Makes good use of time. pic.twitter.com/7ieSrT0d4h
— Schooley (@Rschooley) January 4, 2018
.
And he’s surrounded by the loveliest people. This tidbit has gotta sting…
So apparently Trump uses Just For Men https://t.co/MsIAjBtEL2 pic.twitter.com/sfQK3CJ2aC
— Ben Jacobs (@Bencjacobs) January 3, 2018
BIG ambitions, our Princess Ivanka —
NEW: ”Jared & Ivanka had made an earnest deal between themselves: if sometime in the future the time came, she’d be the one to run for president (or the first one of them to take the shot)…" (1/2)
— Peter Alexander (@PeterAlexander) January 3, 2018
NEW: "… The first woman president, Ivanka entertained, would not be Hillary Clinton, it would be Ivanka Trump.” (2/2)
Source: Fire & Fury, by Michael Wolff (page 69)
— Peter Alexander (@PeterAlexander) January 3, 2018
So if Wolff is correct and Trump didn’t want the gig and just wanted his own media empire, at what point does he call it quits from this “Faces of Death” snuff porn of an administration? Trump TV would be the modest start on unchecked fame and fortune now…
— Michael Weiss (@michaeldweiss) January 4, 2018
Fire Pence first, make Ivanka VP, then she takes over from dad like a 5th Avenue Aliyev. Keep the show on the road and the gold and rubles a-flowin’. Dad acts as consigliere/shadow prez in between daytime talk show tapings. https://t.co/bTuD2sdg1y
— Michael Weiss (@michaeldweiss) January 4, 2018
I wouldn’t worry too much about that succession, just yet, Javanka…
Bannon is not an exactly an unbiased source on Kushner, but still – this is really something. https://t.co/2yB2LRHMps pic.twitter.com/U39rBWH8uq
— Matthew Miller (@matthewamiller) January 3, 2018
My guess about accuracy of Wolff’s book: It’s based on *something.* I believe with my whole heart Trump is in bed by 6:30, randomly calling people he thinks are his friends and gossiping about other people he thinks are his friends. They are the sources. They are not his friends.
— ana marie cox (@anamariecox) January 3, 2018
I feel like Trump's inner monolog circles around to, "It's their fault for electing me" with alarming frequency.
— Schooley (@Rschooley) January 4, 2018
Everyone wanted to get ahead elsewhere and use the Trump campaign as a stepping stone. The win threw them into the White House, where they couldn't possibly come together because there was nothing for them to come together over. 4/
— Jared Yates Sexton (@JYSexton) January 3, 2018
And it's like this because that's who Trump is, and administration take on the personality of their leaders. He's never settled in ideology beyond survival and enrichment, there's no room for philosophy besides constantly changing and surviving. 6/
— Jared Yates Sexton (@JYSexton) January 3, 2018
Elements of the campaign sought help with Russia, others with fascists, others with white supremacists, some of them with all of the above. Now, it's collapsing in totality with frightening speed. 9/
— Jared Yates Sexton (@JYSexton) January 3, 2018
The big question now isn't whether this thing is falling apart, but what's going to happen when it does. We have a president who is unraveling by the day. His threats of nuclear war shouldn't be taken lightly. 10/
— Jared Yates Sexton (@JYSexton) January 3, 2018
rikyrah
That was a pretty good Twitter thread.
rikyrah
The jackals never believed in anything but enriching themselves, and it shows.
Baud
When I’m president, I will impose a national holiday dedicated to apologizing to Hillary Clinton. Hair-pantsuits will be mandatory.
Mary G
I am sitting here chortling at the thought that somewhere Mark Halperin is weeping into his whiskey and moaning “That should have been MY book.”
Ken
In fairness to Ivanka, I also have a bucket list of things to do when I become President. The different is that I’m self-aware enough to recognize that won’t happen.
M31
Trump made up the pee tape story himself, to cover for the fact that he wets the bed.
Baud
@M31: Interesting theory.
different-church-lady
Nowhere else do I see the opinions of so many people I have never heard of than thru Twitter.
Baud
@different-church-lady: It’s truly democratizing.
Ken
@Baud: File it under Johnson’s “just want to see the SOB deny it” approach.
Lurking Canadian
Speaking of Jared K, is there any news on the mortgage on 666 Fifth Ave? Doesn’t he need to come up with a billion dollars by February or something like that?
Kay
@M31:
But why does he “wet the bed”? If he’s incontinent he would wear adult diapers. He just chooses to sleep in pee?
different-church-lady
@Baud:
I’m just going to go ahead and order the engraving on today’s internets for you.
