Civil Rights and Social Justice

A Democratic congressman from California who has called President Trump a "danger to the republic" will introduce legislation next week that would require the White House provide top aides, including the commander-in-chief, with access to a psychiatrist.

James Hairston, 31, was a Harvard freshman when some of his fellow students launched a website they called "The Facebook."

His boss at the campus's tech support team, Dustin Moskovitz, was working on the project. Hairston joined the company in 2013 after spending time in the Obama administration.

He's now the top policy staffer for California-based Oculus on issues related to virtual reality and artificial intelligence, which are expected to have a huge global impact in the decades to come.

Congressman Ted Lieu, D-California, hosted a telephone town hall Monday night to address the current direction of the nation after a series of actions by President Donald Trump. Lieu, who represents California's 33rd Congressional District, which includes Westwood, answered questions from his constituents, covering topics such as how citizens can better support immigrants affected by the recent travel ban and how the Constitution can help push back against Trump.

Monday on MSNBC's "All In," Rep. Ted Lieu (D-CA) said President Donald Trump "lies pathologically," and that he added leads to "authoritarianism, and therefore he was "a danger" to the republic.

Lieu said, "Let me say that we have a problem here in America. Our president lies pathologically. He has a staff lie pathologically and then he attacks the free press, he attacks the judiciary and this is what starts authoritarianism. Donald Trump is a danger to republic and we need to wake up and understand the harms that he's causing our country."

A Democratic lawmaker slammed President Trump on Saturday over his tweets attacking The New York Times and defending his executive order temporarily banning citizens from several Muslim-majority countries from entering the U.S.

"Last 24 hrs on Twitter, Donald Trump went on rant about 'death & destruction,' 'FAKE NEWS,' & 'evil.' Should he get mental health exam?" Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) tweeted.

Lieu also shared a tweet praising a federal judge's decision to halt the temporary travel ban:

Last week, the famed Doomsday Clock, created in 1947 by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists to sound the alarm over the inherently catastrophic nature of nuclear weapons, was set ahead 30 seconds, to two and a half minutes to midnight, the closest it's been to midnight since 1953.

Barack Obama and his aides expected to take on President Donald Trump at some point, but they didn't think it would happen this quickly.

Now they're trying to find the right balance on issues that demand a response, and how to use Obama deliver the selective pushback. Obama and his team are monitoring what's happening at the White House, and not ruling out the possibility that Obama will challenge Trump more forcefully in the coming months, according to people who've been in contact with the former president.