind these are just the mild ones that could be shown. http://m.dailykos.com/story/2016/8/3/1556508/-Real-Voices-From-Trump-Supporters-Uncensored
So you tell me who’s the racists. I didn’t say everyone who is going to vote for Donald Trump is racist or that everyone in the Republican party is racist. But as Charles Blow says it is indefensible to support Donald Trump.
How could anyone who is not racist support Trump given the things he has said. What you are hearing from those supporters of Trump is coming from people that Trump actively seeks to attract to his rallies.
August 4th, 2016 at 11:41 am
I have gone to many of donald trump rallies as a white man and many of my latino brothers have attended other across the country. We are filming a lot of what goes on. Racism is the conversation at these rallies.
You can hear vitriolic anti immigration sentiments, and anti feminists comments. These people aren’t just showing up. Donald trump’s comments and rhetoric about Mexicans, Muslim judges, females, etc invites these types of people into his rallies.
August 4th, 2016 at 11:47 am
This stuff is not that new. Remember the third party candidate George Wallace? Remember Ronald Reagan.
Trump’s core supporters don’t care how many lies you catch him in, how unstable his behavior is, or even if he’s the lackey of a KGB officer. As long as he allows them to keep being racist, they’ll support him. As long as he keeps up the dog whistles, he’s their man.
One of the most underreported stories of the week (admittedly a full week) is the appearance of Donnie Jr at the Neshoba County Fair in Philiadelphia, Mississippi to defend the Confederate flag. (Site of the murders of three civil right’s workers in 1964, this is the same county fair Reagan imfamously visited directly after the convention in 1980 to talk about the importance of State’s Rights.)
August 4th, 2016 at 11:53 am
Check out this utube video of Donald Jr. and his support of the confederate flag.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQ-4In8PBSY
August 4th, 2016 at 11:55 am
Trump Jr. does not seem very bright. Spouting nonsense and b.s., but trying to set things up for his father’s loss. Note how he talks fast so that the commentator can’t get a word in edgewise. He’s a complete fool, just like his father. We are doomed if Trump gets into the White House.
August 4th, 2016 at 11:58 am
Trump, has passed on to his Children, his Morals, Honesty, Lying, ability, how sad. He ruined his own Children. I hope he is taken down, and they lose everything, and as a result, learn, what they never learned, from there Father.
We all pray for the yougest,to be removed from the entire Family.Maybe he will then have a chance,to be a decent Human being.
August 4th, 2016 at 11:59 am
When the Trumps talk about the Clinton Campaign it always sounds like they’re talking about themselves.
August 4th, 2016 at 12:02 pm
Fuck all you anti Trump people. Get off his son’s back. Donald Jr isn’t part of the political team of Trump he is part of Trump organization he has little to do with the political aspect of the Trump campaign thats why he didn’t answered the question directly but his remarks are very good and you cut him off when he was about to answer the question , he actually said that people must acknowledge(and the media and the establishment ) that there is those numbers and what the people experience other wise there will be no Trump or Bernie Sanders they had big success because they are talking to those people that weren’t taken into account which means that Trump will probably be using a different way to measured unemployment
August 4th, 2016 at 12:03 pm
Yes things are not better lol but I think there are 15 million new jobs that beg the opposite. Most of the new jobs have suppressed wages because the lack of respect of the service industry with employees getting 5-10% marginal productivity while manufacturing get 20-25% marginal productivity.
August 4th, 2016 at 12:05 pm
Jeffery#11, The statement by Trump Jr is a significant distortion of fact or perhaps more accurately, misrepresenting a current situation while ignoring the even worse situation that existed before.
The ACA requires all companies that have 50 or more employees to provide affordable health care for all full time employees, defined as people working an average of 30 hours per week or more. There are companies, particularly in retail and food service, that have restricted hours for some categories of employees so that they will not be scheduled for 30 hours per week.
However, employees working under 30 hours a week or for employers with less than 50 employees are still covered by the rules of the ACA because they can buy health insurance at a reduced rate on one of the health care market places.
