Or subscribe with your Google account and let Google manage your subscription.
President Donald Trump tweeted Thursday morning criticizing Chelsea Manning, the Army intelligence analyst who had been convicted for turning over classified diplomatic documents to WikiLeaks, and saying she “should never have been released from prison.”
Manning, who Trump called an “ungrateful traitor,” “is now calling President Obama a weak leader,” he said. “Terrible!”
Manning has not yet been released from prison and is set to be released from Fort Leavenworth, Kansas later this year. Shortly before former President Barack Obama left office, he commuted her 35-year-sentence to end May 17.
On Wednesday, Manning wrote a column in the Guardian criticizing Obama’s inclination toward compromise, saying it had led to “very few permanent accomplishments.”
“This vulnerable legacy should remind us that what we really need is a strong and unapologetic progressive to lead us,” she wrote. “What we need as well is a relentless grassroots movement to hold that leadership accountable.”
"The one simple lesson to draw from President Obama’s legacy: do not start off with a compromise. They won’t meet you in the middle," she added.
Trump also used his Twitter handle Thursday morning to fire back at Mexico, implying Mexico’s president should cancel a scheduled visit if his country refused to pay for the construction of a border wall.
Trump signed an executive order earlier this week directing the Secretary of Homeland Security to begin the process of planning and building a wall along the Mexico border, which Mexican leaders have repeatedly stated they will not fund. Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto announced later that day that he had canceled the meeting, though he did not explicitly cite the debate over the border wall as the reason for his cancellation.
"This morning we have informed the White House that I will not attend the meeting scheduled for next Tuesday with the POTUS," Peña Nieto wrote.
Trump also tweeted a photo of himself in Philadelphia, where he is attending a congressional retreat for the GOP.
Later in the evening, Trump tweeted to promote his appearance on Fox News’ “Hannity.”
Not long after his tweet about his Fox News interview, Trump tweeted a link to a Miami Herald story on Miami-Dade mayor Carlos Gimenez’s decision to order county jails to comply with Trump’s crackdown on “sanctuary cities” that harbor illegal immigrants.
McClatchy will be compiling and providing links to fact checks of Trump’s tweets on merit throughout his presidency.