Trump 20: Sauron Doesn't Seem So Bad After All

[GreyhoundFan]

Such a toddler... "‘He loves rallies’: Trump looks beyond Washington to get a boost"

Spoiler

Battered by his first five months in the White House, President Trump is in many ways returning to campaign mode — concentrating his official travel on swing states that he won, bringing old political hands back into his orbit and continuing to relive his 2016 victory over and over again.

The latest example will come Wednesday, when Trump’s campaign committee plans to stage an old-fashioned political rally in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, where the president is likely to get the kind of public adulation that he isn’t experiencing much of the time in Washington.

The Iowa trip follows visits over the past two weeks to Ohio, Wisconsin and Florida — official White House trips that nonetheless featured orchestrated settings where Trump was surrounded by political supporters.

“I think it’s a good strategy because it drags reporters with him, and the one thing the Washington press corps still hasn’t gotten is why people in Youngstown — or pick your favorite city in the Midwest — still like him,” said Barry Bennett, who served as a political adviser to Trump during last year’s campaign. “I hope that gets him into friendly audiences, but I also hope when he gets out there he talks about jobs, jobs, jobs and not anything else, because all of his power is going to be derived by the rising economy.”

Public opinion surveys have continued to show Trump with the lowest job-approval ratings of any president in modern history at this point in his tenure. In a new CBS poll released Tuesday, his approval rating was 36 percent, with 57 percent disapproval — the lowest mark in the network’s surveys since Trump became president.

Trump’s rally in Cedar Rapids on Wednesday will be his first official campaign event since a late-April appearance in Pennsylvania — another swing state he narrowly won — that marked the president’s 100th day in office.

But several recent events in a stepped-up travel schedule have had many of the atmospherics of a rally, bar the name.

On Friday, for example, Trump fans packed a theater in Miami, where he traveled to announce a new policy toward Cuba. Chants of “U.S.A., U.S.A., U.S.A.” broke out before he appeared, and he was greeted by a chorus of “Trump, Trump, Trump.”

“I am so thrilled to be back here with all of my friends in Little Havana,” Trump said. “I love it. I love the city.”

“We love you!” a member of the crowd yelled back.

Outside, “Make America Great Again” hats and other Trump paraphernalia were available for purchase.

“A lot of these spaces are safe places for Trump,” said Rick Wilson, a Florida-based Republican consultant and frequent Trump critic, who added that his travels appear to be part “nostalgia tour” and part reassurance.

“He loves rallies,” Wilson said. “He likes big, cheering crowds. These are things that make him feel everything is under control and everything is going to be okay.”

Trump’s official travels also appear designed with an eye toward his next election. Last week, Trump visited Wisconsin, a state where he prevailed last year over Democrat Hillary Clinton by just 22,748 votes. It is a state that Trump would very much like to hang onto in 2020.

Charles Franklin, a government scholar and pollster at Marquette Law School, noted that Trump’s travels have been concentrated in the Milwaukee area, in the southeastern region of the state, where he won but did not do as well as 2012 GOP nominee Mitt Romney.

“He’s coming to the area of the state where he most needs to build up good will among Republican voters,” Franklin said.

Franklin said the trip also offered Trump another benefit: continuing to strengthen his relationship with Gov. Scott Walker (R), a onetime rival for the GOP nomination who’s since become a vocal Trump supporter.

The president’s travels throughout the country often garner more generous — and positive — headlines in the local press.

“Trump talks health care, technical jobs in local visit,” was the next-day headline on the front page of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel — far more favorable than the cascading Russia-related stories that dominated national news reports.

Trump’s communications team has begun including local news clips in his daily news roundup, partly to demonstrate how his message is playing outside the nation’s capital and partly to help buoy his mood, aides say.

Brian Fraley, a Wisconsin-based Republican consultant, said GOP activists were also heartened by the president’s trip, which included a fundraiser for Walker and an event highlighting workforce development initiatives. “Midwesterners of every political persuasion like it when we’re not treated merely as flyover country,” Fraley said.

“From a strategic standpoint, it makes sense for Trump to do more events like these, even if it doesn’t move the needle on the pubic policy debates nationally,” Fraley said. “When he gets out of the Beltway bubble, he can control the narrative. He’d much rather talk infrastructure, apprenticeships and jobs than special counsels and congressional inquiries.”

White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said there are clear benefits to Trump taking his message on the road.

“I think anytime the president can talk directly to the American people, that’s a good thing,” she said. “It’s good for the president, and it’s good for the American people to be able to get a message directly from him.”

Trump’s trip Wednesday will take him to eastern Iowa, where there is a large concentration of white working-class voters and where manufacturing was once dominant — fertile political territory for the president, said Dennis Goldford, a political science professor at Drake University in Iowa.

“It would be easy to say this is a visit with an eye to 2020,” Goldford said. “But I think by all accounts, the president gets energized by appearing in front of supporters. He gets to say things in person that he says on Twitter. He just gets his batteries recharged.”

The president’s travels also offer a chance to reminisce about the 2016 election. Two weeks ago, Trump traveled to Ohio, ostensibly to talk about his plans to invest in the country’s infrastructure. But the president devoted a significant portion of his remarks to complaining about resistance from Democrats in Washington.

“Every single thing is obstruction,” Trump said, adding that “if I was in that party, I would not do it that way. I’d be doing positive things. That’s why they lost the House, it’s why they lost the Senate, it’s why they lost the White House.”

The president, meanwhile, keeps in contact with aides from the campaign trail and others from his political orbit, including Corey Lewandowski, his controversial first campaign manager, who was eventually fired; David Bossie, his deputy campaign manager; and Roger Stone, a longtime Trump confidant and former political adviser.

The White House recently considered having Lewandowski and Bossie helm a “war room” to push back on the Russia investigation, but the project never materialized amid resistance from some White House aides. Nonetheless, one official said Monday, the duo could join the White House at any time.

Trump’s reliance on former hands reflects his relatively small circle, his comfort level with longtime loyalists and his hesitancy to trust newcomers.

But it also reflects a harsher truth: Just as Trump’s seemingly quixotic presidential campaign had trouble attracting top political talent, the White House — despite reaching out to a number of seasoned Washington insiders — has had trouble persuading top operatives to join his chaotic administration.

Trump’s early loyalists are among the comparably small group of Republicans willing to consider taking jobs inside his turbulent West Wing. And a president who rose to reality television stardom on the catch phrase “You’re fired!” is loath to actually dismiss aides, said one former adviser, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to offer a candid assessment.

“There is no ‘out’ — there’s just ‘not in,’ but eventually you work your way back in,” the adviser said. “His circle of friends, the people that he knows, is so small that when you only know 50 people in Washington, you can’t really throw one out to get to 49.”

Aw, the speshul snowflake needs his safe spaces where he's adored.

[GrumpyGran]

44 minutes ago, GreyhoundFan said:

Such a toddler... "‘He loves rallies’: Trump looks beyond Washington to get a boost"

  Hide contents

Battered by his first five months in the White House, President Trump is in many ways returning to campaign mode — concentrating his official travel on swing states that he won, bringing old political hands back into his orbit and continuing to relive his 2016 victory over and over again.

The latest example will come Wednesday, when Trump’s campaign committee plans to stage an old-fashioned political rally in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, where the president is likely to get the kind of public adulation that he isn’t experiencing much of the time in Washington.

The Iowa trip follows visits over the past two weeks to Ohio, Wisconsin and Florida — official White House trips that nonetheless featured orchestrated settings where Trump was surrounded by political supporters.

“I think it’s a good strategy because it drags reporters with him, and the one thing the Washington press corps still hasn’t gotten is why people in Youngstown — or pick your favorite city in the Midwest — still like him,” said Barry Bennett, who served as a political adviser to Trump during last year’s campaign. “I hope that gets him into friendly audiences, but I also hope when he gets out there he talks about jobs, jobs, jobs and not anything else, because all of his power is going to be derived by the rising economy.”

Public opinion surveys have continued to show Trump with the lowest job-approval ratings of any president in modern history at this point in his tenure. In a new CBS poll released Tuesday, his approval rating was 36 percent, with 57 percent disapproval — the lowest mark in the network’s surveys since Trump became president.

Trump’s rally in Cedar Rapids on Wednesday will be his first official campaign event since a late-April appearance in Pennsylvania — another swing state he narrowly won — that marked the president’s 100th day in office.