Prior to the ACA, companies were not required to provide health insurance at all. So, in many companies even full time workers did not have health insurance. Even if an employer provided health insurance, they could define “full time” as being pretty much whatever they wanted, usually something on the order of 32 to 40 hours per week before they would provide any kind of health care benefit for the employees.
If the employer did not provide health insurance, the employee could buy health insurance on the open market at what ever premium the health insurance companies wanted to charge and with what ever restrictions on coverage the health insurance companies wanted to apply.
Brief summary of situation after the ACA:
1 – All full time employees have to be provided health care insurance at affordable rates, where before ACA the employer had no requirement to do anything.
2 – Employees who don’t have health coverage from the employer can obtain health care insurance at reduced rates from one of the health care market places, where before ACA part time employees and full time employees working at companies that refused to provide health care were all pretty much screwed when it came to being able to afford any kind of coverage.
3 – Employees who previously worked between 30 and 36 hours probably ended up with their employers reducing their work hours after ACA, so as to avoid having to provide health insurance. Those employees probably didn’t have health insurance from their employers anyway and would have been paying for higher priced insurance at whatever the insurance companies wanted to charge.
August 4th, 2016 at 12:06 pm
Donald Trump Jr. :
50% Ivana
50% Mexican gardener
0% Trump
August 4th, 2016 at 12:06 pm
…possibly some unknown % lizard.
August 4th, 2016 at 12:08 pm
Jeffery#11, Trump Jr. is he morphing into Scott Walker?…..brill cream {hair oil} and lip gloss is a totally new synthesis…..sorta 1950s with a touch of “male cosmetics”
August 4th, 2016 at 12:09 pm
Donald Trump Jr. criticizes people for using anonymous, vague sources? Every time his father speaks he says, “A lot of people are saying this, and they’re saying a lot of other things…”
August 4th, 2016 at 12:09 pm
Jeffery#11, He can support his father all day and argue and make points. Just get the damn facts straight and be logically consistent. Oh, sorry, forgot we’re talking about Republicans here.
August 4th, 2016 at 12:10 pm
i have been watching the DNC convention and it is sad. Pathetic in everyway. people have woke up to the marxists dnc party and its treason on all of us.
August 4th, 2016 at 12:12 pm
Jerry#19, So you’re calling a Wall Street cheerleader like Clinton and all her Washington supporters Marxists? What Marxist actions has Obama taken? He flew to Cuba with a gang of corporate CEO’s to influence Cuba to be more capitalistic. Do you decorate your padded cell with Fox News clippings?
August 4th, 2016 at 12:13 pm
What is the logical argument that justifies supporting Trump?
August 4th, 2016 at 12:15 pm
To bring in marxism you must get everyone on healthcare provided by the government. You must bring in milkions of blacks if the nations was say 90% white like America was in 1965. This is how to divide us.
Next you indoctinate kids in the education system which has been done as you see so many actual communists and socialists out today. next and most important you must make the people poor. You must destroy business like coal, mining, fishing cattle etc. you must get the people dependant on the government and then get the guns from the white race. When all this is done, you bring in marshal law, you kill the smart people first and then all Christians and then you rule in extreme wealth with a police state that keeps you safe.
Obama, bushs, clintons, regan, etc all have been part of this communist one world order. oabam is a traitor just as th bush family are. Who owns and controlls the world central banks? The jews is who, and who has the most billionaries in the world, the jews, and who is running the media?
The jews and those non-jews they have corrupted and placed in office. Europe and America are being destroyed from within. It is being destroyed to the point that we will give in an assept communism.
August 4th, 2016 at 3:17 pm
Did you see the shit spewing from Dirty Harry’s mouth today??! WTF! I thought after the “chair episode” he would have taken a moment of reflection but on no, old white dudes can’t see shit:
His quote: “We see people accusing people of being racist and all kinds of stuff. When I grew up, those things weren’t called racist.” \
HELLO!? Because he was racist and living in a racist society, it was his norm. SICK after almost 80 years he can’t figure it out.
