Matt Gaetz suddenly clams up after accidentally revealing Trump gave GOP lawmakers a sneak peek at Ukraine call

www.rawstory.com

Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) on Wednesday quickly clammed up after he accidentally revealed that he and his fellow Republican lawmakers got a sneak peek at the White House’s summary of a phone call between President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

During an interview with MSNBC’s Hallie Jackson, Gaetz tried to dismiss the incredibly damning summary of the call, which showed Trump repeatedly pressured Zelensky to open an investigation into potential 2020 rival Joe Biden.

In the course of defending the president, Gaetz said that he “had a chance to review the transcripts and chat with the president about them.”

“Were you at the White House?” Jackson asked.

“Yeah, we went over to the White House,” Gaetz said.

“Who’s ‘we’?” Jackson replied. “You and Democrats, you and Republicans?”

“Uh, I, uh, I didn’t take any, uh, I didn’t check anybody’s voter registration cards,” Gaetz said.

Hallie then pressed Gaetz on whether there were any Democrats at the meeting, and Gaetz just replied that it was “a group of legislators.”

Washington Post reporter Ashley Parker has since confirmed, however, that Republicans were given a preview the call readout before it was released to the public.

“The White House invited a dozen Republican lawmakers to the White House to review the transcript before it was released to the public — and to discuss among themselves and ask questions of White house officials,” Parker reported. “At one point, Trump called in from New York.”

The “Waffle House Index,” first coined by Federal Emergency Management Agency Director W. Craig Fugate, is based on the extent of operations and service at the restaurant following a storm and indicates how prepared a business is in case of a natural disaster.

For example, if a Waffle House store is open and offering a full menu, the index is green. If it is open but serving from a limited menu, it’s yellow. When the location has been forced to close, the index is red. Because Waffle House is well prepared for disasters, Kouvelis said, it’s rare for the index to hit red. For example, the Joplin, Mo., Waffle House survived the tornado and remained open.

When any of the stores are in danger of being hit by severe weather, so-called “jump teams” are activated to be ready to deploy wherever needed.

Jump teams are made up of Waffle House contractors, construction workers, gas line experts, restaurant operators, food providers and other associates who are assembled and ready to go wherever needed at a moment’s notice. Their purpose is to help relieve local Waffle House operators and employees who need to evacuate, be with their families or tend to their homes when a storm hits, and help make sure restaurants are able to open quickly after a storm or stay open during a storm.

Even with Category 5 hurricanes, those types of closures are an exception rather than the rule. Which begs the question: How, exactly, is the chain with nearly 2,000 restaurants in 25 states able to stay open during or after storms when most other establishments close down?

The key is preparation and reputation.

Florida man charged with threatening Cory Booker, Rashida Tlaib, Eric Swalwell

www.miamiherald.com

Federal authorities have arrested a South Florida man and accused him of leaving menacing, racist and homophobic messages on the office voicemails of several Democratic members of Congress, two of whom are running for president.

John Kless, 49, has been charged with making threatening communications after U.S. Capitol Police say he called up the Washington offices of U.S. Sen. Cory Booker and U.S. Reps. Rashida Tlaib and Eric Swalwell Tuesday and unleashed foul, profanity-laced rants peppered with death threats. Police say they’d also recently investigated Kless for threatening House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Kless, of Tamarac, was arrested Friday and made his initial appearance in court, according to the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida. He was released on bond with a GPS monitor and a requirement that he stay away from guns and the people he threatened.

According to an affidavit filed in support of the criminal complaint, Kless called Swalwell’s office Tuesday and warned that taking guns from Americans would be his “death bed.” Swalwell, a California congressman who frequently appears on cable news, is running for president on a gun-safety platform and recently held a guns town hall in Broward County attended by some parents of students slain last year in the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, located about six miles from Kless’ apartment.

T-Mobile CEO John Legere had previously said in 2015 that he would not stay at a Trump hotel after he disapproved of the service.

One day after the merger announcement, nine T-Mobile executives checked in to Trump’s D.C. hotel, The Washington Post reported in January. The company ultimately spent $195,000 on 38 nights at the hotel as T-Mobile executives descended on Washington to meet with regulators about the proposed merger.

“I made the decision. I’m a longtime Trump hotel stayer way before this transaction,” Legere said in response to questions from Rep. Hank Johnson (D-Ga.).

“I’m kind of embarrassed. Where Mr. Legere and T-Mobile employees stay when they come to Washington really has no relationship whatsoever to whether or not this proposed merger is in the public interest or not,”  Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.)

• Chris Cuomo to Gaetz, ‘Mueller is MORE Republican than YOU’
• Rising Star Matt Gaetz Represents Everything That’s Wrong With Trump’s Republican Party, The Intercept
• Matt Gaetz and 17 other Republicans nominated Trump for a Nobel Peace Prize, CBS News

Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) elicited laughs from his Republican colleagues after complaining that Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) only spent 50 seconds of her time asking about the substance of the merger “because we have to go into what kind of hotel towels you like.”