But several recent events in a stepped-up travel schedule have had many of the atmospherics of a rally, bar the name.

On Friday, for example, Trump fans packed a theater in Miami, where he traveled to announce a new policy toward Cuba. Chants of “U.S.A., U.S.A., U.S.A.” broke out before he appeared, and he was greeted by a chorus of “Trump, Trump, Trump.”

“I am so thrilled to be back here with all of my friends in Little Havana,” Trump said. “I love it. I love the city.”

“We love you!” a member of the crowd yelled back.

Outside, “Make America Great Again” hats and other Trump paraphernalia were available for purchase.

“A lot of these spaces are safe places for Trump,” said Rick Wilson, a Florida-based Republican consultant and frequent Trump critic, who added that his travels appear to be part “nostalgia tour” and part reassurance.

“He loves rallies,” Wilson said. “He likes big, cheering crowds. These are things that make him feel everything is under control and everything is going to be okay.”

Trump’s official travels also appear designed with an eye toward his next election. Last week, Trump visited Wisconsin, a state where he prevailed last year over Democrat Hillary Clinton by just 22,748 votes. It is a state that Trump would very much like to hang onto in 2020.

Charles Franklin, a government scholar and pollster at Marquette Law School, noted that Trump’s travels have been concentrated in the Milwaukee area, in the southeastern region of the state, where he won but did not do as well as 2012 GOP nominee Mitt Romney.

“He’s coming to the area of the state where he most needs to build up good will among Republican voters,” Franklin said.

Franklin said the trip also offered Trump another benefit: continuing to strengthen his relationship with Gov. Scott Walker (R), a onetime rival for the GOP nomination who’s since become a vocal Trump supporter.

The president’s travels throughout the country often garner more generous — and positive — headlines in the local press.

“Trump talks health care, technical jobs in local visit,” was the next-day headline on the front page of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel — far more favorable than the cascading Russia-related stories that dominated national news reports.

Trump’s communications team has begun including local news clips in his daily news roundup, partly to demonstrate how his message is playing outside the nation’s capital and partly to help buoy his mood, aides say.

Brian Fraley, a Wisconsin-based Republican consultant, said GOP activists were also heartened by the president’s trip, which included a fundraiser for Walker and an event highlighting workforce development initiatives. “Midwesterners of every political persuasion like it when we’re not treated merely as flyover country,” Fraley said.

“From a strategic standpoint, it makes sense for Trump to do more events like these, even if it doesn’t move the needle on the pubic policy debates nationally,” Fraley said. “When he gets out of the Beltway bubble, he can control the narrative. He’d much rather talk infrastructure, apprenticeships and jobs than special counsels and congressional inquiries.”

White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said there are clear benefits to Trump taking his message on the road.

“I think anytime the president can talk directly to the American people, that’s a good thing,” she said. “It’s good for the president, and it’s good for the American people to be able to get a message directly from him.”

Trump’s trip Wednesday will take him to eastern Iowa, where there is a large concentration of white working-class voters and where manufacturing was once dominant — fertile political territory for the president, said Dennis Goldford, a political science professor at Drake University in Iowa.

“It would be easy to say this is a visit with an eye to 2020,” Goldford said. “But I think by all accounts, the president gets energized by appearing in front of supporters. He gets to say things in person that he says on Twitter. He just gets his batteries recharged.”

The president’s travels also offer a chance to reminisce about the 2016 election. Two weeks ago, Trump traveled to Ohio, ostensibly to talk about his plans to invest in the country’s infrastructure. But the president devoted a significant portion of his remarks to complaining about resistance from Democrats in Washington.

“Every single thing is obstruction,” Trump said, adding that “if I was in that party, I would not do it that way. I’d be doing positive things. That’s why they lost the House, it’s why they lost the Senate, it’s why they lost the White House.”

The president, meanwhile, keeps in contact with aides from the campaign trail and others from his political orbit, including Corey Lewandowski, his controversial first campaign manager, who was eventually fired; David Bossie, his deputy campaign manager; and Roger Stone, a longtime Trump confidant and former political adviser.

The White House recently considered having Lewandowski and Bossie helm a “war room” to push back on the Russia investigation, but the project never materialized amid resistance from some White House aides. Nonetheless, one official said Monday, the duo could join the White House at any time.

Trump’s reliance on former hands reflects his relatively small circle, his comfort level with longtime loyalists and his hesitancy to trust newcomers.

But it also reflects a harsher truth: Just as Trump’s seemingly quixotic presidential campaign had trouble attracting top political talent, the White House — despite reaching out to a number of seasoned Washington insiders — has had trouble persuading top operatives to join his chaotic administration.

Trump’s early loyalists are among the comparably small group of Republicans willing to consider taking jobs inside his turbulent West Wing. And a president who rose to reality television stardom on the catch phrase “You’re fired!” is loath to actually dismiss aides, said one former adviser, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to offer a candid assessment.

“There is no ‘out’ — there’s just ‘not in,’ but eventually you work your way back in,” the adviser said. “His circle of friends, the people that he knows, is so small that when you only know 50 people in Washington, you can’t really throw one out to get to 49.”

Aw, the speshul snowflake needs his safe spaces where he's adored.

So does that mean that this is "Sycophants' Rally Week?" Instead of "Ram Bad Healthcare In Through The Back Door Week?" I missed the announcement.

[GreyhoundFan]

15 minutes ago, GrumpyGran said:

So does that mean that this is "Sycophants' Rally Week?" Instead of "Ram Bad Healthcare In Through The Back Door Week?" I missed the announcement.

I think it's both. The TT is not really involved in healthcare.

 

"Trump tweetstorms wash away White House press briefings"

Spoiler

WASHINGTON — Out: White House press briefings and presidential interviews. In: tweet-storms and political rallies.

President Donald Trump has swapped traditional forms of White House transparency for direct but one-way communication through Twitter and speeches to friendly audiences.

As he heads to Iowa on Wednesday for his fifth political rally while in office, Trump is reducing the importance of White House press briefings. Sean Spicer, the embattled press secretary, spoke for 30 minutes Tuesday and didn’t answer a number of basic questions, including whether the president believes Russia interfered in the 2016 election and whether Trump had seen the hotly debated Senate health care bill.

Once more freewheeling exchanges, briefings have been shrinking both in length and content as Trump’s senior aides clamp down on information and contend with the president’s own lack of message discipline and preference for speaking directly to his fan base.

The administration has erected other barriers to transparency as well, such as refusing to make its visitor logs public. And Trump hasn’t held a full news conference since February, or participated in interviews since the end of April.

The White House’s less-is-best approach to public information has become more pronounced since Trump returned from his nine-day, five-nation tour in late May.

White House officials believed the trip garnered good coverage even though the president eschewed a longtime presidential tradition of holding a news conference overseas and instead provided only limited public press briefings. About the same time, probes into Russian election interference and the Trump campaign’s possible role in it provided a fresh incentive for the president and White House officials to avoid question-and-answer sessions sure to be dominated by the unwelcome topic.

Those developments may have reinforced what was already on Trump’s mind: On May 12, he had tweeted, “Maybe the best thing to do would be to cancel all future ‘press briefings’ and hand out written responses for the sake of accuracy???”

White House communications officials “obviously feel it has ceased to pay dividends” to follow their predecessors’ press strategy, said Eric Dezenhall, who worked on President Ronald Reagan’s communications team and leads a public relations firm in Washington. “They’ve decided to bypass the media completely and stop pretending there’s anything to gain.”

Dezenhall said that while he understands the strategy, “it’s terrifying from a democracy standpoint.”

David Boardman, chairman of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, said Trump’s method of communicating via Twitter creates a compelling need “to follow up on those 140-character proclamations with questions.”

He said a trend toward less transparency has rippled through all levels of government, and the approach is set at the top.

“For many decades, it has been accepted that the White House is the people’s house, and that the administration has an obligation to come before the people as represented by the press,” Boardman said. “This is far more than just a spat between reporters and the White House. It’s something people really ought to care about.”

Trump’s frequent social media posts — more than a dozen Monday and Tuesday alone — are read by millions of Twitter followers. “The Fake News Media hates when I use what has turned out to be my very powerful Social Media - over 100 million people! I can go around them!” Trump boasted last week on Twitter.