I hope someone finally comes out and tells the story to bust him for moving to hollywood living with a pedophile director before he got his break.
I really dont like this guy, and for the record, I lOVE WESTERNS. These old white men need TO GO!
http://www.celebitchy.com/497992/clint_eastwood_on_racism_just_f–king_get_over_it_its_a_sad_time_in_history/#PGxTDUj4wQVDjmxU.01
/SB
August 4th, 2016 at 5:51 pm
There is a reason why black people who do break glass ceilings here have some non-US lineage. Whether it’s Pres Obama or Gen Colin Powell or even Sidney Poitier, spending those formative years internalizing the idea that anything is possible makes every difference.
Try growing up in a world where not only is every authority figure white but you are constantly reminded that you are an inferior outsider by those authority figures. Try being raised by parents and grandparents who are living that same dystopia.
Watch your hero father tremble when he sees a traffic cop. Watch your goddess mother hold down three jobs only to be called a welfare queen by some stranger at a supermarket. Thats the world of Clint and Trump. Most human beings dont have to experience it to relate to it.
The idea that others dont get to dream without boundaries and have little chance of living those dreams anyway, is enough to keep them engaged.
August 4th, 2016 at 5:55 pm
It depends Bluebelle. I’m a white south american and I have been discriminated based on my nationality, not my skin colour (Sudaca is used as an insult in Spain).
I lived six months in New Jersey and I did not experience any kind of discrimination because 1) I’m bilingual and have a standard american accent, 2) I’m white, 3) I don’t even have a spanish surname.
But I saw a lot of discrimination and just because I wasn’t subjected to it doesn’t mean I can’t relate to it or that it doesn’t affect me in an indirect way. We need to talk more freely and openly, and raise future generations with more tolerance and understanding of “otherness”.
I’m friends with a primary private school english literature teacher, and she was teaching The Merchant of Venice to 10 years old and she was worried about the homosexual undertones and how boys would react to it and she was surprised because their comments were “but it’s LOVE, who cares they’re men?” “But there’s nothing wrong”. She was amazed because our own generation had a different reaction to it.
Sorry for the long post. But my opinion is this – just because it doesn’t affect you it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t care. You can care and teach your own children how to fight racism and discrimination, because it comes in all shapes, shades, and sizes. All the cards need to be on the table, and we need to talk openly. Each generation is an improvement.
August 4th, 2016 at 5:56 pm
Wow. I’m the whitest Latina you’ll ever see, and I recognize the privilege I enjoy from that, but I’ve *still* fought racism my whole life. It’s gotten worse since Trump started mouthing off (and, yes, my whole family is legal). I can only imagine what it’s like for darker-skinned people…but even without imagination, you can look around and see it’s really, really bad.
August 4th, 2016 at 6:05 pm
As a non-American, I think I understand what you are trying to say(and apologize if I’m wrong!) – you understand the issue cerebrally, but cannot say you understand the intricacies of the experience of the oppressed because you have not lived in the systematic restraints they have.
The American struggle with human rights requires a willingness to understand context, history, policy, and psychology from many perspectives, not just the dominant one (white male, who have been the ‘writer’s of history’ in books, policy, movies, etc – Clint Eastwood).
Many other countries have an integrated (though not equal) multicultural -ness, so the lines in the dialogue about race, rights, empathy, etc seem so ….stark? highlighted? complicated?
This is why it is so important that policy makers are REPRESENTATIVE of the population – so that the various experiences of people are accounted for when making policies. I can think I know the solution to the gang issues in Chicago, but as a white woman from another country, I would likely miss some of the intricate issues those living in those conditions take for granted.
Or trying to solve the homeless issue – there is an assumption of laziness or ignorance, instead of an understanding of mental illness or cognitive delays – both challenges that require the ability to truly understand the lives lived and change the dialogue about solutions.
My lack of actual experience in the situation/environment means I would look at the problems and solutions from my lens, not theirs, even though I can be empathetic, sympathetic and supportive of the need for change.
