Trump Blasts Nordstrom, Raising New Concern On Business Ties

Trump Blasts Nordstrom, Raising New Concern On Business Ties

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump’s Twitter attack on Nordstrom Inc on Wednesday for dropping his daughter Ivanka’s clothing line raised concerns about the use of his White House platform for his family’s businesses.

In response to the Twitter comment Trump posted criticizing Nordstrom, which has said its move was based on the sales performance of the Ivanka Trump products, White House spokesman Sean Spicer characterized the company’s action as a “direct attack” on the president’s policies.

“My daughter Ivanka has been treated so unfairly by @Nordstrom. She is a great person — always pushing me to do the right thing! Terrible!,” Trump said on Wednesday in his post on both his personal and official presidential Twitter accounts.

Trump’s comments underscore the complicated relationship that the wealthy New York real estate developer who became president on Jan. 20 has with his sprawling family business interests amid criticism from Democrats and others about the ethics and legality of the arrangement.

During a White House briefing, Spicer painted Nordstrom’s action as an attack on the president’s daughter.

“For someone to take out their concern with his policies on a family member of his is just not acceptable. And the president has every right as a father to stand up to them,” Spicer said.

Nordstrom did not respond to requests seeking comment. A spokeswoman for the Ivanka Trump brand declined to comment.

The Republican president’s complaint, however, drew swift criticism from Democrats. Asked about the Nordstrom tweet, U.S. House of Representatives’ minority leader Nancy Pelosi said:

“I think it’s inappropriate, but he’s a totally inappropriate president, so it’s totally in keeping with who he is. What I think is more inappropriate, though, is for him to refer to a judge who made a ruling that he didn’t agree with as a ‘so-called judge.’ Now we’re talking about the separation of power, not the thin skin of an incompetent president,” Pelosi told reporters in Baltimore for House Democrats’ retreat.

Senator Bob Casey, a Democrat, in a tweet indicated that the matter should be referred to the Office of Government Ethics.

In a statement last week, Nordstrom said it routinely cuts brands each year and that the decision to pass on the Ivanka Trump brand had been based on its performance.

A day after Nordstrom’s statement, luxury retailer Neiman Marcus Group also said it had stopped selling Ivanka Trump’s jewelry line on its website and a store in New Jersey, according to Yahoo News.

The move by the retailers comes amid an ongoing campaign called #GrabYourWallet, which encourages shoppers to boycott products with ties to President Trump, his family and his donors.

The president has declined to sell off his businesses despite calls to do so from critics, instead turning his empire over to his adult sons. Trump’s web of international companies remains a bit opaque since he has refused to release his tax returns, which experts have said would provide a clearer view of his business interests.

Since winning the U.S. presidential election on Nov. 8, Trump has targeted specific companies on Twitter. But this is his first tweet criticizing a business tied to his family since the victory.

Ivanka Trump ran a clothing and jewelry business bearing her name, in addition to other work for the Trump Organization, before saying she would resign when her father was sworn in as president last month.

ProPublica reported on Feb. 2 that the Trump Organization said Ivanka had resigned her positions but that it had not yet filed the changes. The Trump organization later said the filings would be done by Feb. 3, according to the report.

Shares of Nordstrom fell 0.7 percent after the president’s criticism but recovered to trade up 3.7 percent at $44.38 on the New York Stock Exchange.

(Reporting by Susan Heavey in Washington and Nandita Bose in Chicago; Additional reporting by Joseph Ax in New York and Doina Chiacu in Washington; Writing by Will Dunham; Editing by Tim Ahmann, Paul Simao and Bernard Orr)

IMAGE: Ivanka Trump attends U.S. President Donald Trump’s strategy and policy forum with chief executives of major U.S. companies at the White House in Washington, U.S. February 3, 2017. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

Former U.S. Astronaut, Senator John Glenn Dies At 95

Former U.S. Astronaut, Senator John Glenn Dies At 95

(Reuters) – John Glenn, who became one of the 20th century’s greatest explorers as the first American to orbit Earth and later as the world’s oldest astronaut, in addition to a long career as a U.S. senator, died on Thursday at age of 95.

Glenn was the last surviving member of the original seven “Right Stuff” Mercury astronauts.

“John Glenn is, and always will be, Ohio’s ultimate hometown hero, and his passing today is an occasion for all of us to grieve,” Ohio Governor John Kasich said in a statement.

Glenn died at the James Cancer Hospital at Ohio State University, said Hank Wilson, a spokesman at the university’s John Glenn College of Public Affairs, which Glenn helped found.

Glenn was credited with reviving U.S. pride after the Soviet Union’s early domination of manned space exploration. His three laps around the world in the Friendship 7 capsule on Feb. 20, 1962, forged a powerful link between the former fighter pilot and the Kennedy-era quest to explore outer space as a “New Frontier.”