“The president has a long history of communicating directly with people through social media that has worked out very well for him in the past,” said Katrina Pierson, a former Trump campaign spokeswoman. “Many people are no longer getting their information from traditional media sources anyway.”

Like his other rallies, Trump’s event Wednesday in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, will be attended by thousands of his fans — an audience screened and selected by his re-election campaign. The remarks are often carried live by cable stations.

But those forms of communication are eroding discourse, said Kathleen Hall Jamieson, director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania.

“You get assertion but no argument. You get attack but no justification,” she said. “These are ideal formats for someone who does not want to be held accountable. You’re being asked to accept on authority that this is all that you need to know.”

Meanwhile, press briefings are taking on an increasingly diminished role.

Through the end of April, Spicer’s briefings averaged 48 minutes, according to an NBC analysis. Ten of those ran more than an hour, NBC found.

As of June 5, the communications staff stopped referring to the briefings as a “daily” event in archives on the White House website. Spicer spoke with members of the media for 34 minutes Monday in an appearance that the White House barred from being televised or recorded. Even then, Spicer’s answers to basic questions in many cases offered little or no new information.

Asked whether Trump is comfortable with senators hashing out in secret the details of their rewrite of President Barack Obama’s health care law, Spicer responded, “I can’t say I’ve actually asked him.”

Asked again Tuesday, Spicer said he still did not know whether Trump had seen a draft of the Senate bill.

Spicer also sidestepped a question Tuesday about whether Trump believes Russians interfered with the election, as U.S. intelligence agencies have concluded. “I have not sat down and asked him about his specific reaction,” Spicer said, echoing his response to similar questions at previous briefings.

Trump has been considering moving Spicer to a less public role, and senior aides have been speaking with outside advisers about how to revamp the White House communications shop.

Pierson said that whoever serves in the press secretary role should have one trait above all others: “Firmly believe in the president and his goals.”

Spicer was asked Tuesday to address reports about his potential job change.

Smiling, he replied, “I’m right here.”

Why is Katrina Pierson still being interviewed? She is ridiculous.

[Childless]

1 hour ago, GreyhoundFan said:

Such a toddler... "‘He loves rallies’: Trump looks beyond Washington to get a boost"

  Reveal hidden contents

Battered by his first five months in the White House, President Trump is in many ways returning to campaign mode — concentrating his official travel on swing states that he won, bringing old political hands back into his orbit and continuing to relive his 2016 victory over and over again.

The latest example will come Wednesday, when Trump’s campaign committee plans to stage an old-fashioned political rally in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, where the president is likely to get the kind of public adulation that he isn’t experiencing much of the time in Washington.

The Iowa trip follows visits over the past two weeks to Ohio, Wisconsin and Florida — official White House trips that nonetheless featured orchestrated settings where Trump was surrounded by political supporters.

“I think it’s a good strategy because it drags reporters with him, and the one thing the Washington press corps still hasn’t gotten is why people in Youngstown — or pick your favorite city in the Midwest — still like him,” said Barry Bennett, who served as a political adviser to Trump during last year’s campaign. “I hope that gets him into friendly audiences, but I also hope when he gets out there he talks about jobs, jobs, jobs and not anything else, because all of his power is going to be derived by the rising economy.”

Public opinion surveys have continued to show Trump with the lowest job-approval ratings of any president in modern history at this point in his tenure. In a new CBS poll released Tuesday, his approval rating was 36 percent, with 57 percent disapproval — the lowest mark in the network’s surveys since Trump became president.

Trump’s rally in Cedar Rapids on Wednesday will be his first official campaign event since a late-April appearance in Pennsylvania — another swing state he narrowly won — that marked the president’s 100th day in office.

But several recent events in a stepped-up travel schedule have had many of the atmospherics of a rally, bar the name.

On Friday, for example, Trump fans packed a theater in Miami, where he traveled to announce a new policy toward Cuba. Chants of “U.S.A., U.S.A., U.S.A.” broke out before he appeared, and he was greeted by a chorus of “Trump, Trump, Trump.”

“I am so thrilled to be back here with all of my friends in Little Havana,” Trump said. “I love it. I love the city.”

“We love you!” a member of the crowd yelled back.

Outside, “Make America Great Again” hats and other Trump paraphernalia were available for purchase.

“A lot of these spaces are safe places for Trump,” said Rick Wilson, a Florida-based Republican consultant and frequent Trump critic, who added that his travels appear to be part “nostalgia tour” and part reassurance.

“He loves rallies,” Wilson said. “He likes big, cheering crowds. These are things that make him feel everything is under control and everything is going to be okay.”

Trump’s official travels also appear designed with an eye toward his next election. Last week, Trump visited Wisconsin, a state where he prevailed last year over Democrat Hillary Clinton by just 22,748 votes. It is a state that Trump would very much like to hang onto in 2020.

Charles Franklin, a government scholar and pollster at Marquette Law School, noted that Trump’s travels have been concentrated in the Milwaukee area, in the southeastern region of the state, where he won but did not do as well as 2012 GOP nominee Mitt Romney.

“He’s coming to the area of the state where he most needs to build up good will among Republican voters,” Franklin said.

Franklin said the trip also offered Trump another benefit: continuing to strengthen his relationship with Gov. Scott Walker (R), a onetime rival for the GOP nomination who’s since become a vocal Trump supporter.

The president’s travels throughout the country often garner more generous — and positive — headlines in the local press.

“Trump talks health care, technical jobs in local visit,” was the next-day headline on the front page of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel — far more favorable than the cascading Russia-related stories that dominated national news reports.

Trump’s communications team has begun including local news clips in his daily news roundup, partly to demonstrate how his message is playing outside the nation’s capital and partly to help buoy his mood, aides say.

Brian Fraley, a Wisconsin-based Republican consultant, said GOP activists were also heartened by the president’s trip, which included a fundraiser for Walker and an event highlighting workforce development initiatives. “Midwesterners of every political persuasion like it when we’re not treated merely as flyover country,” Fraley said.

“From a strategic standpoint, it makes sense for Trump to do more events like these, even if it doesn’t move the needle on the pubic policy debates nationally,” Fraley said. “When he gets out of the Beltway bubble, he can control the narrative. He’d much rather talk infrastructure, apprenticeships and jobs than special counsels and congressional inquiries.”

White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said there are clear benefits to Trump taking his message on the road.

“I think anytime the president can talk directly to the American people, that’s a good thing,” she said. “It’s good for the president, and it’s good for the American people to be able to get a message directly from him.”

Trump’s trip Wednesday will take him to eastern Iowa, where there is a large concentration of white working-class voters and where manufacturing was once dominant — fertile political territory for the president, said Dennis Goldford, a political science professor at Drake University in Iowa.

“It would be easy to say this is a visit with an eye to 2020,” Goldford said. “But I think by all accounts, the president gets energized by appearing in front of supporters. He gets to say things in person that he says on Twitter. He just gets his batteries recharged.”

The president’s travels also offer a chance to reminisce about the 2016 election. Two weeks ago, Trump traveled to Ohio, ostensibly to talk about his plans to invest in the country’s infrastructure. But the president devoted a significant portion of his remarks to complaining about resistance from Democrats in Washington.

“Every single thing is obstruction,” Trump said, adding that “if I was in that party, I would not do it that way. I’d be doing positive things. That’s why they lost the House, it’s why they lost the Senate, it’s why they lost the White House.”

The president, meanwhile, keeps in contact with aides from the campaign trail and others from his political orbit, including Corey Lewandowski, his controversial first campaign manager, who was eventually fired; David Bossie, his deputy campaign manager; and Roger Stone, a longtime Trump confidant and former political adviser.

The White House recently considered having Lewandowski and Bossie helm a “war room” to push back on the Russia investigation, but the project never materialized amid resistance from some White House aides. Nonetheless, one official said Monday, the duo could join the White House at any time.

Trump’s reliance on former hands reflects his relatively small circle, his comfort level with longtime loyalists and his hesitancy to trust newcomers.

But it also reflects a harsher truth: Just as Trump’s seemingly quixotic presidential campaign had trouble attracting top political talent, the White House — despite reaching out to a number of seasoned Washington insiders — has had trouble persuading top operatives to join his chaotic administration.