But Clint is a giant leap away from this. He doesn’t even want to look at this with depth and recognize the issues are there because there are thousands of stories that want to be heard.
Sorry for the length!
August 4th, 2016 at 6:23 pm
Why would anybody expect Clint Eastwood to be progressive? Progressive happens because old people who refuse to change, die and younger people are brought up with new ideas. I love Eastwood as an actor and director but I could give a tiny crap what he thinks of politics. He is just another guy whose opinions put himself at the center of the world
August 4th, 2016 at 6:26 pm
I have to say I’m really shocked he did this cover with Scott. For many years I had no idea he had a son. I know Scott has been in several of his movies. But seeing them on the cover together gave me a WHOA..
Any way Clint’s words are disappointing but not unexpected. It seems with most controversial issues they seem to bring out the worse in everyone or reveal the truth about people in a clearer way. And just because things weren’t called “Racist” didn’t mean they weren’t Racist.
Bigotry was the way of the world. We don’t live in a world that will let that mess slide now. The election has opened the flood gates. And the public is showing their true colors. I just don’t think some of these people realize that they are not going to be able to put it all back in a box when this is all over.
August 4th, 2016 at 6:28 pm
He has more than one son I think but I have no idea when he started acknowledging him. Apparently Scott’s birth certificate read “father declined”. So yeah I bet there’s a lot to unpack there.
Well in the contest of the cranky old fool yearning for the age when interracial marriage was illegal and gays hadn’t been invented yet, and the untalented but relatively harmless douche: Congrats Scott, you win this round!
August 4th, 2016 at 6:29 pm
Father declined, wow that just screams I’m not a decent human being with good values. Unless his mother declined to put clint on there..?
August 4th, 2016 at 6:30 pm
Just did a bit of googling. He cheated on his long time partner with a flight attendant and fathered Scott and his sister. This was in the late 1980s. He didn’t publicly acknowledge either kid until about 1999. Oh and the sister’s birth certificate says “father declined” too.
I won’t deny Clint’s made some good films but he’s a garbage person. For more proof? Just google Sondra Locke.
August 4th, 2016 at 6:48 pm
Gaps in Melania Trump’s immigration story raise questions
A racy photo shoot is prompting fresh scrutiny of the would-be first lady’s early visits to the United States.
By BEN SCHRECKINGER and GABRIEL DEBENEDETTI 08/04/16 05:22 AM EDT Updated 08/04/16 12:17 PM EDT
Nude photographs published this week are raising fresh questions about the accuracy of a key aspect of Melania Trump’s biography: her immigration status when she first came to the United States to work as a model.
The racy photos of the would-be first lady, published in the New York Post on Sunday and Monday, inadvertently highlight inconsistencies in the various accounts she has provided over the years. And, immigration experts say, there’s even a slim chance that any years-old misrepresentations to immigration authorities could pose legal problems for her today.
While Trump and her husband, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, have said she came to the United States legally, her own statements suggest she first came to the country on a short-term visa that would not have authorized her to work as a model. Trump has also said she came to New York in 1996, but the nude photo shoot places her in the United States in 1995, as does a biography published in February by Slovenian journalists.
The inconsistencies come on top of reports by CBS News and GQ Magazine that Trump falsely claimed to have obtained a college degree in Slovenia but could be more politically damaging because her husband has made opposition to illegal immigration the foundation of his presidential run.
Representatives of the Trump campaign and the Trump Organization did not address detailed questions about the timing and circumstances of Melania Trump’s arrival in the country, but campaign spokeswoman Hope Hicks responded to the emailed questions by stating, “Melania followed all applicable laws and is now a proud citizen of the United States.”
In a statement issued hours after POLITICO published this report, Trump reiterated on Thursday that she had been “at all times in compliance with the immigration laws of this country.” But her statement conspicuously avoids addressing multiple reports and photographs that place her in the United States and working as a model in 1995, as well as her multiple past statements that she would return every few months to Europe to renew her visa. (Other news outlets, including Bloomberg View, have also noted the inconsistencies in her account.)
