THE TRUMP PRESIDENCY

[BigMark]

[Duchess]

*snort laugh* I know you're speaking for yourself.

[HairOfTheDog]

Well, I hope the tentative new trade deal with Mexico is a beneficial one for both countries if it gets formalized.

President Trump asked to have his conference call with Mexican President Pena Nieto televised.  It was hilarious watching Trump trying to get the phone to work.  



Trump said during the call that the new agreement wouldn't be called 'NAFTA' because that had a negative connotation and was a bad deal for the United States.  

He said negotiations hadn't started with Canada yet, though there have been several reports that negotiations have been underway for months.

Pena Nieto mentioned that he's hoping Canada will be brought in soon.

No mention of Mexico paying for "The Wall" in the new tentative trade deal.

[BigMark]

Pay so.

[HairOfTheDog]

Yet another book on the inside goings-on of the Trump Administration has been released.  It's already a bestseller.



This one's different from its predecessors in that it's not written by a former member of the administration or a tabloid journalist.

The author is ^ Bob Woodward, the renowned and meticulous investigative journalist who helped expose the Nixon Watergate scandal and has since written several uncontested books on presidential administrations.

Based on the excerpts released thus far, the book depicts President Trump as unstable, impulsive, recklessly ignorant in terms of foreign policy, and ruling over a very chaotic administration.  

Woodward had attempted to interview Trump to get his input in advance, but he was unable to get an interview despite having met with Kellyanne Conway (who never followed up with Woodward) and  Senator Lindsey Graham.  Woodward said he also made a request for interview to several others close to Trump.

[HairOfTheDog]

Today, Woodward released a tape of the conversation he had last month with Trump about the book's release.  It's an interesting listen.  Woodward informed Trump that he was recording the conversation.

During the conversation, Trump claimed no one ever told him about Woodward's request for an interview, but later admitted that Senator Graham had mentioned it to him.  Kellyanne Conway entered Trump's office during the phone call with Woodward and got fully put on the spot.  

Conway claimed she'd put in a request for the interview with the "people who make those decisions" after meeting with Woodward, though it doesn't appear she ever mentioned it ot her boss.  She then defensively instructed Woodward to tell Trump the names of all the other Trump contacts to whom he'd made the same request.  

The tape:  


Quotes from the book:  https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-45415151

[Carsman]

Listened to the entire tape, simply, WOW!

[Fry Guy]

Yet another book on the inside goings-on of the Trump Administration has been released.  It's already a bestseller.



This one's different from its predecessors in that it's not written by a former member of the administration or a tabloid journalist.

The author is ^ Bob Woodward, the renowned and meticulous investigative journalist who helped expose the Nixon Watergate scandal and has since written several uncontested books on presidential administrations.

Based on the excerpts released thus far, the book depicts President Trump as unstable, impulsive, recklessly ignorant in terms of foreign policy, and ruling over a very chaotic administration.  

Woodward had attempted to interview Trump to get his input in advance, but he was unable to get an interview despite having met with Kellyanne Conway (who never followed up with Woodward) and  Senator Lindsey Graham.  Woodward said he also made a request for interview to several others close to Trump.

Yes books can paint a picture, yet the chaos and unstable nature seems not to come across in results. Maybe one person's reckless and impulsive is another's committed, decided and adaptive.

Seems he, like many others has an opinion. I wonder which party he voted for (i don't really).

I do wonder if he is a mansplainer or a broppriator?

[Duchess]

Yet another book on the inside goings-on of the Trump Administration has been released.  It's already a bestseller.

I pre-ordered it awhile ago & I'm excited to get it next week! I saw several excerpts yesterday as well as listened to the phone call. There might be some surprises but I think things are pretty much what I expected out of this administration. trump has the intellect of a child and that's exactly how he is treated by those around him.

[Duchess]

I just love the douchebaggery of this White House. I have been entertained (sometimes maddened) on a daily basis. No shit, every. fucking. day. Never did I dream that one day I would say, "sorry, no, I can't do that, I have to rush home and watch C-Span".  

...and I've done it more than a few times the past couple years.

[Maggot]

I just finished reading this one.

[HairOfTheDog]

The New York Times published an anonymous letter from a verified senior official in the Trump Administration today.

It's reportedly a first-hand account of Trump's incompetence and aligns closely with claims made by those interviewed by Bob Woodward.

Now, it appears, the White House and some of the media is busy trying to figure out the identity of the author.  

It's a very damning piece  (and rather self-serving, in my opinion).  

President Trump has labeled the anonymous author as 'gutless'.  Sarah Sanders called the person a 'coward' and compelled him or her to resign.  President Trump later tweeted "Treason?" (the answer is clearly 'no') and claimed that the New York Times must reveal their source (not gonna happen).

The letter is posted below.

[HairOfTheDog]

I Am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration

I work for the president but like-minded colleagues and I have vowed to thwart parts of his agenda and his worst inclinations.

President Trump is facing a test to his presidency unlike any faced by a modern American leader.

It’s not just that the special counsel looms large. Or that the country is bitterly divided over Mr. Trump’s leadership. Or even that his party might well lose the House to an opposition hellbent on his downfall.

The dilemma — which he does not fully grasp — is that many of the senior officials in his own administration are working diligently from within to frustrate parts of his agenda and his worst inclinations.

