The President-elect is scheduled to hold a press conference at 11:00 AM EST today. Here’s the live feed:
It is currently streaming the Chao confirmation hearings.
The purpose of today’s press conference is, ostensibly, for the President-elect to publicly delineate how he is going to deal with his business interests and holdings as President and then, one would expect, take questions. Given the CNN reporting yesterday afternoon, followed by the release of further related information well into this morning, I’m not sure that anyone knows exactly what may or may not happen.
As a national security professional, what I would like to see is the President-elect address the now long standing and ongoing allegations regarding his connection to Russia. If the allegations are spurious, as he and his team have claimed every time they’ve come up, or if there is a straightforward and simple explanation that can be made, he needs to make it. I think a lot of the foreign, defense, and national security policy concerns that many across the political spectrum have with the President-elect’s longstanding policy preferences dating back to 1987 arise from all of the smoke around the claims of Russian connections and interference for Russia’s, not the US’s, not the President-elect’s, interests.
As I’ve noted in previous posts, the President-elect has had a long standing belief that the US’s allies and partners have been taking advantage of us and that our treaty and statutory alliances and agreements need to be revisited. He has an almost as long standing belief that the US and the then USSR should partner to deal with the threat of nuclear proliferation from non-superpower nations. And he has had a consistent stated preference for creating something of a bilateral partnership with Russia against ISIL throughout the campaign and into the transition as part of improved relations with Russia.
Throughout the campaign and the transition I’ve been somewhere between confused and concerned by what I’ve seen articulated by the President-elect as his foreign, defense, and national security policy preferences because they represent such a large break with longstanding US policy preferences under both Democratic and Republican Presidents. I would be a lot less worried if the seeming, alleged, rumored, Russian connections were put to bed. I completely understand that a lot of ego is tied up in running for public office, let alone the Presidency. And that winning the electoral college, but not the popular vote would be troubling to any incoming President even if they were not a political neophyte. But the responses from the President-elect and his team on these questions have been inadequate throughout the campaign and the transition. From CNN’s reporting this appears to be one of the reasons that the two page annex summarizing the former MI6 officer’s oppo research was included in the classified report and briefings to the President, the President-elect, and the Gang of Eight on Russian active measures, desinformaziya, and kompromat in the 2016 US elections. The leaders of the US Intel Community wanted it made explicit to the current and outgoing President, the President-elect and his National Security Team, and to the Republican and Democratic leadership of the House and Senate and both chambers Intelligence Committees that this material existed, it presents an ongoing threat to both political parties and to the US and its interests, and could still be used. And I would add: regardless of whether any of it is true, false, or a combination of the two. As CNN reported (emphasis mine):
One reason the nation’s intelligence chiefs took the extraordinary step of including the synopsis in the briefing documents was to make the President-elect aware that such allegations involving him are circulating among intelligence agencies, senior members of Congress and other government officials in Washington, multiple sources tell CNN.These senior intelligence officials also included the synopsis to demonstrate that Russia had compiled information potentially harmful to both political parties, but only released information damaging to Hillary Clinton and Democrats. This synopsis was not an official part of the report from the intelligence community case about Russian hacks, but some officials said it augmented the evidence that Moscow intended to harm Clinton’s candidacy and help Trump’s, several officials with knowledge of the briefings tell CNN.The two-page synopsis also included allegations that there was a continuing exchange of information during the campaign between Trump surrogates and intermediaries for the Russian government, according to two national security officials.
There will always be breaks or changes or adjustments to policy from Presidential Administration to Presidential Administration, depending on who is elected, from which party, and what is actually going on. But the changes that President-elect Trump has either long argued for, or argued for throughout his campaign, would be a lot easier to understand if he and his upcoming Presidency were removed from under the cloud of alleged, possible influence by a hostile foreign power.
Major Major Major Major
So what’s the over-under on how late he shows up?
elm
How’s he going to address the recent decline in journalism? The sensational headlines? Are we returning to the days of the Yellow Press?
Cheryl Rofer
If he has no connections to Russia, his tax returns should show that.
PaulW
what’s the odds on him making clear he WON’T take questions after all?
PaulW
What’s the odds on him promoting his goddamn hotels again?
Ceci n'est pas mon nym
What cloud? I see in various places on the intertubes that Putin denies they hold anything on Trump, and Trump denies the charges and says “the intelligence agencies of the world are all poopyheads”. That’s case closed as far as I’m concerned.
chopper
I hope he makes more nazi germany references in his defense.
to be fair, it is feeling a little like austria 1938…
dr. bloor
If your press conference Bingo card has “nepotism,””business conflicts of interest,” and “WH ACA replace plan” but not “Streep,” “Hillary” or “Phony,” you’re a sure loser this morning.
NotMax
You’re expecting rationality from a carnival barker. He will dissemble, misdirect, whine about being a victim, throw out cheap and crude insults directed at perceived enemies and quite possibly attempt to exert dominance by belittling one or more questioners/media outlets personally or professionally.
As he hasn’t faced a press conference since last July, expect him to also be off balance so far as the format is concerned and to be expecting total obeisance.
dr. bloor
@Major Major Major Major: I’m imagining a scene in the Trump suite right now akin to the handlers and docs prepping Pink for his show in “The Wall.”
Yarrow
This press conference is not really happening, is it?
Steeplejack
I’ve got MSNBC on the box. Love how the lectern for the press conference has:
Didn’t realize that was an “office.” What a preening jackanapes.
ETA: Forgot to mention the obligatory wall-to-wall American flags in the background.
randy khan
I can’t watch. Others with stronger stomachs than mine will have to report on it.
Elizabelle
He is so gross. I am not going to watch.
резидент американской области Российской Федерации
First couple of rows need to wear ponchos, like a Gallagher show.
Timurid
@Steeplejack:
dr. bloor
@Steeplejack: Is there a table of “45” merchandise set up near the podium?
Yarrow
@Steeplejack: So they’ve set up the lectern? I guess they think he’ll show up.
I can only imagine the whining in the Twitler bunker at this point. “KellyAnne! Whyyyyyyy do I have to do this press conference? I’m going to be president! You can’t tell me what to do!”
dr. bloor
@резидент американской области Российской Федерации: What? He brought the Russian hookers with him?
Major Major Major Major
@dr. bloor: they exit through the gift shop.
Duane
It’s pretty bad when a President-elect is coming into office under this kind of scrutiny.
Yarrow
Ooooh! I wonder if he’s going to publicly threaten the Intelligence guys? Like say he’s going to make them pay, or they’ll have to listen to him once he’s president, or they’re lying and he can prove it and he’s going to make them sorry they did this.
*Popcorn*
Mike J
Elizabelle
I can’t stand that we are going from Barack Obama to this detestable jackhole.
Thanks Red [State] America.
Fucking nightmare.
They. Didn’t. Vet. Him.
Emerald
Yeah sure. If he actually shows up, this will be his last presser. He’ll crash and burn. I can’t believe Ivanka is letting him do it.
Should be comedy gold but I can’t watch.
Jeffro
Those watching will probably want to turn the volume down and the red tone down as well. This should be good…
Adam L Silverman
@Major Major Major Major: I have no idea.
Steeplejack
@dr. bloor:
Ha! The chyron crawl is in the way. I’ll keep a lookout.
Yarrow
This isn’t going away.
Jeffro
@Elizabelle: Vetting is for Democrats! Republicans are always right! Critical thinking means “here, listen to me rant and justify absolutely anything no matter how much dissonance it creates”!
Long term, Dems are going to want to throw some unbelievable resources into education.
O. Felix Culpa
@Mike J:
Good.
NotMax
@Duane
Served
FWIW, Tillerson’s hearing is going less than swimmingly for him.
At some point the amateur hour luck was going to run out. As President Obama reiterated last night, “reality has a way of catching up with you.”
SenyorDave
I guess Trump will shower the middle class with well paying jobs.
