The Times did a stinging editorial on Trump’s egomaniacal disdain for the intelligence professionals the other day.
What plausible reason could Donald Trump have for trying so hard to discredit America’s intelligence agencies and their finding that Russia interfered in the presidential election? Maybe he just can’t stand anyone thinking he didn’t, or couldn’t, win the presidency on his own.
Regardless of his motives, the nation’s top intelligence officials were having none of his nonsense on Thursday.
But what a grotesque situation this is – a giant baby pitching fits at professional intelligence-gatherers, who have to pay attention because he’s the next president.
With his refusal to accept regular intelligence briefings on threats facing this country and his persistent denigration of the intelligence community, Mr. Trump has shown time and again that he worries more about his ego than anything else. He is effectively working to delegitimize institutions whose jobs involve reporting on risks, threats and facts that a president needs to keep the nation safe.
Because his ego is more important than the welfare of 320 million people.
Mr. Trump and his spokesmen have continued to deny there was any evidence of Russian involvement, and on Wednesday, Mr. Trump proved he could still shock people by embracing Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder, who has been long reviled by Republicans as an anarchist lawbreaker.
On Twitter, Mr. Trump enthusiastically endorsed Mr. Assange’s insistence that the “Russians did not give him the info” with the leaked emails. This was after Mr. Trump had mocked the intelligence community about a classified briefing he is due to receive on Friday…
If he ever decides to govern responsibly, Mr. Trump has made his job much more difficult. Having worked so hard to convince the American people that the intelligence community cannot be trusted, what will he tell the country when agents inform him of a clear and present danger?
Oh well, there’s no chance he’s ever going to decide to govern responsibly (and he wouldn’t know how if he did so decide), so the problem won’t arise.
Whew?
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14 responses to “He worries more about his ego than anything else”
Considering the global reach, and the nuclear arsenal, shouldn’t that be 7.2 billion people?
Trump Gives Intelligence Agencies Their Daily Briefing
How long (assuming they haven’t started already) the intelligence services run operations on Trump? If they value the security of the US, they’ll pretty much have to. I know there are laws against that sort of thing, but they’ve broken laws like this before. If it’s a combination of national security and institutional self preservation, that’s a no brainer. Of all the stupid things Trump has done, getting on the bad side of the intelligence community might just be the stupidest. He’s not going to fool any of them that he “knows things”. Who knows, if Pence is listening and sympathetic he might just encourage ops against the pinching blowfish. He’d be too stupid and self centered to see it coming.
I wonder if Russian involvement in the election is a major topic during recent intelligence briefings, and that’s why he isn’t interested in them?
#4, it’s probably more the case that if Trump doesn’t already know it then it isn’t worth knowing. Besides, the intel people are neither very rich or bigly famous, and they don’t fawn over him. Trump only meets with rich, famous people who’ll fawn over him.
He really pissed in his bed by picking a fight with the spooks.
Keep in mind that this is a president elect who has said that his top priority is US national security, who is waving away intelligence briefings and findings.
“If there’s anything more important than my ego around, I want it caught and shot now.” — Zaphod Beeblebrox
Come to think of it, Trump has a lot in common with Zaphod. Both are egomaniacs who got themselves elected president just so they could rob the government blind. But at least Zaphod actually had a good reason for it.
I’m glad he doesn’t have three arms, but I wish Trump had at least one functioning head.
“One of the major difficulties Trillian experienced in her relationship with Zaphod was learning to distinguish between him pretending to be stupid just to get people off their guard, pretending to be stupid because he couldn’t be bothered to think and wanted someone else to do it for him, pretending to be outrageously stupid to hide the fact that he actually didn’t understand what was going on, and really being genuinely stupid.”
That’s the thing about comedy: it tends to come back as tragic history. And Zaphod was obviously two-faced.
Anyone have an orbiting petunia? Or some warm tea at least?
He knows what he’s doing. Being unaware of terrorist threats before they occurred worked out very well for W.’s approval ratings and re-election. Trump knows that. After the next attack, Americans won’t mind that he ignored his briefings and neutered the CIA once he flexes his muscles, rounds up the Muslims and drops some bombs on someone.
And soon enough, Republicans will decide the intelligence agencies were always unpatriotic and Russia has always been our most importantest ally.
I would love to believe that Republican voters will see what a conman the Goblin is, but I think they enjoy being led around by the nose too much.
Oh blast, should have googled before posting!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/968_Petunia
As for tea: gosh darn you to heck, B. Russell!
H/T: HHGTTG