I would know. I am one of them.

To be clear, ours is not the popular “resistance” of the left. We want the administration to succeed and think that many of its policies have already made America safer and more prosperous.

But we believe our first duty is to this country, and the president continues to act in a manner that is detrimental to the health of our republic.

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[HairOfTheDog]

That is why many Trump appointees have vowed to do what we can to preserve our democratic institutions while thwarting Mr. Trump’s more misguided impulses until he is out of office.

The root of the problem is the president’s amorality. Anyone who works with him knows he is not moored to any discernible first principles that guide his decision making.

Although he was elected as a Republican, the president shows little affinity for ideals long espoused by conservatives: free minds, free markets and free people. At best, he has invoked these ideals in scripted settings. At worst, he has attacked them outright.

In addition to his mass-marketing of the notion that the press is the “enemy of the people,” President Trump’s impulses are generally anti-trade and anti-democratic.

Don’t get me wrong. There are bright spots that the near-ceaseless negative coverage of the administration fails to capture: effective deregulation, historic tax reform, a more robust military and more.

But these successes have come despite — not because of — the president’s leadership style, which is impetuous, adversarial, petty and ineffective.

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[HairOfTheDog]

From the White House to executive branch departments and agencies, senior officials will privately admit their daily disbelief at the commander in chief’s comments and actions. Most are working to insulate their operations from his whims.

Meetings with him veer off topic and off the rails, he engages in repetitive rants, and his impulsiveness results in half-baked, ill-informed and occasionally reckless decisions that have to be walked back.

“There is literally no telling whether he might change his mind from one minute to the next,” a top official complained to me recently, exasperated by an Oval Office meeting at which the president flip-flopped on a major policy decision he’d made only a week earlier.

The erratic behavior would be more concerning if it weren’t for unsung heroes in and around the White House. Some of his aides have been cast as villains by the media. But in private, they have gone to great lengths to keep bad decisions contained to the West Wing, though they are clearly not always successful.

It may be cold comfort in this chaotic era, but Americans should know that there are adults in the room. We fully recognize what is happening. And we are trying to do what’s right even when Donald Trump won’t.

The result is a two-track presidency.

Take foreign policy: In public and in private, President Trump shows a preference for autocrats and dictators, such as President Vladimir Putin of Russia and North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un, and displays little genuine appreciation for the ties that bind us to allied, like-minded nations.

3 of 5

[HairOfTheDog]

Astute observers have noted, though, that the rest of the administration is operating on another track, one where countries like Russia are called out for meddling and punished accordingly, and where allies around the world are engaged as peers rather than ridiculed as rivals.

On Russia, for instance, the president was reluctant to expel so many of Mr. Putin’s spies as punishment for the poisoning of a former Russian spy in Britain. He complained for weeks about senior staff members letting him get boxed into further confrontation with Russia, and he expressed frustration that the United States continued to impose sanctions on the country for its malign behavior. But his national security team knew better — such actions had to be taken, to hold Moscow accountable.

This isn’t the work of the so-called deep state. It’s the work of the steady state.

Given the instability many witnessed, there were early whispers within the cabinet of invoking the 25^th Amendment, which would start a complex process for removing the president. But no one wanted to precipitate a constitutional crisis. So we will do what we can to steer the administration in the right direction until — one way or another — it’s over.

The bigger concern is not what Mr. Trump has done to the presidency but rather what we as a nation have allowed him to do to us. We have sunk low with him and allowed our discourse to be stripped of civility.

4 of 5

[HairOfTheDog]

Senator John McCain put it best in his farewell letter. All Americans should heed his words and break free of the tribalism trap, with the high aim of uniting through our shared values and love of this great nation.

We may no longer have Senator McCain. But we will always have his example — a lodestar for restoring honor to public life and our national dialogue. Mr. Trump may fear such honorable men, but we should revere them.

There is a quiet resistance within the administration of people choosing to put country first. But the real difference will be made by everyday citizens rising above politics, reaching across the aisle and resolving to shed the labels in favor of a single one: Americans.

5 of 5

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/05/opini...ule=Top%20^Stories&pgtype=Homepage

[Rootilda]

Yet another book on the inside goings-on of the Trump Administration has been released.  It's already a bestseller.



This one's different from its predecessors in that it's not written by a former member of the administration or a tabloid journalist.

The author is ^ Bob Woodward, the renowned and meticulous investigative journalist who helped expose the Nixon Watergate scandal and has since written several uncontested books on presidential administrations.

Based on the excerpts released thus far, the book depicts President Trump as unstable, impulsive, recklessly ignorant in terms of foreign policy, and ruling over a very chaotic administration.  

Woodward had attempted to interview Trump to get his input in advance, but he was unable to get an interview despite having met with Kellyanne Conway (who never followed up with Woodward) and  Senator Lindsey Graham.  Woodward said he also made a request for interview to several others close to Trump.

Slightly off-topic... young Woodward. 

[Fry Guy]

What an unmitigated load of shit.
The guy is just a deep state toady that likes the way the establishment runs things. There is nothing noble, moral or loyal in what he said.

[Duchess]

The New York Times published an anonymous letter from a verified senior official in the Trump Administration today.

There's a witch hunt going on in the west wing now! Ahahahahahahahahahaha!