The Trump Presidency: Part 20

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The coronavirus relief bill includes the appointment of a special inspector general to review and investigate loan decisions and report any withholding of information to Congress. Trump says "No. I'll be making these decisions."

The legislation establishes a "special inspector general" to review and investigate loan decisions made by the treasury secretary as part of the coronavirus relief effort, an accountability measure that was a central part of Democrats' demands to shore up transparency in the bill. The provision requires the inspector general to notify Congress if he or she is "unreasonably refused or not provided" any information.

But in a signing statement issued shortly after he approved the bill, Trump says he'll be the last word on whether this provision is followed.

"I do not understand, and my Administration will not treat, this provision as permitting the [inspector general] to issue reports to the Congress without the presidential supervision required" by Article II of the Constitution, Trump said in the signing statement.
 
Female Reporter: “Can everyone who needs a ventilator get one?”
Trump: “Look, don’t be a cutie-pie, okay?”

C'mon, that's a pretty good reply. Trump didn't fall into her little trap.
 
If I could stomach watching and listening to him speak, I would check out the press conferences he apparently does daily now, if only to look for signs of him deteriorating, and examples of him lying and misunderstanding things.

Edit: what happened at today's press conference?

I hear you. I despise Trump, but I enjoy watching him unscripted because it is entertaining and one of these times he may just lose his marbles and crap his pants on live TV or something. I can only watch in a different room as just the sound of his voice will put my wife in a bad mood.

Off the top of my head things I found interesting in the presser:

Cutiepie
Wiseguy
That woman in Michigan
Governors should be more appreciative to him. Scolding Pence for even speaking to them that are not.
Complaining that medicines typically have be tested in a lab first, but here we have this large group of people ...and what do we have to lose by trying?
Super rambling. Going on about the usual things and almost never answering the question asked. But way more than his usual word salads. Once he got going, you lose sight of what the original question was.

I don't know how anyone could watch that briefing and think there is nothing wrong with this person.
 
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Remember, states, if you want to get help, you must lick Fuhrer's boots.

That goes doubly for blue states, of course.

With time USA is more and more indistinguishable from third world petty authoritarian state.
 
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Female Reporter: “Can everyone who needs a ventilator get one?”
Trump: “Look, don’t be a cutie-pie, okay?”

C'mon, that's a pretty good reply. Trump didn't fall into her little trap.

That was actually a male reporter. CNN video link

What concerns me more about his interaction with that reporter is that he, again, 3 years and 3 months into his administration is talking about the bad systems that he inherited from Obama. No one, anywhere, gets to blame the last guy for their management job after 6 months or so. Even a full calendar year, budget cycle is 12 months. It's just insane.

He did this when he was talking about the medical equipment stockpile, and a reporter asked him what he did to replenish it in 3 years, and then he said "oh we did." So why did you mention Obama? So bad. The worst executive ever.
 
Trump Tweets

Such Fake reporting by the @nytimes, @washingtonpost, @CNN & others. They use a small portion of a sentence out of a full paragraph in order to demean. They really are corrupt and disgusting. No wonder the media is, according to polls, record setting low & untrusted. #MAGA

I think there is an obvious method here. Trump is widely criticized and even he must know a lot of it is well-founded. A responsible leader would accept criticism as coming with the territory, respond and defend himself, give his side of the story. Realistically, Trump can't. He did downplay the threat of the Covid-19 outbreak. He did make a lot of statements that now seem ridiculous. But he responds in ways that work well with his base. He must know the rest of us are wise to him, we're not going to change our opinions easily. In a strange way he's kind of trapped, I think. He has to respond to criticism by attacking the critics. Admitting candidly, "In some ways, yes, I was wrong. I underestimated the severity of this," won't trend well with his supporters. He has to maintain that base of support or he's finished politically.

Your Governor, Gretchen “Half” Whitmer is way in over her head, she doesn’t have a clue. Likes blaming everyone for her own ineptitude! #MAGA

It's really shameful that at a time like this he would attack another elected official in such a crude way. There hasn't been another president ever who spoke like this. Even if you don't like Governor Whitmer you must see this is really beyond the pale. It's incredibly irresponsible. Especially now, when so many lives are at stake. I find this shockingly irresponsible, even coming from Trump. :(
 
My guess: Trump's campaign has identified Whitmer as a probable candidate for VP, hence the urge to take her down early.
 
I think there is an obvious method here. Trump is widely criticized and even he must know a lot of it is well-founded. .....

Where is there any evidence that Trump has the thinnest shred of insight or self-awareness? He lives in a world that he has manufactured in his mind, and he has surrounded himself with sycophants who support his delusions.
 