SP
The press hot mic comments while waiting for the conference are pretty funny. “Copastetic, copastetic”- I assume he means “copacetic”? It’s the boom mike guy, now saying “You have to ride me, ride me.”
GregB
Well, we know why James Woolsey quit a few days ago.
Tilda Swintons Bald Cap
@Mike J: To quote Warner Wolf, “Let’s go to the video tape !” Yee haw !
Steeplejack
Senate committee has been tongue-bathing State nominee Tex Driller, although Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) has just turned up the heat a bit: (paraphrased slightly) “Do you agree with characterization of Putin as a war criminal?,” showing pictures of assassinated Kremlin opponents. Driller remaining phlegmatic, basically saying “I would not disagree.” Wonder how his BFF Putin will take that? “Is okay, Tex. Is only biznezz.”
Steeplejack
No sign of Trump yet.
SiubhanDuinne
What’s the delay? Fog machine malfunction?
sloan
Come on dude, put down the Egg McMuffin and get your lazy ass on stage.
Betty Cracker
Breaking my vow not to subject myself to the sleazy creep’s voice to watch this presser, just on the off chance he completely decompensates, enters a catatonic state and has to be dragged offstage by paid minions.
Hildebrand
@SiubhanDuinne: Trump is still trying to figure out how to cancel.
Steeplejack
Trump entourage forming up offstage, word comes that Trump “is coming down momentarily.”
schrodingers_cat
@Betty Cracker: You are a braver soul than I, my friend.
JPL
@Mike J: It’s embarrassing enough that I had to ask a son about specific terminology, I just don’t want to watch the video.
O. Felix Culpa
@Betty Cracker: I’ll wait for the reruns.
Steeplejack
@Betty Cracker:
As a former shoe-leather newspaper reporter in the late Bronze Age (i.e., the ’70s), I wouldn’t miss this for the world.
Yarrow
On CNN, just heard Rick Santorum try to claim that the leaders of the Intelligence organizations are political appointees so that puts their conclusions into question
Steeplejack
Okay, I’ve just spotted the golden mane coming through the offstage crowd!
mai naem mobile
@GregB: that was my thought exactly. Hell, Woolsey may have been a CIA agent spying on Lumpy and Cohen and was informed at to when to walk away before the shit, I mean the pee, hit the fan.
Elizabelle
CBS has pre-empted The Price is Right for this. How apropos.
Looking at all those media whores, standing up with microphones at the front of the rooms.
Emails, you whores. Emails!
This is a LOT of your fault. I would not mind seeing the Washington press corps standing up there for a firing line. They are that awful.
Emails, whores. Suck on it.
Jerzy Russian
Is this like game 1 of the World Series where it is scheduled for 8:00 pm, but the first pitch is actually at 8:20?
Humboldtblue
You’d expect more joy from a man who just won the presidency, I mean, wasn’t Donald watching in 2008?
Now we’re gonna get hookers, blow, and really bad Russian haircuts.
Kellyann is soon gonna look like this
hilts
Shorter Spicer: Wah Wah
sloan
15 minutes late.
Orange People’s Time!
Steeplejack
Spokesdrone Sean Spicer is blasting Buzzfeed with both barrels.
Betty Cracker
Whining about Buzzfeed. Yawn.
Elizabelle
@SiubhanDuinne: Fog machine malfunction?
Well played, Ms. Duinne.
Hildebrand
@Betty Cracker: I just want the press to ask a couple of nice, straightforward, questions. Ones with substance. Is that asking too much? Would it be likewise asking too much to have said reporters badger the fuck out of him with follow-up questions?
A guy can dream.
Steeplejack
Weird: Pence is standing behind Spicer, like he’s the next hype man up before the big man himself.
ETA: Pence wearing his usual “I was Robert Shaw’s stand-in for From Russia with Love.”
rikyrah
@Mike J:
totally from MI-6
Betty Cracker
Spicer says Shitgibbon doesn’t know Carter Page. Shitgibbon released a list of FP advisers that includes Page.
Served
Spicer is so pressed over this right now! I’m screaming with joy.
Steeplejack
Pence bloviating. Fair amount of clapping from the audience, which seems odd for “journalists” at a press conference. Maybe Brietbart sent a whole team.
chopper
@Mike J:
oh, fucking delicious.
Adam L Silverman
@Mike J: Would be nice if she had a link in her tweets.
SiubhanDuinne
Is this a press conference or a fucking rally?
Betty Cracker
Pence sounds awfully defensive. Hmmm.
Elizabelle
This is such a fucking tragedy.
Going from Obama to …. this.
Mike Pence is so damn dumb. My Republican relatives in Indiana could not stand him. And one of them, a beloved GOP lite cousin, wondered aloud why people were saying such bad things about Obamacare. Because it was really good for her husband and her. (The husband owns a roofing business.)
Mary G
I can’t watch, because I am afraid of destroying my TV and I have no money for a new one. I’m relying on you guys for commentary.
mai naem mobile
Pence can’t be spelled without P either.
Steeplejack
Pence: “The American people are sick and tired of it!” (Fake news.) WTF, dude, it just hit the fan yesterday.
Ohio Mom
@SiubhanDuinne: yeah, what’s with all the applause?
Larkspur
He starts with a lie. Big surprise.
JPL
Sad..
SiubhanDuinne
Oh man, they are REALLY rattled by the Russia stories, aren’t they?
(Edited to fix stupid autocorrect thing.)
Yarrow
Yep. He’s going after the Intelligence Agencies first thing. This is not going to go well for him.
OGLiberal
@Elizabelle: Trump is like manna from heaven for them. All the Hillary stuff is boring and 4-8 years of reporting on her would have been no fun, just dull policy stuff and old, disproven rumors. But with Trump it’s a new thing every day. I swear they helped take out Hillary not because they like Trump or his policies but because they know that crap like this will happen at least once or twice a week and it is so fun and great for ratings. Even Obama, once he actually took the job, he got all boring and wonky and polite and reserved – if he wasn’t going to tour the country giving rousing speeches then they had no use for him. Plus, “black president” was just so 2008. So, manufacture controversy over Benghazi (which was a twofer because Hillary) or, well, was there anything else?
Of course, most of these assholes won’t be affected by Trump’s policies until they are vaporized by a nuke strike on DC.
dmsilev
@Steeplejack:
Wait, Pence was the hooker who did the golden shower? I’m so confused.
Emerald
Is he actually there? Or is Pence doing it?
Barbara
@Steeplejack: When you have to rely on Pence to stir up outrage you are in big big trouble.
donnah
Trump hasn’t said anything in spite of talking for five minutes.
Larkspur
“Primarily one site and one news organization…” ooh, hit list has been assembled. Plutonium tea party, coming up.
Adrift
He is all over the place this makes no sense whatsoever.
sloan
Odds that he makes things worse for himself with this press conference?
Put on your big boy pants and be the f’ing president.
Betty Cracker
Stupid fucking goober impugned the integrity of the intel orgs again. Is our shitgibbon learning? Nope.
bemused
I detect Trump sucking some air. He’s nervous.
SenyorDave
@Ohio Mom: yeah, what’s with all the applause?
The media was promised free hoagies and dollar beers after the presser ends.
Mike in NC
Jesus Fucking Christ, these loons are despicably thin-skinned imbeciles, always attacking their perceived enemies. Trump will spend an hour now denouncing the media and then reveal his plans to shut it down.
Adam L Silverman
@Ohio Mom: Most of the people in the room are supporters, not journalists.
O. Felix Culpa
I can’t watch, first, because I can’t stand the sight nor the sound of that horrid man who will be President, and second, because I have no faith in our “journalists” doing their goddamn job. Please to inform me if they prove me wrong.
Humboldtblue
Speak for yourself you fucking idiot.