Trump’s early loyalists are among the comparably small group of Republicans willing to consider taking jobs inside his turbulent West Wing. And a president who rose to reality television stardom on the catch phrase “You’re fired!” is loath to actually dismiss aides, said one former adviser, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to offer a candid assessment.

“There is no ‘out’ — there’s just ‘not in,’ but eventually you work your way back in,” the adviser said. “His circle of friends, the people that he knows, is so small that when you only know 50 people in Washington, you can’t really throw one out to get to 49.”

Aw, the speshul snowflake needs his safe spaces where he's adored.

Or, you know, he could keep his ass in Washington and get some actual work done.  The time for campaigning is over.  Now it's time to work.  That means rolling up his sleeves and getting his hands dirty even if he has to do things he doesn't enjoy.  Enough with the weekly vacations and rallies to boost his ego.  If he was accomplishing anything of value that actually helps people, he wouldn't need the rallies because people would support him.  I'm tired of the laziness.  Obama worked his ass off.  I really miss having a president who works his ass off.  Interestingly, GWB was known for his lack of work ethic also.  Funny how it's the Dem who worked hard and yet conservatives are forever criticizing the Dem work ethic.  I think they're projecting themselves onto Democrats.

[Zola]

1 hour ago, GreyhoundFan said:

“I think it’s a good strategy because it drags reporters with him, and the one thing the Washington press corps still hasn’t gotten is why people in Youngstown — or pick your favorite city in the Midwest — still like him,”

No, the press corps totally gets it. The people of Youngstown or any random Midwest city have yet to figure out what a shyster Trump really is and just how brutally he's taken advantage of their trust. Press (and much of America) had that figured before the election. 

 

1 hour ago, GreyhoundFan said:

I hope that gets him into friendly audiences, but I also hope when he gets out there he talks about jobs, jobs, jobs and not anything else, because all of his power is going to be derived by the rising economy.”

Because talking about jobs to cheering crowds is somehow better for Americans than keeping his ass in DC and actually working on making sure they can have jobs?

 

1 hour ago, GreyhoundFan said:

“He loves rallies,” Wilson said. “He likes big, cheering crowds. These are things that make him feel everything is under control and everything is going to be okay.”

Because unlike the people of Youngstown and AnyMidwestWhere USA, Trump is aware he's way in over his head and lost whatever control he may have thought he had months ago, and that things are NOT OKAY.

 

1 hour ago, GreyhoundFan said:

“When he gets out of the Beltway bubble, he can control the narrative. He’d much rather talk infrastructure, apprenticeships and jobs than special counsels and congressional inquiries.”

Really? I wonder why. Omfg.

Ignoring it without investigating and resolving it won't make it go away any more than talk, talk, talk will produce beneficial results without proper action to see it through.

How do these supporters not see that an innocent man would have nothing to hide and welcome an investigation, whereas only a man with something serious to hide would seek to ignore it and shut it down like Trump wants?

 

1 hour ago, GreyhoundFan said:

“I think anytime the president can talk directly to the American people, that’s a good thing,” she said. “It’s good for the president, and it’s good for the American people to be able to get a message directly from him.”

But the American people shouldn't need to see the president's tax returns, or visitor logs of who visits the White House. It's only good for them if it's good for Trump himself first.

 

1 hour ago, GreyhoundFan said:

“But I think by all accounts, the president gets energized by appearing in front of supporters. He gets to say things in person that he says on Twitter. He just gets his batteries recharged.”

The presidency is not here to personally benefit Donald Trump and his enormous ego. I couldn't care fucking less if he feels energized by crowds or gets to say what he wants in person instead of just on Twitter. Who the fuck are these people who think this kind of behavior is normal, or even okay for a president?!? What the hell, people???

 

1 hour ago, GreyhoundFan said:

“Every single thing is obstruction,” Trump said, adding that “if I was in that party, I would not do it that way. I’d be doing positive things. That’s why they lost the House, it’s why they lost the Senate, it’s why they lost the White House.”

LIAR! You have no clue what a positive thing in relation to politics truly is. You have proven that every damn time you open your mouth to your adoring crowds. Obstruction? HYPOCRITE! You and your party wrote the book on obstruction. People proud of obstructing Democrats at every. Given. Chance. For 8 years! 8 long years!

This example above is what Trump is going to say to his crowds - certainly not just jobs, jobs, jobs. Wake the hell up. He couldn't manage to talk to a crowd of his supporters about jobs and jobs only if his own job depended upon it.

Lost the White House...popular vote said what? That's your loss, dumbass. Trump should be reminded of it hourly - when the American people were asked who they wanted, they chose the other candidate! You know, the one who actually had positive things to say and do for the US and the planet Earth.

[Cartmann99]

4 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

I would like to say that someone needs to take away donnie junior's phone. He irks me more every day.

If I were as obnoxious as he is, I'd be afraid to eat food prepared by others. Did you know that they still make the chocolate Ex-Lax squares? 

[PsyD2013]

 TT's fans started lining up last night in front of the US Celluar Center so they will get the best seats.  The doors open until 4 pm & the rally starts at 7.    I thought about getting tickets for Trump but couldn't go through with it. I'll be joining the protest on the corner of 1st Avenue & 4th Street instead of basking in the mango glow.  

[GrumpyGran]

2 hours ago, GrumpyGran said:

So does that mean that this is "Sycophants' Rally Week?" Instead of "Ram Bad Healthcare In Through The Back Door Week?" I missed the announcement.

Technology week, @GreyhoundFan, technology week! Seth Meyers just reminded me that Pinocchio announced it on Monday. In his wee little voice.

[GreyhoundFan]

Just like her boss, Omarosa seems to think very highly of herself: "She signed her name as ‘the Honorable Omarosa Manigault.’ But that’s not her title, says the etiquette bible."

Spoiler

White House aide Omarosa Manigault’s invitation to members of the Congressional Black Caucus last week probably wasn’t going to go over too well anyway, but the way she signed off didn’t help her case.

After asking them to attend a meeting with her boss, President Trump, the former reality TV star signed the missive: “The Honorable Omarosa Manigault.”

That didn’t impress CBC members (who, for the record, do get to be called “The Honorable”).

“Multiple CBC members said they were put off … saying she hasn’t earned that title nor has she helped raise the profile of CBC issues within the White House as promised,” Politico reports.

They’re backed up by etiquette experts. The bible of all things correct, “Emily Post’s Etiquette,” allows that the title “The Honorable” “causes considerable confusion.” But it’s clear that a mere White House aide, with the title of director of African American outreach, isn’t entitled to it. The honorific is reserved for “the President, the Vice President, United States senators and congressmen, Cabinet members, all federal judges, ministers plenipotentiary, ambassadors, and governors,” who get to use the title for life. State senators and mayors are “The Honorable” only when in office.

Others are more generous with titles — in her book on protocol, former ambassador Mel French’s list of people who get the title includes assistants to the president— as well as positions as lowly as county councilman.

Still, even if Omarosa was eligible to be addressed as “The Honorable,” Emily Post decrees that it’s unseemly for anyone to refer to themselves that way.

“The title is not used by the person on visiting cards, letterhead, or when signing, nor does one say it when introducing him- or herself.”

...

Hey, if she'd send herself to the uncharted desert isle we want to reserve for Agent Orange and his minions, she could call herself anything she wants...once she's there.

[Ali]

1 hour ago, GrumpyGran said:

Technology week, @GreyhoundFan, technology week! Seth Meyers just reminded me that Pinocchio announced it on Monday. In his wee little voice.

I am a little disturbed that I don't know who you are calling Pinocchio.

[GrumpyGran]

12 minutes ago, Ali said:

I am a little disturbed that I don't know who you are calling Pinocchio.

Sorry, @Ali, Jared. He just doesn't look like a real boy to me!

[47of74]

8 hours ago, Childless said:

Or, you know, he could keep his ass in Washington and get some actual work done.  The time for campaigning is over.  Now it's time to work.  That means rolling up his sleeves and getting his hands dirty even if he has to do things he doesn't enjoy.  Enough with the weekly vacations and rallies to boost his ego.  If he was accomplishing anything of value that actually helps people, he wouldn't need the rallies because people would support him.  I'm tired of the laziness.  Obama worked his ass off.  I really miss having a president who works his ass off.  Interestingly, GWB was known for his lack of work ethic also.  Funny how it's the Dem who worked hard and yet conservatives are forever criticizing the Dem work ethic.  I think they're projecting themselves onto Democrats.

