Trump, May 2017: 100 days of [unintelligible]

bad for trump, rather

going back to those trump tweetblurts carne asada posted for a sec, the one about surrogates not being able to keep up with trump's activity levels - he obviously thinks this is a good thing but what he's actually saying is that he has no coherent strategy or policies, so the people around him are basically covering for him constantly

i haven't watched the whole holt interview, but isn't trump's contention that his meetings with comey involved comey trying to keep his job by reassuring trump that he wasn't under investigation?

so if there's tape of that it would be....very bad for both of them?

― jason waterfalls (gbx), Friday, May 12, 2017 1:40 PM (sixteen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
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Did Comey know anything about his job being in danger before his actual firing. Don't think I've seen anything indicating that. He seemed to be in the middle of routine procedure trying to recruit new FBI staff at the time.
So the idea that he would book a dinner to beg to continue in a job that he had 7 more years of tenure in would be a bit odd wouldn't it?

oh I would agree, i think trump probably imagined the part about comey begging for his job. it's just, like, if that WAS the case, as trump envisioned it, then any tapes of that conversation would be damning for them both. and if the tapes were instead just trump asking comey repeatedly if he was under investigation, then it would bad for trump only.

he's just...so dumb

you'd think we'd have developed some natural insulation by now to protect against the white heat of his idiocy but nope it still burns every time

Isn't it illegal to intimidate a witness with blackmail? Isn't comey testifying before congress on tuesday?

reminds me of the story he often tells about Shinzo Abe coming off the plane and bestowing effusive praise upon him for saving him Ten Trillion Dollars on those airplanes.

Later at the press briefing:

"So you're not speaking with perfect accuracy?"

"Of course I am!"

etc.

Isn't it illegal to intimidate a witness with blackmail? Isn't comey testifying before congress on tuesday?

Yes and yes, and here we are.

I guarantee that intel services have dirt on Trump that they've kept under wraps either because it relates to the ongoing investigation or out of a general sense of propriety and respect for the office of the president. So this tack is kinda like putting a gun in your mouth and warning the bullets that if you go down you're taking them with you.

i think trump probably imagined the part about comey begging for his job.

the word "imagined" is giving him way too much credit here. listen to any interview with Trump, he's constantly "imagining" people praising him and being subservient even though those accounts get immediately refuted nearly every time.

Tweets are literally surreal, this is the fucking POTUS point-scoring with the YouTube comments section ffs.

the Plankton with a Hairpiece overrates his intellect:

We should be able to walk, chew gum and confirm an FBI director at the same time,” Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) said.

Tweets are literally surreal, this is the fucking POTUS point-scoring with the YouTube comments section ffs.

― attention vampire (MatthewK)

as the GOP just fucking pretends it's not happening

I wonder what was said around that dinner table. Could surmise that 45 thought he was being clever and may have been dangling something in front of Comey that he wasn't aware of, since there was no indication prior to the firing taht his job was in danger.
So wonder what curllicues of verbal diarrhea 45 was coming out with to try to be more enthralling.
Or what hypotheticals would have been put across the table and not seen to be supposedly reflecting some level of reality.

Am also wondering about the reality of the dinner, was it ethical for Comey to meet with the subject of his investigation in that way at all

wondering if trump intends the "tapes" comment as a presidentially formed "joke" about the wiretaps he thinks comey installed for obama, which in his fevered brain is still the biggest story, crisis and shame in america.

I wonder what was said around that dinner table.

must we post the Romney-Trump photo again

welcome to your tape, mr comey

lol

of course it's really bad if bill clinton meets with loretta lynch in an airplane but if the sitting president invites the fbi director to "encourage" him to let the investigation go that's all fine and dandy

everyday of this presidency seems like a month

as humanity nears its end, things seem to slow down

imagining a comey aide swapping out the "tape" for one previously labelled "D.T. IN MOSCOW - KEEP UNDER WRAPS - URINE. " oh here you go mister president. "great, great, just in time, we're going live in thirty seconds... this'll show them!" yes mister president, i'm sure it will.

I'm really worried about this voting integrity commission. To what extent can the federal government usurp state laws governing elections? could Congress pass a nationwide voter ID law in addition to taking even more draconian measures (terminating early voting, restricting hours on election day, etc.)?

What was it that Nixon said about how if the President Does It, That Means It’s Not Illegal?