Melania Trump issued a statement following POLITICO’s reporting that avoided the questions raised in the story.
Melania Trump statement on immigration status dodges key points
By BEN SCHRECKINGER
Although she may be a proud citizen, Trump’s own statements suggest she may not have followed all applicable laws, immigration experts say.
In a January profile in Harper’s Bazaar, Trump said she would return home from New York to renew her visa every few months. “It never crossed my mind to stay here without papers. That is just the person you are,” she said. “You follow the rules. You follow the law. Every few months you need to fly back to Europe and stamp your visa. After a few visas, I applied for a green card and got it in 2001.”
In a February interview with Mika Brzezinski of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” Trump repeated that characterization of her early years in the United States. “I never thought to stay here without papers. I had visa. I travel every few months back to the country to Slovenia to stamp the visa. I came back. I applied for the green card. I applied for the citizenship later on.”
The Trump campaign and Trump Organization representatives did not address questions about the type of visa Trump first used to enter the country, but it has been widely reported that she came here on an H-1B work visa. Writer Mickey Rapkin, who interviewed Melania for a May profile in the luxury lifestyle magazine DuJour, said she confirmed as much to him. “When I interviewed Melania, I mentioned that she’d come to New York on that H-1B visa, and she nodded in agreement,” Rapkin wrote in an email to POLITICO.
Trump’s tale of returning to Europe for periodic visa renewals is inconsistent with her holding an H-1B visa at all times she was living in New York — even if it was the lesser-known H-1B visa specifically designed for models — said multiple immigration attorneys and experts. An H-1B visa can be valid for three years and can be extended up to six years — sometimes longer — and would not require renewals in Europe every few months. If, as she has said, Trump came to New York in 1996 and obtained a green card in 2001, she likely would not have had to return to Europe even once to renew an H-1B.
Instead, Trump’s description of her periodic renewals in Europe are more consistent with someone traveling on a B-1 Temporary Business Visitor or B-2 Tourist Visa, which typically last only up to six months and do not permit employment.
If someone were to enter the United States on one of those visas with the intention of working, it could constitute visa fraud, according to Andrew Greenfield, a partner at the Washington office of Fragomen, Del Rey, Bernsen & Loewy, a firm that specializes in immigration law.
“It’s quintessential,” he said. “If you enter the United States with the intention of working without authorization and you present yourself to a border agent at an airport or a seaport or a manned border and request a visa, even if there is not a Q&A — knowing that you are coming to work — you are implicitly, if not explicitly, manifesting that you intend to comply with the parameters of the visa classification for which you sought entry and were granted entry.”
By KENNETH P. VOGEL and RACHAEL BADE
“There are quirky exceptions to people on a B-1 visa who are able to work — certain domestic servants who are entering the country to accompany their employers who are in the country temporarily,” added Greenfield. “But I can’t imagine that would apply to models.”
“If Melania was traveling to the U.S. on a B-1 business visa, there is a potential problem,” said a Washington-based partner of a major national immigration law firm. “She would not have been authorized to work in the U.S. while on a B-1 visa. In fact, if a customs agent encounters someone entering the U.S. on a B-1 visa and they know that the individual intends to work for a U.S. employer, the individual will usually be denied admission. In order to avoid being sent back to Slovenia, she may have had to lie about the purpose of her trip.”
Visa fraud would call into question a green card application and subsequent citizenship application, said immigration lawyers — thus raising questions about Melania Trump’s legal status, even today, despite her marriage to a U.S. citizen.
Violations of U.S. visa law are hardly unusual, particularly in the modeling industry. It was a common practice in the 1990s in New York for less scrupulous agencies to bring in foreign models to work illegally on temporary business and tourist visas, according to Sara Ziff, founder of the Model Alliance, a group that advocates improved labor standards for fashion models.