Yeah there's a bund meeting rally here in Iowa this evening.

Ugh.

At least it's not going on around here.  It's 70 miles away.  Not nearly far enough away. 

I'd go on a road trip out of town to get away from Donald J. Putinfluffer and the Trumpfluffers if it was up near where I live.

 

[JMarie]

THIS CANNOT HAPPEN!!!!!!!!!!

http://www.cnn.com/2017/06/21/politics/david-gergen-donald-trump-victory-lap-rally-erin-burnett-outfront-cnntv/index.html

Quote

As President Donald Trump celebrated Republican victories in two special congressional elections on Wednesday, one man who advised presidents from both parties warned the results "should be a wake-up call for Democrats" that Trump could be on his way to re-election in 2020.

Republican Ralph Norman defeated Archie Parnell in Tuesday's special election for South Carolina's 5th congressional district, and in Georgia, Republican Karen Handel defeated Democrat Jon Ossoff in the most expensive House race in history. Republicans have won all four of the four special elections that have been held under President Trump.

During an appearance on CNN's "Erin Burnett Outfront," David Gergen, who advised former Presidents Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton, admitted that off-year elections like this may not be the best predictor of what could happen in the 2018 midterms. But he said it should send a strong signal to Democrats thinking about taking back the White House.

"What's really important is that Donald Trump has seized the narrative back, that he's doing better with the voters than Democrats think he is," he said. "It should be a wake-up call for Democrats. It is possible that he could actually get re-elected if Democrats aren't careful."

 

[Childless]

5 hours ago, JMarie said:

THIS CANNOT HAPPEN!!!!!!!!!!

http://www.cnn.com/2017/06/21/politics/david-gergen-donald-trump-victory-lap-rally-erin-burnett-outfront-cnntv/index.html

 

First of all, the Repubs were supposed to win those two special elections.  Those were firmly held Republican seats.  Ones they were used to winning by large margins.  The fact that the Dems got so close should be a wake up call for the GOP.  They won't do as well in truly swing districts/states.  Second, Trump has only been in office for 6 months (I know, it seems much longer).  People are still giving him the benefit of the doubt.  In four years, when he hasn't delivered jobs, affordable healthcare, and his tariffs have jacked up the prices on everything, people won't be so forgiving.  And I'm quite certain he won't deliver on jobs or healthcare because he simply doesn't care about people in general.  He's a narcissist and those types only care when it affects them.  Furthermore, actually accomplishing things takes hard work and he's already admitted publicly that he doesn't like to work hard.  He shows no interest in learning anything and will go along with the last person who complimented him.  It's a recipe for chaos and we're seeing that play out.  And finally, the Republicans' atrocious healthcare law has yet to be implemented.  I'm not hopeful that the Senate version will be any better than the House version or the ACA.  If it were, they wouldn't be so secretive about it and wouldn't be pushing for a vote before the CBO report is released.  The nightmare healthcare will become won't do Trump, who promised better coverage for lower prices, any favors.  And I haven't even touched on what the Russian investigation might turn up or what Trump will do to our standing in the world, not to mention the mess he's going to make of the environment.  That's not to say that the Dems won't have to work hard or come up with a more progressive platform, but I don't think Trump and the GOP are quite the shoe in this guy thinks they are.

[AuntK]

The thought of Trump being re-elected is so horrifying that I cannot come up with the words to adequately describe it. I know, I know, the Georgia race doesn't mean anything at this point, but I also remember how this time last year, his candidacy was such a JOKE, that I never considered what if? And his brain-dead followers are behind him REGARDLESS of the fact that they are losing their health insurance, their jobs, there is no f'ing wall or Muslim ban, and they cheer whatever he says like stupid little monkeys! In Iowa, they cheered over his "proclamation" of no welfare benefits for immigrants for the first 5 years of residency, which is already a law!  But they only listen to Faux News so they will never believe anything bad even if Donny is a TRAITOR and the FBI has him on tape!

Frightening!

[formergothardite]

The democrats need to be working over time coming up with a candidate that can beat Trump or any other republican. 

[GreyhoundFan]

"Trump simply can’t stop exaggerating his electoral wins"

Spoiler

Update: Trump repeated this false claim on Wednesday night during a rally in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. "So we're 5-0 in special elections," he said. "5-0. 5-0." Some had thought the fifth victory Trump was referring to Tuesday night was his own; now we know that's not the case. He's simply overstating the GOP's special election record, which is 4-1.

President Trump has made at least 669 false or misleading claims through his first five months in office. But on Tuesday night, there was no need to stretch the truth — no need to put a better face on what was already a big special election win for the Republican Party.

Trump did it anyway, whether wittingly or not.

Here's what Trump tweeted after Karen Handel won the special election in Georgia's 6th Congressional District.

...

So Trump claimed the GOP was 5-0 in special elections. This is just not true. And I struggle to even think of the justification for it.

In fact, there have been five special congressional elections in 2017, but Democrats won one of them — in California's heavily, heavily Democratic 34th District, where former congressman Xavier Becerra (D-Calif.) was appointed California attorney general and state Assemblyman Jimmy Gomez succeeded him. That race basically got no national attention and only one little-known Republican ran in the open primary (he didn't even make the “top two"), but it was a special election. And it got about as much national investment from the underdog party as South Carolina's 5th District did on Tuesday (which is to say: about zero).

Even if you allow for the idea that Trump was only referring to contested special elections, though, we're still only talking about "4 and O,” not "5 and O”: Georgia's 6th, South Carolina's 5th, Kansas's 4th District and Montana's at-large district.

There was one other race this year that got some national attention and investment from Democrats. It was the Omaha mayor's race last month, where Bernie Sanders-backed Democrat Heath Mello against the incumbent mayor. But that wasn't a special election; it was a regular one. And there have also been mayoral races in Los Angeles, San Antonio, St. Louis and Jackson, Miss. Democrats won three of them; and independent won the other one.

Maybe Trump was referring to the first round of voting in Georgia back in April, when Republicans took 51 percent of the vote and Democrats took 49 percent? But that wasn't a separate special election, and Democrat Jon Ossoff actually finished first that day.

Some have suggested Trump is including his own win on Nov. 8. Which may have been his intention, but it wasn't a special election. And if he was including his own win that day, why wouldn't he also include the 435 House races and 34 Senate races that were also on the ballot?)

I'm being a bit of a pedant here, admittedly. But Trump has a demonstrated history of inflating his victories using either false or misleading stats. There was that time he was called out at a news conference for wrongly claiming he got the most electoral votes since Ronald Reagan. (“I don’t know. I was given that information. I actually, I’ve seen that information around,” Trump responded told NBC News. “But it was a very substantial victory, do you agree with that?”) He has repeatedly called his win a “landslide,” despite losing the popular vote and winning the 13th-smallest electoral vote share out of 58 presidential elections. And he has repeatedly claimed that millions of people voted illegally in the 2016 election — somehow all of them for Hillary Clinton — and deprived him of that popular-vote win.

So we've been here before, and it's worth correcting the record. Facts matter. And you can call this False Claim No. 670.

Incidentally, Donald Trump Jr. was a little closer to the truth in his tweet about an hour before his dad on Tuesday night, claiming the Democrats went 0-4 in special elections. It was still wrong, but perhaps more understandable given California got basically no attention.

...

The lesson: Do not go to the Trumps for your electoral statistics.

The Thompson Twins song, "Lies" just goes through my head whenever Agent Orange and his ilk make up crap.

[GreyhoundFan]

Sigh: "Back in campaign mode, Trump hits on immigration and a border wall"

Spoiler

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa — Surrounded by thousands of supporters at a raucous rally, President Trump on Wednesday pledged to crack down on immigration and to use solar panels to help pay for a promised wall on the Mexican border.

“It’s always terrific to be able to leave that Washington swamp and to spend time with the truly hard-working people, we call them American patriots, amazing people,” Trump told a crowd here at an event reminiscent of his campaign rallies last year.

During a meandering speech, the president, saddled in Washington with sagging job approval numbers, seemed to draw on the energy of his supporters as he made the case that his administration has made “amazing progress” in its first five months.

Despite early setbacks, Trump pledged that he would make good on marquee campaign promises to revamp the Affordable Care Act, cut taxes and spur $1 trillion in new spending on roads, bridges and other infrastructure.