I'm really worried about this voting integrity commission. To what extent can the federal government usurp state laws governing elections? could Congress pass a nationwide voter ID law in addition to taking even more draconian measures (terminating early voting, restricting hours on election day, etc.)?

presumably though this would require 60 votes in the Senate though, right? which ain't happening.

terminating early voting

And this certainly isn't happening since it's becoming a preferred mode of voting for older people (ie, GOP's backbone).

What is the story on McCabe, been reminded that he was the guy who triggered that incident where the 2 republican heads of Intelligence councils rang around the press to undermine the New York Times story about campaign/Russia connections back in February. Is he going to continue the investigation validly?

yeah, I don't see how McCabe has any credibility after that. Rosenstein has lost his credibility too. I mean, is there anybody left who isn't compromised?

me

bernie

lol

I … have a follow-up question. https://t.co/7TLpG4V0MZ

— Philip Bump (@pbump) May 12, 2017

is dr harold bornstein trump's lawyer as well as his doctor? that's some dr nick-level bad lawyering right there

lmao Trump's trying to get people to shift focus onto the tax returns again

seriously though TRUMPS LAWYER JUST ADMITTED HE'S RECIEVING MONEY FROM RUSSIAN SOURCES this is so nuts right now

Spicer returns! pic.twitter.com/gvNQGOjHsK

— Elana Zak (@elanazak) May 12, 2017

The fuck, Trump is literally threatening Comey now? What constraints is Comey held by now? I assume he is not muted for life, he can answer questions etc. You can't just tell him to zip it, and the threats about a potential tape are so see-through phony. Like, why even threaten it? Just say you have him on tape! But of course, they don't have it on tape, so fuck Trump.

And even if they dio have it on Trump that only fucks Trump even further

I have killed absolutely no one in the past ten years, with few exceptions.

And the threat to cancel press conferences? Sure, who the fuck cares at this point? It'll be all leaks, all the time.

This was a point I hammered home over and over again during the election and totally lost sight of in the despairing moments after he won and the extent to which nothing ever seemed to affect him adversely, but it is perhaps worth reiterating at this moment: Donald Trump's worst enemy, by far, is Donald Trump.

Like, if he does eventually fall, it's going to be because he overtly fucked himself. The Russia investigation will go nowhere but he'll admit to the commission of a crime on camera. Something like that.

the real mindbender is that donald trump is also donald trump's greatest strength

Wonder if that tax returns statement is them trying to get ahead of a leak they fear is inevitable now that they've lost the FBI.

are the 35% still crowing about "boy, he sure is pissing off those liberals"? because, i mean. i'm a pretty irritable guy. pretty much every republican pisses me off at this point - going to all the trouble to repeatedly violate federal law just to piss me off seems sort of like gilding the lily.

xp yeah that's pretty much my impression too. I think the Russia investigation is gonna lead to something, maybe not on Trump himself, but almost certainly on people he's associated himself with. if he gets impeached its gonna be because of dumb shit like this, actively intimidating witnesses or committing blatant obstruction of justice

i was wondering if they've been saving the tax returns to deploy as chaff if trump ever really put his foot in it --- if they're as long/complex as has been implied, it'll take a while to sort through them, trump can magnanimously say that he's finally done what the people want (like firing comey), etc

if they're as long/complex as has been implied, it'll take a while to sort through them

It won't take long at all. Like he's the only rich person with complicated returns in America? I bet your average CPA would be able to scan through them in 30 minutes and find the important stuff.

I mean, how many docs did Snowden leak? 200,000? And that was all sorts of stuff, not just the organized tax returns for one individual.

Here's a thing I've been thinking lately, spurred in part by that tweetstorm about how people are disarmed by Trump because they don't have the cognitive tools for dealing with someone who operates like him: the reason a good conman is successful is that he gains the mark's confidence, he undertakes the con, and he gets the hell outta Dodge. People will only continue to be baffled by his MO for so long because continued exposure to the mechanics of the con only serves to illuminate its status as a con. He has no exit strategy so he has to just keep shucking and jiving and hoping that people don't start to see through the only tool he has in his box. But lots of people are starting to see right the fuck through it. What that will ultimately portend, who knows. If the GOP, in their unceasing support of a president the majority of the country sees as a complete fraud, get absolutely slaughtered in 2018, that might be good enough for me.