MattF
Hmmm, lots of ewwwww in that hairdo description. I’ll note that Trump allows Ivanka to touch him, so apparently Trump-family germs aren’t as dangerous as random germs.
rikyrah
I can’t read this book anymore than I can read Hillary’s. To read about the incompetence and these vile muthaphuckas ? would just stoke.the rage.
Droppy
Based on the great presidency of George W Bush, presidential children becoming presidents is clearly the best way to go. If that’s not proof enough for you, then remember, we’ve already had one president with a weird, non-Englishy sounding name like James or George, so Ivanka is the logical way to go. And, for any remaining haters and/or doubters who don’t see the perfect logic in all this, don’t we finally deserve our first sort-of-Jewish president? I don’t see how anyone else is even remotely more qualified.
Anne Laurie
@Kay:
Somebody would have to purchase those diapers — there’d be an evidence trail. If he just sleeps in his puddle, ‘the help’ has to deal with daily cleanup, but there’s no evidence.
(Not that I believe it’s true, but that’s how Trump would think about it.)
hueyplong
Damn, these last two threads have been Schadenfreudelicious.
The Maggie H’s Tears aspect is the kind of side dish that truly makes it a feast.
Gin & Tonic
The DPRK News Service Twitter account nailed it in one: “National Socialist Icon and leaky bag of decaying beetles Steven Bannon wages impotent ideological war on idiot Princeling Donald Trump Jr.”
Kay
So how many journalists with access to the Trump White House knew how bad it was but chose never to report any of it?
It feels like there’s been a concerted effort to present these people as serious and normal. Maybe we’re not as far from the days when they covered up presidential disabilities as we think we are. We’re always the last to know.
Cathie from Canada
Hillary dodged a bullet, which went on to strike the USA squarely in the ass.
Can you imagine what would have been happening in Washington over the last year if Hillary had won? Constant “investigations” by a delighted congress, media doing constant “exposes” of her supposedly-disfunctional White House, where Bill was actually running things and everyone hated her and how awful her cabinet really was even though they looked competent on the surface, and on and on.
Instead, we have the worst US administration in history, where the US role of leadership in the world is being trashed every day, and where US citizens are dying because of what Trump and his enablers are doing — in puerto rico, in INS detention centres, etc..
All following presidents will now get the break of being evaluated against the the orange shitgibbon — “well, at least he’s not as bad as Trump!” He has set a new low that will last for at least a century.
Kay
@Anne Laurie:
I can say this because she announced it herself but I was in Target with my mother in law and she was screaming at me across multiple aisles “get the Depends. I don’t want the knock-offs”. She’s a very confident person.
Mezz
Seriously, this shit is NOT helping me get through this (as yet slowly-developing) blizzard and attendant snow-day.
I had successfully ignored Twitter for a good week over the holidays, got a nice group for US History 2 in the Intersession, and today even got a snow day! Which of course, because it’s the Intersession, absolutely HAS to be made up, but the new salacious gossip is SO JUICY
Baud
@Kay:
All of them, Katie.
magurakurin
@Lurking Canadian: February 2019, 1.2 billion dollar payment due
MattF
@Gin & Tonic: That’s an epic Twitter feed. And I feel guilty about liking it.
magurakurin
@MattF: twitter has a signal to noise ratio that is almost insufferable, but some of the signal can be very, very good.
Quinerly
@Kay: If you take the first 33 minute panel discussion on Morning Joe as true…then it’s every journalist. They have had to keep their mouths shut because not on the record.
different-church-lady
@Mary G:
Mezz
@hueyplong: Indeed, a veritable banquet of ninnery and ineptitude.
germy
scottinnj
@Kay:
“At Mar-a-Lago, just before the new year, a heavily made-up Trump failed to recognize a succession of old friends.”
From the hollywood reporter article today.
Yes I again believe our media is failing us. what would be irony here that (as seems increasingly likely) the 25th Amendment solution was triggerred by Bannon blabbing and making the situation unavoidable. I never thought I would say this but if that is the end game Bannon really deserves a medal – when so many others didn’t. He can be both a scum bag and a patriot.
Jeffro
@Gin & Tonic:
Oh, GROSS. Thanks a lot, North Korea!!
Jeffro
@Jeffro: Um, i can haz moderation help? I’m guessing the NS phrase did it?
Lurking Canadian
@magurakurin: Ah, thanks. I thought it was Feb 2018.