My guess: Trump's campaign has identified Whitmer as a probable candidate for VP, hence the urge to take her down early.
You might be right and that demonstrates the sheer wretchedness of Trump.
The number of confirmed cases of the coronavirus (COVID-19) in Michigan has risen to 3,657 as of Friday, including 92 deaths, state officials report. Friday’s total represents an increase of 801 cases, the biggest single-day jump so far in the states. Thursday’s final total was 2,856 confirmed cases. Link

To try and undermine the public's confidence in a governor at a time when people in their state are dying of a new disease and a lot of those citizens are obviously scared, is off-the-charts despicable. But you're right, as a reporter implied with a question the other day, in Trump's mind his reelection is priority number one. anything else is a distant second. Way more important than your life, my life, anyone's life.
 
Trump's playing 256-D chess. Michigan is an important swing state. He's putting blame on the skirt governor, and the people will turn against her, thus delivering Donald J. Trump a beautiful victory in our genius Electoral College.
 
Where is there any evidence that Trump has the thinnest shred of insight or self-awareness? He lives in a world that he has manufactured in his mind, and he has surrounded himself with sycophants who support his delusions.

You can't be serious.
As Mr. Trump began exploring a presidential run in 2014, his political advisers landed on the idea of a border wall as a mnemonic device of sorts, a way to make sure their candidate — who hated reading from a script but loved boasting about himself and his talents as a builder — would remember to talk about getting tough on immigration, which was to be a signature issue in his nascent campaign. “How do we get him to continue to talk about immigration?” Sam Nunberg, one of Mr. Trump’s early political advisers, recalled telling Roger J. Stone Jr., another adviser. “We’re going to get him to talk about he’s going to build a wall.” Link

There are many many examples of how Trump's advisers have guided him along. Google Brad Parscale. This is from The Guardian:
If Trump wins re-election in November, Parscale, his workaholic campaign manager, will have had a lot to do with it. To admirers, the 44-year-old is an alchemist who turns those seemingly chaotic and raucous rallies into a matrix of data that can predict human motivations and behavior with astonishing precision. Link

Trump listens.
 
You can't be serious.

There are many many examples of how Trump's advisers have guided him along. Google Brad Parscale. This is from The Guardian:

Trump listens.


Those people are the sycophants. Trump listens to people who tell him what he wants to hear and help him do what he wants to do. I know all about Parscale. He was telling Trump how he could be President, and got rich making it happen by manipulating social media. What do you think would have happened to Parscale if he had said "You're not qualified to be President. You had your fun, and now it's time to go home." What do you think would happen to Dr. Fauci if he ever said "Shut the eff up, Mr. President, you're killing people." Trump has enablers, not advisors.
 
It's really shameful that at a time like this he would attack another elected official in such a crude way. There hasn't been another president ever who spoke like this. Even if you don't like Governor Whitmer you must see this is really beyond the pale. It's incredibly irresponsible. Especially now, when so many lives are at stake. I find this shockingly irresponsible, even coming from Trump. :(
Look again at what he's saying: "in over her head", "doesn’t have a clue", "Likes blaming everyone for her own ineptitude" - these are the things people say about him all the time. So it must be OK for him to say them, because what's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.

I doubt the thought that there might be a difference between what is acceptable for a reporter or ordinary citizen to say, and what is acceptable for a President to say, would ever cross his mind. The truth (or otherwise) of the comments doesn't even come into it, of course.
 
Trump Tweets

So much of the Lamestream Media is writing and broadcasting stories with facts that are made up and knowingly wrong. They are doing it by quoting unnamed sources that simply do not exist. These are very dangerous & corrupt people, who will do anything to win. NAME YOUR SOURCES!

One of the reasons that Fake News has become so prevalent & far reaching is the fact that corrupt “journalists” base their stories on SOURCES that they make up in order to totally distort a narrative or story. When you see, “five sources say”, don’t believe the story, it is....

....very often FAKE NEWS. Lamestream Media should be forced to reveal sources, very much as they did in the long ago past. If they did that, the media would be trusted again, and Fake News would largely be a thing of the past!
 
Trump Tweets

So much of the Lamestream Media is writing and broadcasting stories with facts that are made up and knowingly wrong. They are doing it by quoting unnamed sources that simply do not exist. These are very dangerous & corrupt people, who will do anything to win. NAME YOUR SOURCES!

One of the reasons that Fake News has become so prevalent & far reaching is the fact that corrupt “journalists” base their stories on SOURCES that they make up in order to totally distort a narrative or story. When you see, “five sources say”, don’t believe the story, it is....

....very often FAKE NEWS. Lamestream Media should be forced to reveal sources, very much as they did in the long ago past. If they did that, the media would be trusted again, and Fake News would largely be a thing of the past!

He knows this is true because a lot people are saying it. A lot of people.
 
Trump Tweets

Such Fake reporting by the @nytimes, @washingtonpost, @CNN & others. They use a small portion of a sentence out of a full paragraph in order to demean. They really are corrupt and disgusting. No wonder the media is, according to polls, record setting low & untrusted. #MAGA

I love Michigan, one of the reasons we are doing such a GREAT job for them during this horrible Pandemic. Yet your Governor, Gretchen “Half” Whitmer is way in over her head, she doesn’t have a clue. Likes blaming everyone for her own ineptitude! #MAGA

Disgusting.
 
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