Larkspur
@SenyorDave: He’s got all his people with him – not just Spicer and Pence, but Ivanka and other were trailing in. Enough to applaud loud right by the mics.
schrodingers_cat
@SiubhanDuinne: What do you expect from whores paid to piss on democracy and good governance?
hilts
@donnah:
That’s par for the course with this knuckledragging neanderthal
Humboldtblue
@Betty Cracker: Watch for the blots … the big, big, blots
Steeplejack
Okay, the big man himself:
This is literally the first thing out of his mouth:
Back to real time.
bemused
@Betty Cracker:
Learning? That would require brain and heart transplants.
john b
well the audio keeps cutting out of WP’s feed. Pain in the ass.
Betty Cracker
@Larkspur: That’s exactly what they’re doing. The press isn’t applauding — it’s the minions.
Adrift
This is like scratching your nails across the chalkboard.
Larkspur
“We have all of the bands, most of the bands, from the various segments of the military” – gonna be beautiful, elegant. Dude. You lie.
mai naem mobile
Fucking moron still fucking with the CIA. Oh,honey, they just got started with you. El Stupido doesn’t know that the GOP doesn’t want bidding on drugs. They’re going to be bidding on some massive amount of drugs just special for you,you fucking maroon. Who the fuck thought this guy was qualified for this job? He’s on some massive drugs right now. His affect sounds a little flat.
Betty Cracker
OMFG — he just called himself “the greatest jobs producer God ever created.”
Calouste
@Yarrow: Yep. As I have pointed out before, a lot of coups and revolutions started or gained momentum because the officer corps of the military wasn’t happy with their salary/conditions/promotion prospects. For officers in this case, substitute spooks.
hilts
@SenyorDave:
Maybe they hired some actors to portray Trump supporters.
mai naem mobile
@john b: try NPR dude
wenchacha
Oh my god. No one will ever die when Trump is Pres.
Yarrow
I saw whichever son (Uday or Qusay?) has the darker hair standing next to Twitler when someone else was talking. He looks tired. I wonder if this mess is taking a toll on the kids too. Good, if it is.
Betty Cracker
Now he’s saying he’s going to have great bands and big crowds at the inauguration. He’s sucking his own dick about the election. Again.
Humboldtblue
Man is so full of shit
Larkspur
They’ve been working on him, trying to make him look less ridiculous. His hair isn’t that dehydrated pee color, and he doesn’t have the white raccoon eyes so much. It isn’t working.
Yarrow
@mai naem mobile: Yeah, the “bidding on drugs” thing is hilarious. That would only apply to the government healthcare. You know, single payer.
Betty Cracker
Basically, he’s giving the “Suck It, Losers!” tour stump speech. Again. Sucking off himself first, then veterans.
Elizabelle
He is such a huckster.
It’s like having the National Inquirer spew for President.
And clue this gibbon in: twas the Republicans in Congress that denied us ability to negotiate on drugs.
Have to laugh at how his priorities and his do not synch as much as they might wish.
Adrift
I thought he was going to discuss divestment. Not a peep. He is already taking questions so I guess nothing will ever be said about it.
Betty Cracker
Questions now!
? Martin
After godwinning the country on Twitter and the whole pee thing, it seems like we’re in really creative new territory for protest and mockery.
Rommie
He’s going to destroy the VA in order to save it. Bigly.
Mike J
@Mike in NC:
He said he wanted to change libel laws
dexwood
Fake news, fake news, fake news! The Trump mantra.
Jeffro
@Yarrow:
Couldn’t be happier…please proceed, Orange Jowlius
Patricia Kayden
@Elizabelle: I’m listening. Everything is “top of the line”, “fantastic”, “terrific”, “not gonna happen”, “great”, etc., etc. The man lacks humility to say the least. Anything good is because of him.
Yarrow
“It shouldn’t have entered paper” ??? What is that?
john b
@mai naem mobile: yeah. just switched to that. thanks
Emerald
So have there been any actual questions? Any bets on how many he takes before walking offstage?
NotMax
@Betty Cracker
That no lightning bolt crackled down from on high, that no bottomless pit opened up beneath the bloviating fool, is proof there is no God.
cmorenc
@Cheryl Rofer:
Yes indeed. How about returns from a recent year when Trump was not under audit? He won’t release his returns, because he knows there’s incriminating information in them about his financial empire, particularly who he owes money to, and who he has deals with.
SiubhanDuinne
Everything he says — it has no substance, less filling or nourishing than cotton candy.
Names a new VA chief. “He’s fantastic, he’s fantastic, he’s going to do a fantastic job. Our vets have been treated horribly, horribly. Not gonna happen. We interviewed at least a hundred people, some good, some not so good. But David’s going to do a fantastic job.”
donnah
Good luck getting answers, folks! He will blow off every question and just serve up word salad and try to deflect the investigation.
Much hacking going on? China? DNC at fault?
jeezus
Jeffro
fakenewsfakenewsfakenewsfakenews
Trump, it’s not a magical phrase…
ETA: can see that dexwood got there first
Betty Cracker
Downplaying the Russian hack again. Jesus.
Larkspur
DNC was askin’ for it.
Adam L Silverman
Found the link for the BBC stuff:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KyFTRVvhM5M
Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class
@Betty Cracker:
He’d be incapable of that – his gut would be in the way.
Steeplejack
@dmsilev:
Mike Pence threatens reporters, tells them not to “get out of line.”
Adrift
Bringing up Hilary again, how horrible she is. OMG.
Hildebrand
@Betty Cracker:
He is the only one who will.
GregB
Trump bemoaning leaks and is now quoting leaks.
Jeffro
Yes…Reince Priebus is a cyber-defense genius…
Yarrow
Wow, now he’s saying crap about John Podesta’s comments on Hillary? WTF?
Humboldtblue
This is a fucking terrible movie and this guy is a terrible actor.
Elizabelle
@Patricia Kayden: Striking that it’s an eight year old’s vocabulary. And boasts.
So sad. So tragic.
Steeplejack
Questions! To the intelligence briefings!
ETA: Oops, I’m still a few minutes behind.
Larkspur
This is nearly impossible to deal with, every word, every inflection is a distortion or a lie, and damn, he’s using the third person to describe himself.
Patricia Kayden
@Elizabelle: If you can, you should listen (not watch) it just for the sheer audacity that he displays. It’s breathtaking. I can’t believe that anyone takes him seriously. This must be a ploy by Congressional Republicans to put an idiot in the White House who they can completely manipulate and control. Otherwise, his ascendance doesn’t make any sense.
D58826
Time to look for real estate on Easter island or Pitcarin island.
Yarrow
“You sure there, Don?” Heh.
Wapiti
@Yarrow: Dad is unhinged. The entire family probably sits up with him when he gets on a tear in the middle of the night, Each is afraid that if they aren’t present, either Dad will get angry at them, or their siblings will cause Dad to get angry at them.
O. Felix Culpa
@Humboldtblue:
He’s a bad actor in every way.
Barbara
@Yarrow: He is the kind of person who will always revert to campaign mode. That’s all he can do. He has no other comfort zone. He has exceedingly few real skills and gets by on the ones he has honed to perfection.
Mike J
GregB
By the way, the Trump people were saying that the Russian’s were terrified of Hillary Clinton.
Now we hear she’s a pushover.
Patricia Kayden
@donnah: We used to laugh at Sarah Palin’s speech and now look who we have as President. The joke is on us.
zhena gogolia
@NotMax:
God works in a mysterious way His wonders to perform
SenyorDave
@Larkspur: he’s using the third person to describe himself.
George is getting upset.
kindness
Best comment on FB this morning:
“Mr. President, do you know the difference between a chickpea and a garbanzo bean?”
“No.”
“Well, have you ever had a garbanzo bean on your face?”
Adam L Silverman
@Yarrow: Also 180 degrees opposite of the official GOP position.
Jeffro
@D58826:
Unh uh, this is my country…Il Douche can leave, but not me.
Hellbastard
IS he gonna drag his family around with him to every public event? Reminds me of 3rd world dictators grooming their kids for succession. And what’s with the applause? DId he sprinkle the crowd with fans?
khead
Yeah, we are pretty much doomed.