Well, with any luck, he’ll be breaking rocks at Leavenworth by then, so he won’t have to worry about it.
Quinerly
@scottinnj: Hollywood Reporter piece by Wolff just dropped: https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/michael-wolff-my-insane-year-inside-trumps-white-house-1071504
trnc
@Kay: No kidding. And the flip side of that is, how damn clueless do DT and his most trusted future co-defendants have to be to have no idea that Wolff had come into the WH and gathered that much info?
That’s a rhetorical question.
scottinnj
The book states Hicks was sitting in Trump Tower with Trump and his sons and was “wondering aloud” how she could help Cory Lewendowski with the press, when the president interjected. “You’ve already done enough for him,” Trump allegedly responded to Hicks.“You’re the best piece of tail he’ll ever have,” he added, in a comment that reportedly sent Hicks “running from the room.”The president’s comment was an apparent reference to an on-off romantic relationship between Hicks and Lewandowski, the book claims.
different-church-lady
Am I a fuckin’ genius or what?
Jeffro
@Quinerly: Whenever you’re ready, Republicans…
MattF
@scottinnj: Trump was punishing Hicks for paying attention to someone other than DJT.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
I am thinking, this might be the kind of thing that kills Trump with his base. Sure Trump can scream “fake news” but it’s, salacious gossip and these are the kind of idiots who eat that stuff up, that’s why they are Trump supports.
Live by the reality show, die by the reality show.
hueyplong
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: But they won’t even know about it unless FoxNews covers it. Tree, forest, etc.
hilts
@M31:
@Kay:
Trump is equal parts incontinent and incompetent. Also, too Melania should probably give him a pacifier.
JGabriel
And truckloads of Clairol Hair Spray.
JMG
Trump has used reporters with so much success over the decades that he has forgotten the prime directive of news sources — the reporters are there to use you, too.
Betty
OT. This is Betty back in Dominica. Wish I could be in touch but not sorry I am missing this miserable episode in US history. Things here are progressing very slowly, still no electricity for most of us. Getting wifi at the laundromat. Have to run. Hope you are all well.
MattF
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: I think you’re underestimating the malice of the Trump supporters. As long as he continues the Hillary-hate, they’ll back him up.
satby
@hueyplong: They’ll hear about it. They may refuse to believe any of it, but they’re going to hear it. Starting with Drumpf’s denial yesterday, he’s going to ragetweet enough that will get covered for them to hear about it.
Sab
@Kay: I remember way back when you said Hillary reminds you of your mother-in-law. Well-earned confidence.
satby
@Betty: Glad you checked in! Stay safe and well!
Quinerly
See Hollywood Reporter piece by Wolff that just dropped. A must read. I think the base who voted for Trump for the reality show factor will read this. Now if we can get the National Enquirer to cover it, Trump is toast. Live by the tabloid, die by the tabloid. I say Trump is out within 6 months…most likely by resignation.
Gin & Tonic
@Jeffro: You know that’s not really North Korea, right?
The Ancient Randonneur
My takeaway from what little I’ve read of Wolff’s account is that the headline from the 2016 election should have been: “Dog Catches Car!”
Kay
@Baud:
Carefully editing out the episodes where he tells the same story 3 times in a 10 minute span. I bet he’s a bore. The bore at the head of the country club table where everyone has to pretend they haven’t heard the story before. They covered up Reagan’s cognitive decline, too. We’re really not that far from staging pictures to hide the wheelchair.
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
@different-church-lady:
I wish there was rec buttons on this site because that was hilarious.
sdhays
@scottinnj: Fake news. There’s no way Donny Johnny said “tail” instead of “ass”.
Yarrow
Did the bit about Trump clashing with the Secret Service because he wanted a lock on his bedroom door get posted here yet? Melania and he sleeping in separate rooms. Also, Ivanka was the only person allowed in his bedroom in the morning. GROSS!
Patricia Kayden
@Mary G: Halperin loves Trump so any book he writes will be fawning and complimentary. Wolff’s book is a searing expose and thus in no way comparable to any drivel Halperin would have written.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Kay:
Go read Wolf’s explanation how he got access “I asked them questions, they answered and being newbs told all” So as Baud said, all of them. But picture how many of them are gnashing their teeth that Wolf’s book could have been their own.
Chyron HR
@Gin & Tonic:
North Korea’s not real? That’s a relief. What about West Virginia?
Gin & Tonic
@Chyron HR: Can’t say for sure. I’ve never been there. My son says he was, but he could be lying.