As the third of seven astronauts in NASA’s solo-flight Mercury program to venture into space, Glenn became more of a media fixture than any of the others and was known for his composure and willingness to promote the program.

Glenn’s astronaut career, as well as his record as a fighter pilot in World War Two and the Korean War, helped propel him to the U.S. Senate in 1974, where he represented his home state of Ohio for 24 years as a moderate Democrat.

But his star was dimmed somewhat by a Senate investigation of several senators on whether special favors were done for a major campaign contributor. He was cleared of wrongdoing.

Glenn’s entry into history came in early 1961 when fellow astronaut Scott Carpenter bade him “Godspeed, John Glenn” just before the Ohio native was rocketed into space for a record-breaking trip that would last just under five hours.

“THAT VIEW IS TREMENDOUS”

“Zero-G (gravity) and I feel fine,” was Glenn’s succinct assessment of weightlessness several minutes into his mission. “… Oh, and that view is tremendous.”

After splashdown and recovery in the Atlantic, Glenn was treated as a hero, addressing a joint session of Congress and being feted in a New York ticker-tape parade.

The U.S space agency said on Twitter, “We are saddened by the loss of Sen. John Glenn, the first American to orbit Earth. A true American hero. Godspeed, John Glenn. Ad Astra.” Ad Astra is Latin for “To the stars.”

U.S. Senator Bill Nelson of Florida, who orbited Earth aboard space shuttle Columbia in 1986, said, “On top of paving the way for the rest of us, he was also a first-class gentleman and an unabashed patriot.”

Glenn’s experiences as a pioneer astronaut were chronicled in the book and movie “The Right Stuff,” along with the other Mercury pilots. The book’s author, Tom Wolfe, called Glenn “the last true national hero America has ever had.”

“I don’t think of myself that way,” Glenn told the New York Times in 2012 to mark the 50th anniversary of his flight. “I get up each day and have the same problems others have at my age. As far as trying to analyze all the attention I received, I will leave that to others.”

Glenn’s historic flight made him a favorite of President John Kennedy and his brother Robert, who encouraged him to launch a political career that finally took off after a period as a businessman made him a millionaire.

HERO STATUS

Even before his Mercury flight, Glenn qualified for hero status, earning six Distinguished Flying Crosses and flying more than 150 missions in World War Two and the Korean War.

After Korea, Glenn became a test pilot, setting a transcontinental speed record from Los Angeles to New York in 1957.

The determination and single-mindedness that marked Glenn’s military and space career did not save him from misjudgments and defeat in politics. He lost his first bid for the Senate from Ohio in 1970, after abandoning a race in 1964 because of a head injury suffered in a fall.

He was elected in 1974 and was briefly considered as a running mate for Democratic presidential candidate Jimmy Carter in 1980. But a ponderous address at the Democratic National Convention – people walked out – caused Carter to remark that Glenn was “the most boring man I ever met.”

Glenn sought the Democratic presidential nomination himself in 1984 but was quickly eliminated by eventual nominee Walter Mondale, Carter’s vice president. His failure was all the more stinging because he had been touted as an early front-runner.

In the Senate, Glenn was respected as a thoughtful moderate with expertise in defense and foreign policy. But his career’s luster was dulled by a Senate investigation of the “Keating Five” – five senators suspected of doing favors for campaign contributor Charles Keating Jr. The panel eventually found Glenn did nothing improper or illegal.

BACK TO SPACE

He took a leading role in seeking to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons, especially to Pakistan. He was the author of a law that forced the United States to impose sanctions on India and Pakistan in 1998 after both countries conducted nuclear tests.

He also was a staunch advocate of a strong military and took a keen interest in strategic issues. He retired from the Senate in 1999.

Thirty-six years after his maiden space voyage, Glenn became America’s first geriatric astronaut on Oct. 29, 1998. He was 77 years old when he blasted off as a mission specialist aboard the shuttle Discovery. He saw it as a blow to stereotyping of the elderly.

“Maybe prior to this flight, we were looked at as old geezers who ought to get out of the way,” Glenn said after his nine-day shuttle mission. “Just because you’re up in years some doesn’t mean you don’t have hopes and dreams and aspirations just as much as younger people do.”

John Herschel Glenn Jr. was born on July 18, 1921, in Cambridge, Ohio. He married childhood sweetheart, Annie Castor, and they had two children, David and Lyn.

In his latter years he was an adjunct professor at the John Glenn College of Public Affairs, which he helped found at Ohio State University.

He had a knee replacement operation in 2011 and underwent heart surgery in 2014.

(Reporting by Will Dunham in Washington; Editing by Bill Trott)

IMAGE: Senator John Glenn speaks with reporters, with his Daughter Lyn Glenn, during the christening ceremony for the USNS John Glenn at the General Dynamics NASSCO Shipyard in San Diego, California February 1, 2014. REUTERS/Sandy Huffaker