“Does anyone really believe” that we are not?
OGLiberal
I saw at least one journo and maybe more saying the golden showers with hookers story couldn’t be true because Trump is a germophobe. I think you can have one without the other. When I read the dossier I never thought that the prostitutes peed on him. I thought that he had the prostitutes pee on each other on the bed Obama and Michele slept on while in Russia because a) he wanted to show that “boy” who made fun of him who the real man is and b) because he likes to degrade women and wanted to show that he can. Never thought they were peeing on him. I pictured him sitting a gold plated chair saying, “Yeah, Barack…they’re pissing on you and you can’t do a thing…who’s laughing now, skinny-boy?”
James Powell
@Patricia Kayden:
I still have not been able to laugh about any of this.
? Martin
Honestly, at this point I think I’m open to trolling him into a suicide.
Mike J
lamh36
Fuq each and every jim bob, carry anne, meemaw, peepaw…complete idiots who voted for #PEEOTUS
Watching this press conference should make you feel nothing but contempt and pity for dumb as people (majority white) who voted for this dumb ass mofo to be our next President…all cause of what…some misguided, racist bullshit snub against the first Black President…
wenchacha
Total name-drop conference.
mai naem mobile
I am guessing the CIA will do another dump soon. Or M16. Or the French. Or the Germans.
Rommie
Okay, I *really* hope Twitler is watching himself on Nightly Television. Karma demands it.
cosima
Post on my facebook newsfeed (by someone fabulous):
Dear Trumpers:
Turns out that steaming mug of liberal tears you were sipping was something else entirely
NotMax
The Art of the Shpiel.
Jilli Brown
Trump sounds like Crazy Uncle Al, drunk crazy uncle al. Sweet jeebus…he’s the blowhard everyone avoids at parties, offices, everywhere.
bemused
I just keep saying, omg, omg…..
Yarrow
Now he says he didn’t know about the “no conflict of interest” provision until “about three months ago.” WTF? WTF?
zhena gogolia
@lamh36:
Yeah.
O. Felix Culpa
So, are the “journalists” asking probing questions? With hard-hitting follow-ups even?
Thoroughly Pizzled
He talks about turning down a bribe and expects us to be proud of him. He is the worst American and a traitor to his country.
dexwood
Wow. The contrast between Mr. Obama and Traitor Trump is so stark, so shocking. An adult leaves, a petulant, ill-behaved brat takes over.
Adrift
Good Lord he is an arrogant ass. I want to throw the teevee out the window.
Yarrow
Now he’s saying the American people don’t care at all about his tax returns.
cosima
This may have already been noted in these comments, but I’ll be getting to those in a moment… Before that, though, wtf with the little banner at the top that has his b.s. MAGA slogan? Thought this was news, not propaganda.
Larkspur
Getting pushback from that great reporter, tax returns tax returns. She’s on his list now. Keep pushing.
Jeffro
He’s Superman – he can run the Trump Organization AND the entire US!
Oh no tax returns btw…
celticdragonchick
Hitting hi on tax returns…
Betty Cracker
Trump to reporter: “You’re the only person who cares about my tax returns.” Lying fuck.
SiubhanDuinne
Holy fuck.
I’ll say it again.
HOE.
LEE.
FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK.
FlipYrWhig
@Hellbastard:
My theory is that his kids are always there because he needs someone he can trust to remind him what other people said to him, because he can’t remember things and can’t tell what was important. I used to suspect he was illiterate until I saw him read from the TelePrompTer.
Thoroughly Pizzled
I’m gonna have a lot of graves to piss on when (if) this shitshow ends.
Betty Cracker
Now he’s introducing his lawyer to discuss full-sight trust.
Larkspur
Now he’s outsourced his press conference. Does this attorney have to answer questions? Probably not. Ask them anyway.
celticdragonchick
Holy shit he bailed out…
D58826
Ah so der Fuhrer is going to turn his business over to his sons and they will not talk to Dad about it. That fails to pass the smacked ass test. The family still owns the assets and Poteus decisions will affect the value of those assets.
Larkspur
Sheri Dillon needs to answer to the bar association.
hilts
@Thoroughly Pizzled:
Trump belongs on a psychiatrist’s couch. His delusions are out of this fucking world.
GregB
Corruption only applies to the Secretary of State.
Betty Cracker
And with that, I suppose he escapes additional questions.
Mary G
@lamh36: Every time I hear that Trump has a 37% approval rating now and that 46% of voters chose him, I want to lock that 9% up for racism, sexism and treason. Too little too late, assholes.
Emerald
@FlipYrWhig:
Sarah Kendzior says authoritarians generally have their families high in the government. Only people they can trust.
Yarrow
Wow. Now he’s gone – okay still standing on sidelines – while lawyer talks about business. “Nelson Rockefeller didn’t have to do any of this. No one cared about it then.”
Thoroughly Pizzled
He showed us who he was. Every damn time. And 60 million people voted for him. Worthless fucks.
Humboldtblue
@lamh36: A man whom I used to hold in high esteem pretty much admitted to me that his vote for Trump came from a deep sense of racial resentment. I repeatedly see and hear comments that echo that theme all long the lines of — you forced us to live under a black man and this is pay back!
Petty, ill-informed and resentful, that’s the GOP.
lamh36
This is gonna be my constant answer anytime a Trump supporters says anything about any fuqn thing…
Me for the next 4 years when discussing politics with Republicans
Patricia Kayden
@Thoroughly Pizzled: It would be funny if he weren’t the most powerful man in the world. Yikes!!
? Martin
Dear America,
Prince Joffrey was the bad guy – not a role model for how America should be led. Perhaps the show was too subtle on that point.
Larkspur
Goodness gracious, this is not a press conference, is it? Sheri Dillon, you are going to attorney hell.
Emerald
So how many questions did he take? One?
O. Felix Culpa
@Yarrow:
WTF. Nelson Rockefeller wasn’t President!
Thoroughly Pizzled
“If the president does it it’s not illegal.”
hilts
@celticdragonchick:
He’ll soon need a diaper change.
Gin & Tonic
@Mike J: I met Sheldon a couple of times when he was first running and, frankly, wasn’t super impressed, but he’s really grown in his role.
Adrift
argle bargle
Elizabelle
@celticdragonchick: Talk about stamina.
The only thing more fun than listening to you guys would be being a fly on the wall in the Capitol Hill GOP leadership offices. You know they’re watching this from between their fingers.
Got to give Trump credit for bringing up negotiating drug prices. People think it’s a good idea, and it’s the GOP that stopped us being able to negotiate. Like every other first world country (to my knowledge, anyway).
Larkspur
@Emerald: Three.
Patricia Kayden
Is it normal for an attorney to take over a Presidential press conference? This is so bizarre. I’m scared!!
RealityBites
If you rob a bank, and you get caught, you can’t keep the money. I STILL can’t believe that someone who became PEOTUS as a result of criminal activity will allowed to take office. It is amazing that there is no law giving the office to the robbed party or at least requiring another election.
The Republicans should get zero benefit from this. They allowed this obscene creature to run as a member of their party, with all the benefits that the (r) after his name would bring. If Trump goes, no Republican should be able to step in. Not Pence, not Ryan, not ANY Republican.
I can’t really get through the denial. I actually feel ill if I think about it too much.
And what is WRONG with our law enforcement? Trump has apparently been working with the mob doing money laundering for YEARS. The FBI has a huge presence in NYC. They are supposed to investigate the mob and protect against espionage here in the U.S. Not to mention all other law enforcement entities and the IRS. If ordinary citizens can get a good idea what Trump has been doing by reading newspaper and magazine articles, how did it happen that no LAW ENFORCEMENT agency anywhere did anything? It’s not like he was some small-time bookie. There is something very, very wrong going on.
And some agents in the New York FBI office supposedly were pressuring Comey to go after HRC. Why? They had to know the emails were bunk. And how could Comey do what he did when he knew about the Russian involvement? Is he Kompromat, too? Does he have ZERO regard for the rule of law and simple honest, decent behavior?