TS
@Baud:
And it shows – watching any press briefing with Sanders – they ask nothing of value and never follow up on nonsense answers – I would perhaps give an exception to April Ryan
Yarrow
@Betty: Thanks for checking in, Betty. Sorry things are moving so slowly. Glad you are okay!
Quinerly
Thank you Jill Stein voters: http://my.chicagotribune.com/#section/-1/article/p2p-95585260/
WaterGirl
@Betty: What a relief to know you are okay. And by okay, I mean still with us! Being without power for all this time is definitely not okay. If you see this, next time you get wireless, please let us know what we can do to help.
Seriously.
OzarkHillbilly
I seem to recall a not well known Supreme Court decision about this kind of thing,
Gin & Tonic
@OzarkHillbilly: NEW this am: Trump attorneys
send cease-and-desist letterrun up billable hours on a pointless and futile gesture.SiubhanDuinne
@Kay:
Trump is scheduled for a thorough medical exam a week from tomorrow, at Walter Reed. The findings are supposedly going to be made public.
But her emails!!!
@Kay:
This is easily explained. Hope Hicks = “Journalist”. The majority of journalists are just as self seeking and in it for themselves as Trump, Trump’s staff and Trump’s cabinet. This therefore looks normal to them. It’s also why they need to tear down and denigrate administrations like Obama’s and Clintons. The idea of competency and working for the common good is foreign and unnatural to them, so they have to find a way to either destroy it or uncover how it isn’t really what it seems and is actually just their dysfunctional model in disguise.
Roger Moore
@Kay:
There’s been a concerted effort to present the Republican Party as serious and normal, and Trump’s people benefited from it the moment he became the nominee. The key thing is that for all the talk about Trump being some kind of uniquely terrible anomaly, he really isn’t. His political positions, with the possible exception of his russophilia, is hardly outside the Republican mainstream. Even his corruption is only the logical extension of what the party has been doing for a long time, e.g. all the no-bid deals for Dick Cheney’s old companies when he was running the occupation of Iraq. It’s very difficult to paint him as beyond the pale without admitting the whole party is there along with him.
OzarkHillbilly
@Gin & Tonic: I would say this was a pointless and futile presidency but they are making a lot of money off him.
Cermet
@rikyrah: That is a terrible thing to say both about Jackals and BJ’ers …because, that is our ID. Or were you?
Quinerly
@OzarkHillbilly: Left you an article on previous dying thread. Think it will interest you.
Zach
Something’s gonna hit the dailybeast in a half hour per Noah Schachtman and Sam Stein and not just the expiration of a press embargo for some other aspect of the Wolff book… which is news, but if there were anything really really unexpected in there it would’ve leaked already.
If Trump’s team were at all smart they would’ve leaked all the Wolff stuff whenever they first heard it instead of letting the publisher have it drip out two or three times per day till it’s published.
Cermet
@SiubhanDuinne: LOL – unless he walks in, dies on the spot, the so-called doctors will state he is in excellent health. If the former occurs, we will read tRumps twits (aka tweets) for some days before we learn he died. Of course, I am sure, a bill cutting medicare will have been signed by him in the meantime … .
Zach
@OzarkHillbilly: The best thing that could happen to Wolff and publisher and the American people is that Trump gets the book banned. It’ll leak; everyone will read it anyway; it’ll eventually be allowed to be published and it’ll have a good chance of leapfrogging All the President’s Men for sales for decades.
OzarkHillbilly
@SiubhanDuinne: They will release a “summary”. Make of that what you will, but I would not expect too much.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@Gin & Tonic: I can attest to the existence of Harpers Ferry and a restaurant called the Bavarian Inn in Sheperdstown.
Can’t swear the part Cole talks about is real. For that matter, is Cole verified?
Roger Moore
@Quinerly:
Not gonna happen. The Enquirer is run by friends of Trump, and they’ve been very obviously and deliberately doing everything in their power to help him.
Kay
@Roger Moore:
I was afraid they were going to use Romney to rebrand as “normal” after they all got the tax bill they sold their souls for, but then I remembered Trump is still President. They’ll try, though. Except a lot of Romney fluffing.
That tax bill was the big pay-off they were promised. Maybe the Mercers don’t give a shit anymore now that they collected.
Gin & Tonic
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: Thanks. If you can’t trust some random pseudonymous dude on the Internet, whom can you trust?
lollipopguild
Our national anthem should be changed to “Send in the Clowns/Thieves” at least until the current administration is gone for good.
Gin & Tonic
@Kay: I guess today’s my day for quoting the DPRK News Service.