The timing of Trump’s arrival in New York remains hazy, and representatives of the Trump campaign and Trump Organization did not address questions about that timing. In a previously unpublished portion of an April interview conducted for a profile in GQ, Trump told POLITICO’s Julia Ioffe that she lived with Matthew Atanian, her first known roommate in New York, only for a few weeks. “I was busy and I was traveling a lot. And then after that, after a month of two, I found my own place,” Trump said.
But in an interview for the same profile, Atanian told Ioffe that they shared the apartment for a period that spanned 1995 to 1996, and Atanian told POLITICO this week that he and Trump shared the apartment for a total of a year to a year and a half. He said he recalled Trump leaving the country to travel home for holidays during that period.
Trump has said she came to New York in 1996, but multiple reports indicate she first started doing work there in 1995. Her personal website was taken down last month in the wake of reports that its biography section falsely credited her with earning a college degree. (Trump tweeted that the website was taken down “because it does not accurately reflect my current business and professional interests.”) An archived snapshot of that bio page describes Trump as “settling in New York in 1996,” and she told Brzezinski in January, “I came to New York 1996.”
But according to “Melania Trump: The Inside Story,” a biography published in February by two Slovenian authors — journalist Bojan Požar and publicist Igor Omerza — Trump “began moving to New York in 1995.” The book also states that Trump first met a close friend, the model Edit Molnar, “in New York in the middle of 1995.”
“In 1995 she started coming to the USA according to the jobs she was getting at fashion agencies,” wrote Požar in an email to POLITICO. “We don’t know the exact dates of those before she officially settled in New York but her visits prior to that were temporary business opportunities that she had as a model.” Požar said he learned of these first jobs in America from two fashion agents, one in Italy and the other in Vienna, and that such trips abroad were common for Eastern European models but not “technically” legal.
Požar’s timing is consistent with the New York Post’s report. The nude photos were taken in New York in 1995 for the January 1996 issue of France’s now-defunct Max Magazine, according to the tabloid.
Alé de Basseville, the photographer who shot the photos, told POLITICO that the shoot took place in a private studio near Manhattan’s Union Square. He declined to name the owner of the studio and said that he encountered Trump through Metropolitan Models, a Paris-based agency with a New York office that was then representing Trump.
To carry out the 1995 New York photo shoot legally, Trump would have required a working visa, likely an H-1B, even if she were not yet living in the United States, as her native Slovenia was not part of the State Department’s visa waiver program until 1997.
Paolo Zampolli, an Italian businessman who was then a partner in Metropolitan and is credited with sponsoring Trump’s entry into the United States and introducing her to her future husband, said that he did not recall that particular shoot or the exact timing of Trump’s first arrival in New York.
Donald Trump listens at an event announcing Trump University in 2005.
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Zampolli said the models he worked with would have entered the country on either an H-1B or an O-1, a visa for foreigners who possess “extraordinary ability.” O-1 visas are frequently given to star scientists, athletes and entertainers, but because Melania Knauss (her maiden name) was an obscure model who mostly posed for advertisements and catalogs in the mid-’90s, it is highly unlikely she qualified for an O-1, which comes with an initial stay period of up to three years, said immigration attorneys. An O-1 visa would also not have required her to leave the country periodically.
Zampolli said he first met Trump in Milan and that models he worked for moved across international borders legally. “Every model we represented, we did a visa,” he said. “It’s just part of the rules.”
Even Melania’s use of the H-1B program would stand in contrast to her husband’s position today. Trump, who has made his opposition to illegal immigration the centerpiece of his campaign, has also vowed to crack down on the use of H1-B visas as president. In March, he said he would “end forever the use of the H-1B as a cheap labor program, and institute an absolute requirement to hire American workers first for every visa and immigration program. No exceptions.”
Julia Ioffe contributed to this report.
August 4th, 2016 at 6:52 pm
Does that mean Donald’s son Barron is what Republicans call an “anchor baby” ?
August 4th, 2016 at 6:52 pm
Is anyone surpirsed?