Maybe Trump should pardon Robert Hanssen and give him his job back, or a promotion. He was just ahead of his time.
Steeplejack
I’m still a couple of minutes behind, but, holy fuck, Trump seems to believe that the “no-conflict situation” for the president and vice president actually means that he is exempt from any conflict-of-interest scrutiny, or that he cannot have any conflicts of interest simply because he is the president. I can’t even.
Yarrow
@O. Felix Culpa: No, she did say when Rockefeller was Vice President. Sorry, I wasn’t clear. The rest is accurate.
Thoroughly Pizzled
I’m absolutely sure that things would be just as bad with Hillary.
[farts wetly]
donnah
looky! Folders!
He can’t even describe his own trust agreement, which, honestly, he didn’t have to do anyway because he’s going to be president. But he’s divested! He won’t know how the trust will be run!
This is a terrible, terrible harbinger of what lies ahead.
Patricia Kayden
@Thoroughly Pizzled: Then how did Nixon get impeached? And Clinton? He really thinks he’s above the law. The scandals from his Presidency will be humungous. Believe me!
Cacti
@OGLiberal:
Urine is sterile.
Thoroughly Pizzled
Oh, you’re going to lose money? My heart bleeds for you.
Yarrow
@Elizabelle: Yeah, but the GOP is against negotiating on drug prices. It’s never going to happen because they’ll have to give him a bill to sign. I guess he’ll just claim it happened, like everything else.
Larkspur
Why isn’t someone yelling “We want a press conference!”
Patricia Kayden
@lamh36: The irony is that President Obama had no problems winning two elections. It’s strange that White people waited to take their anger out on a White woman by electing an idiot over her.
Brachiator
@Humboldtblue:
Really? That’s quite an honest admission. Did this person expand on his sentiments?
Kathleen
@Adam L Silverman: With The Village it’s hard to tell the difference. Keep waiting for Mainslime Media to somehow spin this back to aggrieved and economically angsty white working class.
sigaba
@Jeffro:
Of course it is, he understands the press is obsessed with it and will immediately repeat it as the lede. They’ll be desperate not to have to report anything else from this thing.
Yarrow
I’ve muted the lawyer speaking. Is she saying anything interesting?
Mike J
@Yarrow: Rockefeller: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C153VuxXEAIgnB5.jpg
OGLiberal
@Cacti: I know that…do you think Trump would?
SiubhanDuinne
Don, Ivanka and Eric are mentioned again and again. But, like the dog that didn’t bark in the night, I’m starting to wonder if Tiffany has any kind of behind-the-scenes role. She is beginning to be almost conspicuous by her absence. I’m not saying that’s a bad thing, by the way. She may be smarter than the rest of them combined.
ruemara
@OGLiberal: These “reporters” don’t seem to read details. It clearly stated he was having them perform for him, not that they peed on him. And there’s far more than just the hooker use.
Patricia Kayden
@OGLiberal:
Wouldn’t he have to tell President Obama about this urine-filled episode for that to make any sense? This is all so strange.
Rommie
Shorter Attorney Briefing: Trump has ordered steps to ensure he’s not CAUGHT in a conflict of interest.
NotMax
Treating the man as normal and the situation as business as usual is Egregious Mistake #1.
Mike J
@Gin & Tonic:
He also got Sessions to say that religious people know more about ultimate truth than secular people.
Thoroughly Pizzled
Why do you care about the Trump Organization? I’m not sure if Trump’s shriveled brain can even form the concept of public service.
rikyrah
Read this Twitter thread connecting the Russian dots
O. Felix Culpa
@Yarrow: Thanks for the clarification. But still, Rockefeller was not elected. Furthermore, people did in fact object to his conflicts of interest: https://twitter.com/MrDanZak/status/819223608866336772/photo/1.
And, do the Trump people want to remind us of the unsavory circumstances of Rockefeller’s death? No sense of irony, these people. (No sense of decency either, but you knew that.)
Patricia Kayden
@Yarrow: “The President Elect is not committing any crimes because he told me so and I’m so honored that he picked me to take over his first Presidential press conference. Believe me. You all believe me, right? Please believe me.”
Larkspur
She’s just saying that acting ethically would be too darn hard, and he doesn’t like to do hard stuff, and he’s president and doesn’t have to do anything he doesn’t feel like doing.
Adrift
“the so-called emoluments clause”
lamh36
Wait…that’s it? US media should be tired of getting played
Wake da fuq up
Humboldtblue
@Brachiator:
No, and I openly laughed at him when he tried to defend the Sessions pick by declaiming “well I’ve had to deal with Holder all these years”.
Brachiator
Can we just burn the Constitution now? It’s been replaced by the Trump rules for how wealthy elitists will openly run the country.
raven
HOTELS!!
JPL
@Yarrow: I did too! This is becoming an infomercial, about Trump.
Gin & Tonic
@O. Felix Culpa: I didn’t find Nelson’s death “unsavory” at all. When my time comes, I certainly wouldn’t mind it being like that.
NotMax
@Yarrow
Rockefeller was a multi-term governor. Info was already out there.
hilts
@Steeplejack:
Trump has a totalitarian mindset and I only hope our planet can withstand 4 years of this lunatic being the most powerful person in the world.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Yarrow: Sanaturim does know a stain when he sees it.
Yarrow
Oh look. Trump’s back at the podium.
Adrift
clap clap clap. this is NOT a rally. its a press conference. smh.
SenyorDave
How disgusting that our president-elect is corrupt coming into office, and has pretty much stated that he will continue his corruption. Growing up, my dad was head of the planning board in our town (population 8,000), and he had his own engineering firm. He was so scrupulously honest that he would recuse himself if there was even the most remote possibility of any conflict of interest. I’m convinced that if he wasn’t already gone, seeing Trump as POTUS would have killed him.
Thoroughly Pizzled
He constantly acts like basic decency is doing us all a favor.
O. Felix Culpa
@Gin & Tonic: I find infidelity unsavory. YMMV.
OGLiberal
@Patricia Kayden: Nixon didn’t get impeached but he would have if he didn’t resign before the House voted. Clinton didn’t resign because unlike Nixon he knew it would never get through the Senate. This guy, if impeached, wouldn’t resign even if he knew the entire Senate was going to vote for it. He’d just hole up in the West Wing with his private security force and refuse to leave because, dammit, he just so great and all those senators are looooosers…and fake news!
Steeplejack
Lawyer is slicing and dicing the emoluments clause all over the place. I hope someone brings up the point that, screw the emoluments clause, the contract with the GSA for the Trump hotel in Washington forbids any government official to profit from it. Emoluments, shmemoluments.
SiubhanDuinne
The lawyer gets applause?!?!?
Droppy
Emoluments, n. Not a goddam hotel bill. It’s something else. So not a problem. Shut up. Donating to the U.S. treasury. All who believe that will happen may stand in the line over here to the left to make your binding pre-paid bid on the Brooklyn Bridge. Thank you.
Ridnik Chrome
@Thoroughly Pizzled: The revolution will end up being cancelled because with so many deserving candidates, nobody will be able to agree on who should be first against the wall.
Betty Cracker
Blimey, he’s taking questions again.
Yarrow
Oh, good. He’s back on the trade war with China thing. Short comment, but still there.
aimai
@lamh36: giving new meaning to the phrase “I turned white with rage.” Where is my winking emoji?
D58826
last part of the lawyers spiel sounded more likre a campaign speech.
rikyrah
@SiubhanDuinne:
Cause, it’s the truth.
Larkspur
Smart. Brilliant. Great. Greatest ever. Beautiful. So smart. Good deals. Very very very everything.
FlipYrWhig
@Patricia Kayden:
If Ferguson MO had happened before the 2012 election, I’m not sure Obama would have been reelected.
OGLiberal
@Patricia Kayden: He’s too much of a pussy to have told Obama if it happened…he’d just revel in the symbolism and in how he could get women to pee on each other on command.