And he sought in Wednesday’s remarks to offer a preview of other planned initiatives.

Trump said he will soon introduce legislation that would bar immigrants to the United States from being on welfare for their first five years in the country.

“We’ll be putting in legislation to that effect very shortly,” he said, drawing enthusiastic applause from an audience of about 6,000 people, according to an estimate by the U.S. Secret Service.

It wasn’t immediately clear how Trump’s proposal would differ from existing practice. Under a 1996 welfare law signed by President Bill Clinton, legal immigrants must live in the United States for a minimum of five years to become eligible for social aid programs.

Trump also told the crowd that he is contemplating putting solar panels on the wall that he has pledged to build on the U.S.-Mexico border.

“The higher it goes, the more valuable it is,” Trump said. “Pretty good imagination, right? . . . We could make it really look beautiful, too.”

Trump reportedly made a similar suggestion earlier this month during a closed-door meeting with congressional leaders.

Wednesday night’s rally was part of a push by the White House to get Trump out on the road more, speaking to supportive crowds in swing states, where he is likely to get the kind of public adulation that he isn’t experiencing much of the time in Washington.

The Iowa trip followed visits over the past two weeks to Ohio, Wisconsin and Florida — official White House trips that featured orchestrated settings where Trump was surrounded by political supporters.

The rally here was the first one staged by his campaign committee since an event in Pennsylvania in late April marking the president’s 100th day in office.

Trump bested Democrat Hillary Clinton in Iowa by nearly 10 percentage points in the election last year. He lost Linn County, the jurisdiction in which Cedar Rapids sits, by about 10,000 votes.

Trump was greeted in Cedar Rapids on Wednesday by an “open letter” on the front page of the local paper.

Although it noted that Trump maintains the support of some of those who voted for him, the letter chastised the president for coming to Iowa primarily to hold a campaign rally.

“Mr. President, the campaign is over,” said the letter in the Gazette. “You won. Now is not the time to rally. Now is the time to sell your policies, listen to Americans with a stake in those efforts and govern.”

Before the rally, Trump appeared at a community college here at an event billed as an opportunity to talk about agricultural innovation. He pledged that he would include a provision in his promised infrastructure package to enhance broadband access in rural areas.

He also reminisced about the support he received from farming communities during the election. “Those electoral maps, they were all red, beautiful red,” the president said.

A few hours before the rally started, a couple hundred progressive protesters gathered outside the arena, including several dozen opposed to Trump’s decision to defund Planned Parenthood. Several protesters held signs calling for Trump to be impeached.

During his speech, Trump, who has spent much of his presidency at odds with Democrats — often calling them obstructionists — made an appeal to work across the aisle on some of his priorities.

“It would be a beautiful, beautiful thing if we could get together as two parties that love our country and come up with that great health care and come up with that great tax deal for our people . . . and infrastructure and so many other things,” Trump said. “Just think about what a unified American nation could achieve.”

I don't know why he's talking about leaving the swamp -- he IS the swamp.

[Childless]

1 hour ago, AuntK said:

The thought of Trump being re-elected is so horrifying that I cannot come up with the words to adequately describe it. I know, I know, the Georgia race doesn't mean anything at this point, but I also remember how this time last year, his candidacy was such a JOKE, that I never considered what if? And his brain-dead followers are behind him REGARDLESS of the fact that they are losing their health insurance, their jobs, there is no f'ing wall or Muslim ban, and they cheer whatever he says like stupid little monkeys! In Iowa, they cheered over his "proclamation" of no welfare benefits for immigrants for the first 5 years of residency, which is already a law!  But they only listen to Faux News so they will never believe anything bad even if Donny is a TRAITOR and the FBI has him on tape!

Frightening!

Again, we're only six months in.  It's easy for these guys to go cheer for him at his rallies.  They're all, including Trump, still in campaign mode.  But as 2020 approaches and there are still no coal jobs or unskilled manufacturing jobs and no one has healthcare because it's to expensive and not worth it when the policies exempt a thousand issues labelled as pre-existing, then we'll see how many still cheer for him.  He got elected on the back of white, rural fear.  Fear of the other, fear of a changing world, fear of a loss of power and privilege.  Here's the thing though.  Trump can't turn back time.  He can't return to their version of the uneducated white Utopia of the 50s where an unskilled job paid enough to raise a family and you had the ultimate privilege based on the level of melatonin in your skin.  Those days are forever gone and his supporters will eventually realize he's not bringing them back.  Eventually (and most likely before 2020), Dems will embrace the millenials with a more progressive platform and relevant candidate.  The millenials are the largest generation and they hold most of the voting power.  I like Hillary, but she did not speak to their generation and paid the price for it.  I see the Dems making the necessary changes to stay relevant a lot faster then the GOP who seem to want to embrace a dying generation in order to get their success now rather than planning for the long haul.  As cities grow, boomers kick the bucket, and minority populations outbreed the whites, this country will lean increasingly to the left.  That's just a fact.

[GreyhoundFan]

"With a raucous rally in Cedar Rapids, Trump transports himself back to 2016"

Spoiler

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa — It was just like the old days.

The pre-rally playlist included “Memory” from the Broadway musical “Cats.” A local woman who was once a contestant on “The Apprentice” lovingly referred to the crowd of several thousand as “a great looking group of deplorables.” Campaign staffers handed out signs that read “Women for Trump” and “Make America Great Again.” And President Trump gave a rambling speech in which he boasted about his “amazing progress,” blamed Democrats for the problems he is having, reflected on his crowd size, promised sweeping changes and expressed his great love for this state that didn't pick him during the 2016 caucuses.

Trump wore a red tie, pumped his fist, called his supporters “American patriots,” contradicted himself and basked in the glow of supporters who still love him, despite what the polls and the pundits say. The crowd cheered nearly every sentence that he spoke, booed the media and demanded that Hillary Clinton be thrown into prison. At least five times, they broke into a chant of “USA! USA! USA!” Afterward, street vendors sold T-shirts containing profanity, and some of Trump's supporters got into shouting matches with protesters, at one point chanting: “Your team lost! Your team lost! Your team lost!”

“We're not even campaigning and look at this crowd,” Trump said about halfway through his 70-minute speech.

But he was campaigning. This was a campaign rally organized by his campaign staff in a swing state that traditionally hosts the nation's first presidential nominating contest. Wednesday night quickly felt like 2016 all over again.

Trump took the stage on time — which, in fairness, is a change from 2016 — to Lee Greenwood's “God Bless the U.S.A.”

“It is great to be back in the incredible, beautiful, great state of Eye-oo-wa,” Trump said, as a young woman in a black tank top standing in the stands behind him snapped a selfie of herself and then tapped away on her phone. “Home of the greatest wrestlers in the world.”

Trump congratulated Republican Karen Handel for winning the special election in Georgia's 6th Congressional District and Republican Ralph Norman for winning in South Carolina's 5th Congressional District — and he embraced these two wins as what he sees as evidence that the country agrees with what he's doing.

Mere minutes into his remarks, Trump was interrupted by a whistle, the sound that often announces the end of recess or the start of a swim meet. Trump completed his thought — telling the crowd to remember House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.), who was shot at baseball practice last week — and looked up into the stands, where a protester was blowing a whistle and tearing up a campaign sign.

“Never fails,” he said with a chuckle. “Never fails.”

As security escorted the protester and those with him out of the arena, the crowd booed and then chanted “USA! USA! USA!” and then booed again. Someone in the crowd shouted to the president: “We love you!” Another bellowed: “We got your back, President Trump!”

Trump resumed talking about Scalise, and he thanked the Capitol Police officers who killed the shooter.

“They were being hit by rifle fire. They only had handguns, and they were able to get him,” the president said, forming his fingers into the shape of a gun. “It was an amazing show of talent and bravery.”

He soon added: “Hopefully, our nation emerges from this ordeal — it was an ordeal, terrible — more unified and more determined than ever before, and I can see it, and we are indeed more unified, in our own way, than ever before,” Trump said.

