Donald Trump – Page 5 – Coffee Spoons

David Petraeus for Secretary of State—No

I am very closely following the transition of power from President Obama to President-elect Trump. And one of the very surprising news stories has been that Trump is considering David Petraeus for Secretary of State.

Given the controversy and campaign rhetoric against and surrounding Hillary Clinton for alleged mishandling of classified information as Secretary of State, I wanted to set the record straight with this one dataset comparing Petraeus to Clinton on their reckless handling of classified information.

Going by the data, if your claim was that Hillary Clinton could not be trusted with national secrets, neither can David Petraeus. Move along, Mr. Trump.

Credit for the piece goes to me.

Trump’s Potential Conflicts of Interest

President-elect Donald Trump was correct when he stated that the president is often exempt from conflicts of interest while in office. However, he is not exempt from the emolument clause of the Constitution. Put simply, the president cannot receive money or gifts from foreign governments. The whole not being beholden to a foreign power thing.

The catch is that a significant bit of Trump’s portfolio involves dealings with state-run companies across the world. And state-run companies are state-run, that is to say, run by foreign governments. Should they pay rent, make an investment, offer him a gift, he would be receiving money or gifts from a foreign government. Unless Trump takes action between now and January to sell-off or otherwise divest himself of those investments and arrangements, on Inaugural Day, not only would he be swearing the oath of office, but he would be breaking it simultaneously.

The New York Times went through Trump’s own financial disclosure and found these locations around the world where his business operates.

Where Trump's businesses operate — Where Trump’s businesses operate

Credit for the piece goes to Richard C. Paddock, Eric Lipton, Ellen Barry, Rod Nordland, Danny Hakim, and Simon Romero.

Trump’s Support

The debate was Sunday and here we are on Wednesday. The infamous video is, well, still infamous, but not garnering as much attention half-a-week later. On Monday, the Economist published this piece taking a look at how Trump’s support shifted in the hours and days following the video’s release.

Credit for the piece goes to the Economist’s Data Team.

Fact Checking Trump’s Small Multiples

Today marks the end of primary season for the US presidential election. By all accounts, at night’s end Hillary Clinton will be the Democratic nominee, but Bernie Sanders, while unlikely to win, could make California interesting tonight. And then there is Donald Trump. He is the Republican Party’s presumptive nominee and man, can that guy tweet.

Thursday he retweeted a set of small multiple charts arguing that President Obama’s legacy is an absolute disaster.

Trump's retweeted charts — Trump’s retweeted charts

Friday the Washington Post went through all nine points and fact-checked the charts, this being the refutation of the Food Stamps chart.

Food stamps are actually going back down

The whole thing is worth a quick read.

Credit for the piece goes to Philip Bump.

How Trump Could Get to 270

Trump won Arizona last night. And that is a big deal, despite losing Utah. He was never expected to win Utah. And while he Arizona was expected, the magnitude of his victory there was…big. If you replicate even something close to that in a demographically similar state like California, he can rack up some big delegate numbers.

But the big story these days is the anti-Trump movement, largely centred upon either Ted Cruz or tactical, state-by-state voting to force a contested convention (which as a political nerd would be just fantastic). Chris Cillizza of the Washington Post, however, wrote an article that I largely agree with that a Trump nomination might actually give the Republicans a better shot at the White House than Ted Cruz. The whole article is worth a read.

Credit for the piece goes to Chris Cillizza.

Trump’s Poll Ratings

The news this morning carried the latest polling data out of Iowa for the Republicans. And in that state, Ted Cruz now polls above Donald Trump. And so I wanted to share this post from the Economist last week that looks at how Trump rises every time he says something ridiculous. Could it just be that we should expect even more ridiculous this week?

Credit for the piece goes to the Economist’s Data Team.