Steeplejack
Trump is not even really a businessman. He’s a deal-maker. That’s all he is. And he revels in it. That’s how he describes all the great things he’s going to do in government: “We’re going to make great deals!”
Adrift
Obamacare is a complete disaster. It’s imploding.
He is now saying 2017 is going to be catastrophic. That I can believe.
Timurid
Trump is going to speed up the timeline on his kleptocracy and autocracy agenda. He has no choice. As wounded as he is now, if he tries for the long con and pretends to honor rules and institutions for a while, he will slowly bleed to death. The first thing that gets unpacked in the White House on 1/20 will be a steamer trunk full of executive orders…
Betty Cracker
His answers are all just excerpts from his stump speech. It’s all he knows. And the toady entourage who conspicuously cheer and clap are there to help create a rally-like atmosphere, maybe to help him barf up stump speech excerpts.
Thoroughly Pizzled
@FlipYrWhig: And Trayvon Martin. The levee broke. :(
Yarrow
Oh, so they’re “submitting a plan” for Obamacare replace. Uh huh.
Larkspur
He says he’d like to let Obamacare implode on its own, but that would take too long so he has to rouse himself to do something, um, repeal and replace, very complicated, but we will do that with the very best people. The greatest health care.
FlipYrWhig
@Thoroughly Pizzled: That one WAS before the election. And notice how the 2012 election was a lot closer than the 2008 one.
trollhattan
Jesus, Sarah Palin in an ill-fitting suit.
WordTaco salad.D58826
He still hasn’t told us what the replacement PLAN is!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
OGLiberal
@FlipYrWhig: That was it. They were happy to say, “see, we’re not racist – we elected a black president”, as long as black Americas continued to let themselves be shit on and kept their mouths shut – or at least kept their complaining off TV. Once they pushed back, even just a little, white America collectively wet its pants and lost its mind.
Thoroughly Pizzled
I was mad at the Democrats for taking way, way too long to write the ACA, but the Republicans not even having a semblance of a plan to replace it is even more pathetic.
And fuck you, Trump, and fuck you, Republicans. People are alive because of that law.
Steeplejack
Crowing again about saving those 1,000 Carrier jobs. Whoop-de-do.
Yarrow
He’s not saying Obamacare is the Democrats’ fault. He’s saying he wants the Democrats to be blamed for it. He’s telegraphing political strategy. Not super smart.
And yay, more trade war! Now with Mexico.
chris
@D58826: They’re gonna rename it Trumpcare. It’ll be great!
I can’t take anymore.
FlipYrWhig
@Steeplejack: And the one deal he knows is to license his name… for stuff other people want to do. He managed to go broke on gamblíng and football, two of America’s three favorite pastimes, the third being p0rn0.
Larkspur
“We don’t even have a border now, it’s just a sieve…” Take that, Border Patrol and associated agencies. You suck.
Rommie
It’s too bad the Democrats won’t call his bluff and leave the ACA to “implode” on it’s own. That’s a tell, his hand is garbage.
Larkspur
“It’s a wall. It’s not ‘a fence’. You just misreported it.” Mocking the reporters.
Yarrow
Christ, now he’s reliving his campaign rallies and what the crowd shouted out (“Build the wall.” who’s going to pay for it? “Mexico!”)
NotMax
Ah, so we’re going to tax Mexico.
Sheesh.
Emerald
@Thoroughly Pizzled:
I’M alive because of that law!
Larkspur
He really needs those ball bearings to roll around in his tiny hands.
bemused
Big mistake listening to this. I’m about to vomit.
Yarrow
@Larkspur: I hope the media figures this out. He is not their friend.
Elizabelle
Obamacare is personal to Trump. He’s so venomous about it. He wants to erase Obama’s accomplishment.
Problem is: Obamacare is working. Not as well as it could be, but nothing but opposition from the vast majority of Republicans.
FlipYrWhig
@Elizabelle:
He wants to hire people to piss all over it.
Rommie
So we should take advantage of other countries. Not that we haven’t, but let’s turn it up to 11. It’s Bidnezz!
hovercraft
@Mike J:
My senior senator actually being useful for a change, yay. According to the GOS, Little Marco was also pretty good with Tillerson this morning trying to get him to acknowledge that Putin is a war criminal. He was only espousing the neo-con position, but still.
Betty Cracker
@Yarrow: Sadly, if penning them up and subjecting them to his violent supporters at rallies didn’t do it, I don’t think light mockery will.
Larkspur
@Yarrow: Yeah, it’s not a traditional give and take, with clashes, but basically some mutual respect. They disgust him. He will go after them individually.
Steeplejack
Big signings starting on Monday the 23rd, because people need to party on inauguration weekend.
AndoChronic
Drink! He said Nazi!
Yarrow
Question about his “We’re living in Nazi Germany” tweet. Now he calls the Intelligence agencies false and fake. Now, info false and fake.
He’s going to go after Buzzfeed. I hope they’re prepared. Oh, and now CNN.
Betty Cracker
Now he’s attacking the intel agencies again, calling them Nazis. Are you gonna take that lying down, spooks?
Elizabelle
I suspect some people who voted for Trump out of a fantasy might have felt some apprehension watching that presser. It’s a torrent of words. From a grade schooler.
I don’t know how the country stands four years of this. I think we may not get four years of Trump, personally, but will befall us?
Larkspur
Oh Buzzed is fighting back. Come on reporters, back up Buzzfeed. Come on!
Yarrow
Oooh! What reporter was that that just told Trump “Mr. President-elect, that’s not appropriate.”
Now question about Lindsey Graham. He’s beating up on him.
p.a.
The tRump Presidency, 2017-?. Brought to you by the ghost of Salvador Dali.
bemused
Which new org is he singling out?
Mike Hamilton
If we raise tariffs on Mexican imports, and increase the cost of those imports, who actually pays that cost?
Aleta
He’s shocked that information that was false and fake was released to the press.
dmsilev
@FlipYrWhig: The Republican Congress will do that for free.
Hellbastard
Props to the CNN reporter…
Humboldtblue
@FlipYrWhig: He can’t stand the respect Obama gets from across the political and cultural spectrum. It drives him bonkers, what did he say to reporters right after the election, that he wanted positive coverage like the kind Obama got for eight years? When told Obama got plenty of bad press he denied “not Obama!”
Thoroughly Pizzled
Thank God for BuzzFeed. Bulldoze the New York Times, change the name of “Times Square” to “BuzzFeed Square.”
GregB
Last question to Jeff Gannon at Talent News.
hedgehog the occasional commenter
@Elizabelle: I’m not sure we’ll make it 30 minutes after he gets the launch codes.
Jeffro
So to sum it all up:
– no tax returns, ever (“post-audit” was a lie)
– no divesting, no blind trust (also lies)
– going after the IC
– going after the press
– has no business, loans, etc with Russia
Hmm…
Lizzy L
Big thanks to all of you for watching/listening and reporting what’s going on. I CANNOT watch the man.
The Moar You Know
Next four years aren’t going to be America’s best moments, looks like.
trollhattan
“Moral compass…very dishonest people…”
p.a.
@Lizzy L: seconded
Miss Bianca
@SiubhanDuinne: Girl, you keep cracking me up…
mai naem mobile
CNN didn’t even report the orIginla Michael Cohen deal. It was Buzzfeed. And he’s a fucking moron if he looks at Cohens passport and that’s all. It’s a lie anyway but jeezus he’s a fucking moron.
Steeplejack (phone)
@bemused:
BuzzFeed, a “pile of garbage.”
Larkspur
Gosh, he really hates the United States. We are the worst in everything. We suck. We do everything really badly.
Only he can save us.