Over the next hour, Trump said that he would lay out the next steps in “our incredible movement to make America great again,” but he kept veering off on tangents and reflecting on the past. Here are some of the things he covered:

• Trump first reflected on his electoral victory — and claimed that jobs are now “just about the best they've ever been,” that he has created “tremendous wealth” in the country, that “enthusiasm and spirit” are at all-time highs, and that America is now defending its border instead of the borders of other countries and rebuilding itself instead of rebuilding other countries.
• Trump declared that after 16 years of U.S. involvement in Afghanistan — spending trillions of dollars and costing thousands of “young, beautiful lives” — the region is in “far worse shape.” Trump explained that he “took over a very, very difficult hand, but we're going to get it fixed” because that's why he was elected. (Trump did not mention that he gave Defense Secretary Jim Mattis the authority to send several thousand additional troops to Afghanistan.)
• He brought up Otto Warmbier, the University of Virginia student who was detained in North Korea in January 2016, sentenced to 15 years of hard labor and died this week. “Look at Otto, beautiful Otto. Went over there a healthy, wonderful boy, and you see how he came back. You see how he came back. So, we've been given a bad hand, but we're going to take that bad hand and it'll all be good,” Trump said, swirling his hand in the air as if he were using a wand to erase worries about North Korea and nuclear war from the minds of those gathered around him.
• Trump pledged to “never be intimidated by the dishonest media corporations who will say anything and do anything to get people to watch their screens or to get people to buy their failing papers.” Meanwhile, the young woman sitting behind him smiled at her phone.
• He complained that the media has unfairly expected him to have passed health-care legislation by now, even though prior administrations spent years trying to do so. (He failed to mention that he promised on the campaign trail to repeal and replace Obamacare on his first day in office.) A mention of Barack Obama brings boos from the crowd and scattered shouts of: “Lock her up,” a refrain usually directed at Clinton. Trump quipped: “After listening to that testimony, I fully understand.”
• Trump told the crowd that even if he presented Democrats with “the greatest [health-care] plan in history,” they would all vote against it because “they're obstructionists.” He reminded them that he wants a health-care plan “with heart,” tapping his own heart for emphasis. (The Republicans' current plan would result in millions of Americans losing their coverage.)
• Okay, back to that list of historic accomplishments: Trump said he has overseen the passage of 38 pieces of legislation — and he's hopeful that tax reform will happen, along with health-care reform and a burst of infrastructure projects.
• Trump was then back to blaming the Democrats and reminding the crowd that Democrats lost in Georgia's special election the night before. “They've been unbelievably nasty — really nasty,” Trump said. He then acknowledged that his comments could make it difficult for him to win the support of Democrats but “who cares.”
• In bashing CNN and “this phony NBC television network,” Trump again plugged his party's recent wins and then said: “They're very lucky that our people don't protest, believe me. Believe me. They're very lucky.” He spun in a circle, as the young woman behind him did a little dance with a pink “Women for Trump” sign.
• Trump then gave a shout-out to his “deplorables” and to bikers in the crowd.
• Back to accomplishments: Home builders are able to build again, farmers are able to plow their fields again, unemployment is at a 16-year low, and manufacturing is doing “phenomenally.”
• Trump, who once promised to take on Wall Street, then recognized his secretary of commerce, Wilbur Ross, whom he called “the legendary Wall Street genius,” and Gary Cohn, his economic council director who was the president of Goldman Sachs, a title that Trump repeated four times. “He went from massive pay days to peanuts, little tiny,” Trump said, using his fingers to show just how little tiny Cohn's income now is.
• Back to accomplishments: A “historic increase in defense spending,” a new office of accountability at Veterans Affairs, lifting restrictions on energy production, ending the “war on coal” and putting “miners back to work,” protecting Iowa's ethanol production and approving the Keystone pipeline project. (He then suggested that a consultant will try to claim credit for this approval and demand millions in compensation when, really, he's the one who made it happen.)
• In the future, Trump says he wants to get rid of the so-called “death tax” to make it easier for farmers to pass their farms and ranches along to their children and grandchildren. He added that this would also make it easier for bikers to pass along their motorcycles. “I've seen what you ride — not so bad,” he said. (Only estates worth $5.49 million per person are required to pay the federal estate tax.)
• More accomplishments: Announcing the United States would withdraw from the Paris climate agreement, symbolically pulling out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (a trade deal that he confusingly referred to as the “PPP”) and threatening to terminate the North American Free Trade Agreement. Meanwhile, the young woman behind him chatted with her rally companions.
• “It is a big, beautiful arena, and it is packed,” Trump said, marveling at the size of his crowd. He then accused the media of not showing his crowd sizes and mocked the protester who interrupted him earlier in the rally. “Every seat is packed,” he said. “Every seat.” (Except for the 500 seats that the campaign blocked off and hid behind two massive American flags.)
• More accomplishments: Rescinding the Obama administration's “one-sided deal” with Cuba and naming former Iowa governor Terry Branstad as the ambassador to China. (“Fantastic guy,” Trump said.)
• And then he got to the things to come: Rebuild America, rebuild rural America, buy American, hire American, get people off welfare, bar legal immigrants from applying for welfare during their first five years in the United States (it has long been difficult for noncitizens to receive such benefits, and President Bill Clinton imposed even more restrictions), build the wall (and maybe put solar panels on it, so that it can pay for itself, he said), stop the drugs from flowing into the country and restore law and order.
• Shout-out to the men and women in law enforcement and to the relatives of those who were killed by immigrants who were in the country illegally. And Trump warned the crowd of the violent gang MS-13, which he said a friend told him is “the equivalent or worse than al-Qaeda,” and claimed to be kicking them out of the country by the thousands. There's another dig at the media and an explanation of what it means to have a 4.0 grade-point average.
• Trump said it was a “big, big deal” when he appointed Neil M. Gorsuch to the Supreme Court. He said that Gorsuch's “youth” was one of the reasons that he selected him — and then he promised the United States will have a strong military. Back on the topic of the Supreme Court,  Trump said: "So I've got one. Probably have some more.”

Usually the president's rallies last just an hour. But on Wednesday night, Trump went an extra 10 minutes and in that bonus round, he fell back in time.

“So I began this campaign on June 16 — couple of days ago, two years. It's my birthday on June 14th, Flag Day,” Trump said. “And we came down the escalator — that famous escalator ride — Melania, myself, and the place went nuts and — hopefully because they liked me, but I think also they like the policies. I said the truth. I talked about immigration. I talked about what was happening on the borders. I talked about our military. I talked about the drug problems, which are tremendous, even in Iowa, tremendous problems, beyond anything we've ever seen before. I talked about all of it. And you know what? We were never off center-stage in the debates. ... We were Number One all the way through. All the way through. We were Number One all the way through because of people like you. Never off center!”

Trump then reflected on how 17 Republicans ran for president — and how he's now “making such incredible progress” and how that's driving reporters crazy.

“I mean, they have phony witch hunts going against me. They have everything going,” Trump said. “And you know what? All we do is win, win, win. We won last night.”

Without seeming to take a breath, the president then called for unity.

“It is time for us to remember that we are all Americans and that we are in this together, and it would be great if the Republicans and the Democrats could come together and get really, really great legislation passed,” Trump said.

The crowd applauded and several people whistled. The young woman sitting behind him grinned.

Trump complained about the media going hard on him, and Clinton running negative ads against him. (He did not mention nicknaming her “Crooked Hillary,” imitating her collapsing at a memorial event, questioning her use of the restroom during a debate, suggesting she may have played a role in a death that was declared a suicide and hosting a news conference featuring women who accused her husband of abuse.) The crowd then came to Trump's defense by chanting: “Lock her up! Lock her up! Lock her up!”

But Trump kept focused on himself.

“So from the time that I announced, I've been hit, hit, hit," he said. "Then from the time that I got in, I said: 'Oh, this is going to be great. Finally, we can all come together.' They hit me harder, harder, harder. They've now learned, I think, that that doesn't work."

He told the crowd to imagine what a unified country could achieve. He reflected on his trip to Saudi Arabia and called its leader “a very special man,” even though the country has an abysmal human rights record. Then he started to wrap up.

“You don't want me to leave,” Trump told the crowd. “I don't want to leave either.”

He told them that the country is getting stronger and better, that it will be setting records, that he will straighten out “the mess” overseas.

“You are incredible people. I want to thank you for your incredible support. And I just want you to know that God blesses you. And I just want to say you are special in every way. God bless you, and God bless America.”