SFAW
@Cathie from Canada:
I realize that phrase has a certain “poetic” appeal. Unfortunately it’s wrong. And I’m pretty sure she knew what she was in for as President, anyway. Or was she a complete moron, and just had no understanding that the RWNJs and MSM had not been going after her for 25 years? Please show your work in your response.
@Cathie from Canada:
“At least we won’t have as bad a President as W for at least 50 years” How did that work out for us. The whole “there’ll be a wave of liberalism/progressivism that will last a generation, in response to the catastrophe of [BW/Shitgibbon/Satan]” line of argument is Nader-esque, and not borne out by reality.
geg6
@Zach:
From what I read this morning, none of them have any idea what’s in the book. Word was that Hope Hicks has been trying and failing to get a copy.
Kay
Robert Mann
What a nice little club they have! Here’s your daily reminder that it’s been more than a year and we still know absolutely nothing about Russian interference in an election. Our election. The one we own.
A lot of other people know a lot! They have just decided not to ever tell voters. Who cares about THEM? Elections are about political media and politicians! Da Players.
OzarkHillbilly
@Quinerly: Thanx. I had a friend who grew up in such circumstances. It did not end well for him.
But her emails!!!
@SFAW:
Eh. Hillary was willing to take the bullet for the country and for herself. The dodge was unintentional, but there was still a bullet and it ended up hitting the country.
Quinerly
@OzarkHillbilly: Think you posted an original Post piece about him, didn’t you? So sad.
SFAW
@OzarkHillbilly:
Probably a redacted summary, because how likely is it that they’ll be allowed to write “He’s a really fat, demented, infantile, low-IQ narcissist who has no capacity to understand that being a really fat, demented, infantile, low-IQ narcissist is NOT a good thing, in no matter WHAT position Putin installs you.”?
Zach
@geg6:
You think they could’ve asked for a copy for screening for classified information since I’m sure some of the people Wolff had full access to crossed the line there at some point.
SFAW
@SFAW:
HAD been going after her. Too many effing negatives.
I blame Obama. And Ozark.
Quinerly
@Roger Moore: Knew that when I said it. A chick can hope. After all, Murdoch is calling Trump stupid, apparently on tape, to a NY reporter….Wolff.
SFAW
@But her emails!!!:
Yes, I know.
OzarkHillbilly
@Quinerly: About Grover, yes. Dying in a port-a-potty is about as sad as it gets.
Jeffro
@Gin & Tonic: I do now ;)
OzarkHillbilly
@SFAW: Exactly, not that they would be any too willing to back up the 25th Amendment to the GOPs doors anyway.
@SFAW:
Why not, my wife blames me for everything else.
Quinerly
Cease and desist letter to Wolff and publisher just hit.
Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady)
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: I was just at the grocery store where the Enquirer was on sale in the checkout line. The headline was something like “Corrupt FBI plots to impeach Trump. What Don Jr is doing to stop it.”
I laughed and laughed.
Zach
@Zach:
Here’s the story: https://www.thedailybeast.com/justice-department-looking-into-hillary-clintons-emails-again
TLDR: DOJ re-re-opening emailgate
Quinerly
Cease and desist letter to Wolff and publisher: http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trump-attorney-sends-letter-author-book-demanding-cease/story?id=52134956
scav
@Quinerly: Well then problem erased, right? Because noooo one knows anything whatsoever about the contents, let alone will speculate after that bold action, right, huh?! It’s like a neonate bunny’s approach to heavy machinery.
SFAW
@OzarkHillbilly:
Hunh … she blames me, too! Who’d’a thunk?
Yes, I mean my wife, not yours. Although if your wife ever meets me, she’ll probably shift the blame from you to me, about like that [sound of finger snap].
trnc
@Gin & Tonic: HAHAHAHAHAHA …
http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/367390-trump-trying-to-stop-publication-of-explosive-book-about-his
Have seen mixed messages about whether or not they knew about this a couple of months ago. Assuming they did, what a bunch of dopes for waiting until now to say something. Also, can’t help but notice the irony regarding DT’s alleged marketing brilliance.
SiubhanDuinne
@OzarkHillbilly:
I read the story Quinerly posted downstairs. Just fucking heartbreaking.
sukabi
@Kay: too vain/stubborn/lost to wear diapers?
J R in WV
@Chyron HR:
Nope, nothing here at all. Go Away! You didn’t hear it from me, either!!!
Miss Bianca
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
From your mouth to God’s ears.
cokane
you can’t fire the vice president