Yarrow
Trump looks more and more like older Boris Yeltsin.
aimai
@FlipYrWhig: Agreed. Besides–the Clintons (and the democrats) have always been tagged as “other/nonwhite” for purposes of right wing attacks. They feared Bill Clinton’s good ol’ boy affect and ability to appeal to the White Working Class and they always attacked him for it. HRC was always considered an outsider/pro-black/agitator/feminist/liberal and she paid for it. Not for being white but for the ways white liberal were considered identical to black radical by the republicans and the media.
O. Felix Culpa
The dog is telling me it’s time for a walk. He’s right. I trust you jackals to let me know if anything meaningful happens.
Betty Cracker
Again, minimizing the Russian hacking. Trump is Putin’s PR flack.
catclub
@Elizabelle:
I tried to read the transcript that NPR has up. It was gibberish. I will wait until they get a better one.
cosima
I’m confused about who this press conference is being given to ———
I cannot bear to watch the video, listen to it, etc., fortunately many good BJ folk here willing to take one for the team, and I’ve read all of the comments.
But this does not seem to be a press conference in a historically understood sense. Are these hand-picked MSM scum asking the questions + a touring Pro-T/P mob that he’s hired full-time (providing the obligatory claps & cheers)?
Steeplejack (phone)
I really think Trump’s “the RNC didn’t get hacked” thing is going to come back to bite him in the ass, bigly.
And of course he takes credit for it: “I told Reince Priebus blah blah blah.”
Yarrow
Now he’s claiming he set up the Intelligence Community by having a secret meeting that he “told nobody about” and then after the meeting it leaked. Implying the IC is to blame. Wow.
Thoroughly Pizzled
@aimai: Bill Clinton was poor and from Arkansas. I’m sure that had something to do with it.
Larkspur
WTF is this about a re-set button. Garbage. Is this the end of the press conference? What a *-ton of bullroar.
Betty Cracker
Dragging on Hillary again while minimizing Russian malfeasance. What a fucking baby.
JPL
He did not answer the question about whether or not his campaign had contacts with Russia..
Thoroughly Pizzled
He’s STILL complaining about the Democrats and Hillary. They have nothing other than “You too, neener neener neener.”
Rommie
RESPECT MAH AUTHORITA Putin! (Fred Flintstone voice) “Oh, boy”
bemused
It’s all gibberish. What was he going on about reset button and Hillary? Not that it matters. Even dumber word salads than Palin.
Yarrow
Trump always has a tell. As he was ending the press conference he said, “Goodbye everybody. Goodbye.” I think he’s signaling…
Larkspur
“A big fat nothing cake” – good MSNBC reference to everything the lawyer said.
khead
It’s just another Trump rally. Same talking points even.
Jerzy Russian
Jesus fuck, what just happened?
Thoroughly Pizzled
@Larkspur: Conservatives are fucking obsessed with the “reset button,” along with the “pen and a phone” and “If I had a son.”
cynthia ackerman
I had to tune out at, “It would have been the biggest story in the history of stories.” Self-important, repulsive jerk.
Elizabelle
@The Moar You Know:
LOL. That’s tagline material.
Yarrow
Apparently John Schindler has a scoop coming. Keep tuned to his Twitter feed.
Mike in NC
That was just fucking surreal. Too early to start drinking.
FlipYrWhig
@aimai: Yup. Drifting towards OT but I have a lingering suspicion that Hillary Clinton lost significant votes from the exact opposition direction too: from younger people of color and college-aged people of all races who bought into the arguments about “the Clintons” and mass incarceration aired most prominently by Michelle Alexander’s _New Jim Crow_. She ended up too intersectional-feminist-“SJW” for one side and not enough for the other. SMH.
p.a.
@Elizabelle: we may end it aspiring to BananaRepublic status.
Larkspur
Oh it was the CNN reporter who got smacked around, not Buzzfeed. Wow.
dexwood
@Mike in NC:
Perhaps a good day to revive the three martini lunch.
Aleta
An offspring of Captain Bligh raised by Capt. Hook and trained by Capt. Ahab is at the helm of the Good Ship of No Return.
Larkspur
@Aleta: You forgot Captain Queeg.
bemused
@Jerzy Russian:
Ha! That is the daily reaction to Trump. Stuff of nightmares.
hovercraft
@Patricia Kayden: President Obama got elected for the same reason this asswipe, in one sense. They never thought that America would really elect a black man president, so many of them took it for granted and stayed home, because they didn’t love McCain and RMoney, that is why there were so many people out in “heartland America” available to come out of the woodwork and swing the election to him. They hadn’t voted in at least a decade, so they were not polled, but to stamp out the stain of that black man in the White House they were wiling to come out, this time they would make sure that a woman closely associated with him, and you know a woman, would not get in. Too many people on our side, watched spectacles like the one many of you just witnessed, and said, there is no way in hell that America would elect a rancid racist asshole, and they stayed home because Hillary was not their perfect candidate.
The big difference of course is that we were counting on America to live up to all of it’s promise and potential by electing an eminently qualified mature person to lead our nation, they were counting on America to do all it could to exclude and subjugate those who are different, and their candidate was and is a rancid boil.
Tom65
BUT WHAT ABOUT THE YELLOW PERIL?
So many unanswered questions…
Aleta
@Larkspur: Perhaps he will board in the night.
Adrift
Oh God Schmuck Todd is mediasplaining why Trump is perfectly normal. Disgraceful.
ruemara
@Patricia Kayden: No. It’s a mental thing. Be glad you don’t understand.
hilts
@Larkspur:
It was Jim Acosta from CNN.
Yarrow
@Adrift: So…what do the Russians have on Chuck Todd?
p.a.
“… a Republic if you can keep it…” Well 228 years is a pretty good run. Too slow on ending slavery, genocidal to natives, fitful at expanding equality for all, helped defeat fascism, some positives towards international cooperation, wore down Soviet Communism albeit with some tragic military adventurism. C+, B-
Time to learn Mandarin.
Adrift
@Yarrow:
Well, now that it’s out there It would be irresponsible to not speculate..
Barbara
@Humboldtblue: You know what? People have been screwing themselves over by elevating their felt “need” to voice resentment over other needs for a long time now. I can’t feel sorry for these people anymore. I can only feel sorry for people who try in good faith to get over their lizard brain feelings.
muddy
@Adrift: In fact I recently read on the internet that the Russians have something on Chuck Todd.
O. Felix Culpa
We’re back from our walk. The dog marked sundry bushes and stones and left a few piles here and there. Any difference from the press conference?
Adrift
@muddy: I heard that many, many people, great people, amazing people say that Schmuck was behind Tim Russert’s demise.
rikyrah
@Humboldtblue:
Not just him, but the entire GOP.
artem1s
@? Martin:
also, everyone was relieved when he finally died. no one is gonna weep or be sorry when Twitler is gone.
cynthia ackerman
@O. Felix Culpa:
Your dog actually made sense and good use of everyone’s time.
Yarrow
@Adrift: It’s a story I’m hearing.
Chris T.
@Adrift: Yes, it’s one of the so-called “laws” in the so-called “Constitution”…
Fr33d0m
Mr. Trump, did you have sex with Russian whores, escorts, or animals? Considering your love of gold, are the rumors that you engaged in or received golden showers accurate?
Miss Bianca
@O. Felix Culpa: As far as I can tell, no.
O. Felix Culpa
@cynthia ackerman: @Miss Bianca: We also had the benefit of good, fresh air and beautiful views. My Pippin chose rightly.
satby
@O. Felix Culpa: I nominate Pippin for President. Clearly a better choice than the shitgibbon.
tobie
@FlipYrWhig:
It’s anecdotal but everything you say here rings true with my phone banking experiences in Wisconsin. Young person after young person told me they couldn’t pull the lever for her because she was owned by the banks. It was so depressing. Now we have to deal with this whole mendacious, incompetent and destructive crew. Maybe we should call the Trump White House the Wrecking Crew.
pat
@tobie:
I did a lot of door-to-door canvassing in Wisconsin and met several young people who thought Hillary was “corrupt” and they might vote for Jill Stein. Could not get through to them, all I could say was, Well, it’s going to be Hillary or Trump.