The president then said “thank you” over and over again as his exit music played. He applauded, waved and pointed to people in the crowd. As he slowly made his way off the stage, he stopped to talk with the young woman in the black tank top, her friends recording the moment. He walked past a sign declaring, “Promises kept,” then an Iowa state flag, an American flag and a sign reading: “Promises made.” He pumped his fist.

Unlike that crowd, I want him to leave...immediately.

[GreyhoundFan]

"Gingrich just admitted Trump was being dishonest about White House tapes — because nothing matters"

Spoiler

President Trump is supposed to reveal this week, six weeks after making the initial suggestion, whether he actually has tapes of his White House conversations. Trump last month wielded those potential tapes as a very thinly veiled threat against former FBI director James B. Comey. And ever since then, he and the White House have decided to withhold the truth from the American people, refusing to answer a simple yes-or-no question.

But Newt Gingrich just gave away the game, for all intents and purposes. In an interview with the Associated Press, the Trump-backing former House speaker basically admits that Trump was just bluffing to try to get inside Comey's head.

“I think he was in his way instinctively trying to rattle Comey,” Gingrich said. “He's not a professional politician. He doesn't come back and think about Nixon and Watergate. His instinct is: 'I'll outbluff you.'”

Apparently not being a “professional politician” is a license for dishonesty.

This is hardly surprising, of course. Assuming Gingrich is being honest about this, it's just the latest in a long line of Trump bluffs. There was the time he was going to force the House to vote on its health-care bill, pass or fail, until he urged that it be delayed in the face of defeat. There was the time during the spending debate when the White House signaled Trump would allow a shutdown if the bill didn't fund his border wall, only to back down just a couple of days later. More examples abound.

But — again, assuming Gingrich is right here — this has been a particularly brazen brand of bluffing from the president of the United States. Gingrich is essentially confirming that Trump threatened a former top government official using a falsehood to try to get him to soften his testimony. It's not difficult to attach this to the lengthening list of things suggesting Trump has tampered in the Russia investigation, or even obstructed justice in doing so.

And for a president who has huge trouble with facts, it displays a rather striking disregard for the truth. No, Trump never said clearly that he had the tapes, but he has left that possibility out there for weeks, refusing to go on the record. Politics tends to be a pretty rough-and-tumble business, but this is unapologetic political nihilism, plain and simple.

It also has shelf life. I argued after one of Trump's previous bluffs that this kind of strategy may pay dividends in the business world and in the near term as president, but that as a politician it can and will catch up to you:

This kind of bluffing and having it called is undoubtedly something Trump is used to in the business and real estate worlds. But in the political world, you are negotiating with the same people over and over again. And the lesson of the first two big congressional debates is that when Trump says a bill must contain XYZ, he doesn't really mean it; it's just posturing. And that doesn't bode well for future Trump demands.

During the last government shutdown in 2013, when Republicans demanded defunding Obamacare, they were at least willing to follow through on that demand. The government was closed for more than two weeks before the GOP relented. That served notice to Democrats that Republicans were at the very least willing to go all-in on their strategy and follow through — that they weren't bluffing when they made such demands in order for a bill to pass. And that made their threats on other things seem more legitimate.

Trump has shown no such inclination to make it so people take his demands at face value. And given what's happened in the first two legislative debates, the next time he draws a line in the sand, you can bet lawmakers know how easily it can be raked over.

And the final point here is that Comey essentially called Trump's bluff. In rather blistering testimony that pointed to Trump's potential obstruction of justice, Comey didn't really hold back at all. And at one point, he addressed the threat of tapes directly and suggested they would vindicate him if they did exist.

“I’ve seen the tweet about tapes,” Comey said. “Lordy, I hope there are tapes.”

So basically Trump appears to have not only done something dishonest that undermines his credibility going forward, but it didn't even work. It'll be nice when this charade is over.

Of course, I wouldn't believe Gingivitis or Agent Orange if they said that Thursday follows Wednesday...

[GreyhoundFan]

A good opinion piece: "Why Trump will never get anything done"

Spoiler

Donald Trump promised to get Congress to repeal Obamacare, enact tax reform, pass a $1 trillion infrastructure plan, impose tariffs on outsourcers, subsidize child care and fund a border wall with Mexico — all in the first 100 days of his presidency. Not surprisingly, none of those things happened. What is surprising is that little of this agenda has even been submitted by the president to Congress: no tax bill, no infrastructure bill, no anti-outsourcing bill, no child-care bill and no legislation to build the wall. Why?

The explanation goes beyond the usual factors that bedevil any new president — overpromising on the pace of action, underpreparing for the challenges of office, trouble in staffing up. These do play some part in Trump’s achingly slow start. But Trump’s failure to get key agenda items to the starting line reflects more fundamental problems in policymaking — problems that will persist even after this administration is fully staffed and acclimated.

First, policymaking at the White House is hard and tedious work that involves digesting reams of paper, weighing difficult trade-offs and enduring hours of meetings. There is little evidence Trump has any interest in this sort of endeavor. The campaign anecdote that Ohio Gov. John Kasich (R) was offered a vice presidency with control over domestic and foreign policy, in a White House where Trump would be responsible only for “making America great again,” speaks volumes. Even an “art of the deal” president cannot make policy if he is unaware of key parts of his proposals, as he was shown to be on the question of preexisting conditions in health-care reform or whether he had approved the Keystone XL pipeline without a requirement that it would be built using U.S. steel. In a constantly leaking White House, it is revealing that there have been no stories about Trump making, say, a hard choice on tax reform after a long review session. Trump’s most memorable comment about policy was revelatory: “Nobody knew that health care could be so complicated.”

Second, Trump’s career reflects an inconsistency and expediency about ideas that indicate he will never take policymaking seriously. Yes, all political leaders shift their views over time, some dramatically. But no major figure in either party ever has been as helter-skelter as Trump. He has embraced government-funded universal health care, supported late-term abortions and proposed the largest tax hike in history — and the exact opposite of all of these things, as well — to achieve his political objectives at a given moment. While running for president, Trump said that the minimum wage was “too high,” that it should not change and that it “has to go up.” On a single day of the 2016 campaign, he broadcast three stances on his core campaign issue — immigration policy. I say this not to relitigate a campaign charge about Trump and flip-flopping, but rather to suggest that, absent specific direction from the president at each juncture in the process, his team is probably hard-pressed to divine the Trump policy approach to any question, beyond political expediency. This doubtlessly lengthens the process as underlings wrestle over several possible approaches. Policymaking is hard if one cannot take the president literally; impossible if his ideas cannot be taken seriously.

Finally, the Trump policy process must surely be gridlocked because — to the extent there is any indication of what Trumpism is as a policy philosophy — it is a jumble of populist slogans and corporatist concessions totally at war with itself. The Trump plan includes a promise to raise taxes on corporations that outsource and a pledge to cut taxes on those same corporations to a record low. Trump has embraced a Democratic plan to restore limits on Wall Street that were removed 20 years ago — while advancing a Republican plan to strip away limits imposed after the 2008 financial crisis. He has called for $1 trillion in new infrastructure spending but proposed a budget without a penny of net new spending or borrowing. He promised voters they would get better health-care coverage, then held a party in the White House Rose Garden for a House bill that would allow insurance companies to slash benefits — a bill that he characterized as “mean” the following month. Every campaign agenda contains some half-zebras, half-elephants — but the Trump platform designed to appeal to disaffected manufacturing workers who resent globalization, and disaffected globalists who resent taxation and regulation, is especially problematic in implementation. 

When Trump hit the 100-day mark with no major legislative wins, his allies told the world to give him time. But time is not Trump’s trouble: His lack of interest in policymaking and an incoherent agenda are the obstacles. Congress can’t dispose of plans when the president can’t even get his act together to propose them.

Frankly, I hope he gets nothing done, it would be better for the American public.

[JMarie]

And now he admits there's no tapes.  How is he supposed to build trust in the American people when he keeps flip-flopping?

Now he won't allow the daily briefing to be aired on TV.  Not just the "fake" stations, but also Fox News.  Because the American people don't want to know what's going on.

[Destiny]

I'm watching CNN right now. The White House is taking the press briefings away from the public? Fucking seriously?

Yikes.

[PsyD2013]

There were only about 150 of us protesting TT's trip to Cedar Rapids.  A  couple of my friends went to see TT.  Of course they were praising Twitter-Dum for wanting to build a solar wall that will pay for itself!