Trump hires illegals at his hotels and golf courses. And he even marries one.
August 4th, 2016 at 6:53 pm
I hope we do not need to build another wall in the northeast corridor
August 4th, 2016 at 6:53 pm
Anyone have the telephone number for I.C.E.?
we may have a runner.
August 4th, 2016 at 6:54 pm
The GOP is thinking….”please let this story have some legs”. (no pun intended this time).
This could force the Donald to drop out and someone else take his place. Hmmmmm…wasn’t there a slip up earlier today by Manafort?
August 4th, 2016 at 6:55 pm
I think they expect him to tank himself at some point and that’s why they were so happy to get a tea party republican in as veep candidate. To follow their advice and do that was a big mistake on Trump’s part.
They outfoxed him, so that someone in the republican tea party is ready to take the baton, when he is forced out of the race, maybe by them. However, the tea party is the cause of congessional gridlock so we don’t want them in the white house either. We need to give the republicans a big time out to come back to decency, moderation and sanity.
August 4th, 2016 at 6:56 pm
All part of Trump’s plan. When elected, he will have her deported so he can move on to wife #4.
August 4th, 2016 at 6:57 pm
These criminals come to this country and take jobs in the porn industry away from real Americans. WHAT PART OF ILLEGAL DON’T YOU UNDERSTAND?
August 4th, 2016 at 6:57 pm
It isn’t the crime, it’s the cover-up…
Another brillaint move by the campaign that couldn’t shoot straight
August 4th, 2016 at 6:59 pm
In Melania’s case, only a couple centimeters were “covered up.”
August 4th, 2016 at 7:00 pm
There were indeed questions regarding some models that Trump brought in by using false information regarding the amount of money they would be expected to make vs people who were working here already. The work visas require the person to be proven to be ‘worth more’ on the market than available hires. It was found to be proven that those,brought in by Trump Modeling never made a fraction of what their visa applications said. At least one of those models was deported. Was this at the same time as Melania coming here?
August 4th, 2016 at 7:00 pm
So Trump married an illegal immigrant? Makes no difference whatsoever to his followers. They are more interested in Hillary being a secret serial murderer and Obama being born in Kenya and infiltrating the US via Harvard.
August 4th, 2016 at 7:01 pm
Seriously? When Obama`s entire background was blocked, and he spent millions on lawyers so we know nothing about him??
August 4th, 2016 at 7:02 pm
Linda#44, Melania was not a Trump model.
August 4th, 2016 at 7:03 pm
Joe#46, His background has been public knowledge. But you go right ahead believing otherwise. Belief, you know, is based on faith, not fact.
August 4th, 2016 at 7:05 pm
Lorielle#47, She was attached to ID Models then, run by Paolo Zampolli, a wealthy crook and hustler who it was rumored had sex with all his “models” before he gave them “assignments”.
He and Donald Trump even started a business with him later on, Paramount Real Estate Models, where al the brokers were ex-models and wore very short skirts.
http://gawker.com/…/paolo-zampolli-bangs-models-saves…
August 4th, 2016 at 7:06 pm
Lorielle#47, how could she be working in 1995 with only a visitor’s visa? That’s the only reason she would, as she said multiple times, fly back and forth to renew it.
Working on a visitor’s visa is illegal and likely nullifies her citizenship.
Trump married an illegal alien.
August 4th, 2016 at 7:08 pm
God she’s such a liar. She’s as morally bankrupt as her husband. And let’s face it, his bigoted anti-immigration fans won’t care because she’s white. His supporters can claim zero moral ground in this country.
August 4th, 2016 at 7:12 pm
Joe#46, Seriously? You found everything blocked when you went to check his background? Wait.. did you pay your Internet and cable bill this month?
August 4th, 2016 at 7:16 pm
Daphne#51, As it was said on CNN today by the regular headliner (Jake?), in response to a question by a Trump panalyst, when she said “Well Hillary also lies.”. The response was yeah – “Clinton might lie once a week BUT Trump lies 3 to 4 times everyday”.