Sad.
Peale
I just can’t get the hatred from my heart right now and it will only get worse. I hate him. I hate his voters. I hate veterans groups that cry. I hate evangelical Christian groups and their constant emotional baby religion. I went somewhere this weekend and we couldn’t get started for all the stops for stupid rituals honoring veterans, then those serving now, then our fucking men in blue then their false Christian god. All tears all the time. I hate them. I hope the VA is privatized then closed then all the whiny veterans groups can turn to their churches for help only to find that those false Christians don’t give a fuck about men without arms. I hate their guns. I hate their fetus worship. I hate them for this. I hope their meth head children die young. I hope they suffer from bury their children. I can’t stop this. But I can’t go on pretending that I can tolerate married white people, their brats, their dead soldiers and their public piety that masks private depravity. Fuck them.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Betty Cracker: “His answers are all just excerpts from his stump speech. It’s all he knows. And the toady entourage who conspicuously cheer and clap are there to help create a rally-like atmosphere, maybe to help him barf up stump speech excerpts.”
If this is the best Trump can do before he’s even in office I don’t see Trump lasting. Maybe we should be speculating when pulls a Palin and resigns.
Peale
@tobie: I hope the millenial non voters never get a real job, and are sold into debt slavery in Siberia. I hope by the time they figure out what neoliberalism is, they come to the realization that they aren’t being denied wealth by anyone. They just aren’t good enough to work.
hilts
@Yarrow: @muddy:
What about the possibility that Chuck Todd is simply a horse’s ass?
Miss Bianca
@pat: @tobie: this is the thing that depresses the shit out of me. This is what makes me despair, sometimes. Hearing shit like this. And it’s not just young people – I got into arguments with Wilmerbros/sisses out here in CO who “knew” that HRC was corrupt, and there was nothing you could do to change their minds. You couldn’t appeal to her record, you couldn’t ask them for facts, you couldn’t do anything – they knew what they knew, damn it! And what they “knew” was a toxic stew of lies and disinformation.
I mean, at least with young people you have the hope that they’ll wake the fuck up some day, sadder but wiser. But people my age or older?
God damn the media and the right-wing noise machine. God damn them all.
I’ll have to ask Major4 to repeat me the wonderful thing his husband (I think it was his husband) said, about voting – how you could vote your conscience, or vote to prevent bad shit from happening – and that both were valid philosophies of voting, but only one would prevent bad shit from happening.
FlipYrWhig
@pat: @tobie: I hate saying and even thinking this, but I think it’s the “woke” who are the most unexpectedly blameworthy — the ones who rightly are concerned about black lives but picked a hell of a target at a hell of a time to vent about it. That was the other unintended effect of #blacklivesmatter and Ferguson. It made middle-of-the-road white people susceptible to law-‘n’-order posturing, which has been fairly widely discussed; and it _also_ reinvigorated The New Jim Crow argument in such a way to take a big-enough bite out of the Obama ’08 coalition. I can’t lecture someone about How To Be An Ally, OK, but, jeez, _bad_ convergence of new arguments, new argument styles, new sensitivities, and new media bubbles.
FlipYrWhig
@Miss Bianca: See, but that kind of lefty has been around, and insufferable, since SDS. IMHO the new element was the young white people who wanted to be outraged on behalf of black people and took it out on Hillary Clinton. I have no idea how large it was, but I suspect it was large enough to matter.
Thor Heyerdahl
Since George HW Bush is ex CIA, is still eligible for PDBs, and since Trump mocked and defeated ¡Jeb!, how much Bush family revenge will happen toward Donny Littlefingers via CI and deep state?
Mnemosyne
@Patricia Kayden:
Only if you don’t realize how creepily misogynist many white people are, and not just men. There really are white guys who were willing to vote for Obama because of his biological equipment, but would not vote for Hillary because she was a woman.
Miss Bianca
@FlipYrWhig: Sigh. Yes – and this is what makes me wonder about the new crop o’ young folks. The SDS’ers got their opinions formed about “sticking it to the man” early on and never, apparently, grew up politically. I lost a friend – white guy – who told me that he and his daughters couldn’t vote for HRC because Reasons, and I told him white privilege was a hell of a drug.
White privilege IS a hell of a drug, and we’re seeing its effects even when white people think they’re being “allies”. Sigh. Like TRUMP is going make things better for POC in America? Mr. “Hang ’em High, the Central Park Five, even tho’ they were found Not Guilty”?
Sigh. SMH.
manyakitty
@rikyrah: Jeebus
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Mnemosyne: Except Trump wasn’t elected – he was aided by a massive voter suppression effort and a foreign power who views Trump as a useful fool. That last bit might be enough to get the conservatives to come to their senses that winning to the point of breaking the system hurts them too and the fact that Trump is polling at something like 40% under what the president elect should be doing is a sign that might be happening.
notoriousJRT
@Adrift:
This is exactly why I don’t watch or listen.
hedgehog the occasional commenter
@rikyrah: holee fuck…
notoriousJRT
@Mary G:
Every time I hear that Trump has a 37% approval rating now and that 46% of voters chose him, I want to lock that 9% up for racism, sexism and treason. Too little too late, assholes.
Approval ratings are weird things, it is possible the 9% are pissed that he’s backing off some of his more outrageous promises or that he isn’t out on the hustings saying “what they think” every damn day. But, in any event, eff them all.
Lurking Canadian
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: Why would he resign? He can just sit there, being BIGLY YUGE and not doing anything, not answering anybody’s questions, and saying all the bad news is fake. He can invite the Russian hookers to pee on the Great Seal of the USA in the middle of the Oval Office rug and there isn’t a goddamn thing anybody can do about it.
Well, of course, there is a very simple solution, but it would require Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan to be human beings with conscience and decency, so…you know.
catclub
@Peale: What was her name, who said: “if you can’t say anything nice about someone, come sit by me.”
Dorothy Parker?
Steeplejack (phone)
@catclub:
Alice Roosevelt Longworth.
Miss Bianca
@catclub: Alice Roosevelt
ETA: beaten to the punch by Steeplejack, once again! Curse you, Red Baron!
MCA1
@notoriousJRT: That’s not it, I think. I had the opportunity, over New Year’s, to spend two hours at a dinner table defending my Clinton vote to a bunch of rich, white people who ought to know better but who all voted Trump. Hardcore Republicans, all of them, despite half of the older generation there being diehard Democrats and Kennedy lovers back in their own youth.
Anyway, there were two subgroups among these Trump voters:
(1) bring the anarchy, tear down the establishment (sheer blindness to the fact that they are said establishment), tempered by a foolish confidence that because Trump will surround himself with people who actually know what the fuck they’re doing they’ll only engage in worthwhile, Republican-friendly arson (delicious cognitive dissonance, given that anyone who knows what the fuck they’re doing in the way of governance has been the exact definition of the establishment that needs to be thrown out on the street in Trumpland); and
(2) I think Trump is a terrible person, and I’m on board with MCA1’s characterizations of him and nodding my head in agreement with the overall assessment of this loathsome, hate-filled, ignorant bully and his irresponsible rhetoric, and I’m pretty sure he’ll be a terrible president. But his pending shitty presidency probably won’t hurt me that much personally, and in fact might help my tax rate, so I am free to wallow in OMIGOD Hillary Clinton is the worst, most entitled stuck up bitch of all time and I used my vote to prove to her that we don’t owe her the Presidency and she should have divorced Bill, who disgraced the Presidency far more with Monica Lewinsky than Trump could ever hope to.
It’s Group (2) above that comprise the 9% gap there. They’re going to disapprove of Trump through his entire presidency, and the only open question will be whether or not time, and the constant exposure to him as an actual, acting POTUS instead of just Not-Hillary on a ballot, will make them admit to themselves that they were engaged in the utmost foolishness with their Trump vote. Not that they’ll ever admit it outwardly, or do anything other than blame Democrats for not beating Trump, of course.