AP FACT CHECK: Improv week at the White House

Many don't rise to the level of an international audience because they cause no casualties, or little or no property damage, or are carried out by unknown assailants for unclear reasons.

Many are attacks undertaken for right-wing or left-wing causes that have nothing to do with Islamic extremism or xenophobic attacks on mosques.

The database defines a terrorist act as one aimed at attaining political, religious, social or economic goals through coercion or intimidation of the public, outside acts of war.

The devastating attacks by Islamic extremists in 2015 are also on the list, among them the murderous assault on the Paris offices of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, and the even bloodier attack at Paris' Bataclan concert hall, the worst in a series of killings in one day.

Trump made his claim before a broad audience on live television, while speaking at Central Command headquarters in Florida.

On Air Force One, before a smaller audience, Trump spokesman Sean Spicer said Trump did not really mean that terrorist attacks received no coverage.

Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price this past week became the ninth member of Trump's administration to be confirmed.

[...] is the fact that Trump has been slower than his predecessor in submitting vetting information and paperwork for his nominees, even though he was unusually fast in putting the names of his Cabinet picks into play.

TRUMP on Thursday disputed statements by at least three senators that his nominee for the Supreme Court, Judge Neil Gorsuch, voiced complaints to them about the president's recent attacks on the judiciary.

Blumenthal, a Democrat from Connecticut who falsely claimed in years past that he had served in Vietnam, offered an account of his meeting with Gorsuch that was corroborated by Ron Bonjean, a Republican strategist serving as communications director for the team that is working to get Gorsuch confirmed by the Senate.

The senator said Gorsuch told him it was "disheartening" and "demoralizing" to see Trump disparage the judge who temporarily blocked the president's restrictions on visitors from seven mainly Muslim countries and on refugees.

Robart's decision was upheld Thursday in a unanimous decision by an appeals court panel that includes a Republican appointee.

Former GOP Sen. Kelly Ayotte, who is helping to usher Gorsuch through the Senate, said in a statement released by the White House that the nominee "made clear that he was not referring to any specific case," but "finds any criticism of a judge's integrity and independence disheartening and demoralizing."

Blumenthal told The Associated Press that Ayotte and White House staff members were in the room during his conversation with Gorsuch, that there's no question that he said that President Trump's attacks on the judiciary are demoralizing and disheartening and that the nominee added: You can repeat that.

In this rather bewildering tweet, Trump cited a legal blog as support for his complaints about the appeals case that kept the borders open to people he wants banned.

The law says the president may, "by proclamation, and for such period as he shall deem necessary, suspend the entry of all aliens or any class of aliens" or impose "any restrictions" if he decides their presence in the country would be detrimental to the U.S.

Trump's selective citation from the blog suggests that this line of argument could be central to the administration's case that courts have not given presidential authority proper weight.