Tag: Trump

The Post, with offended dignity and dignified offense, corrects Trump’s flailing claims about Amazon and the Post and the Post Office.

The president also incorrectly conflated Amazon with The Post and made clear that his attacks on the retailer were inspired by his disdain for the newspaper’s coverage. He labeled the newspaper “the Fake Washington Post” and demanded it register as a lobbyist for Amazon. The Post operates independently of Amazon, though the news organization is personally owned by Jeffrey P. Bezos, the founder and chief executive of Amazon.

So there, Mister President, Sir.

It got in an excellent covert dig though.

In Trump’s first of two Amazon tweets, sent at 8:45 a.m., he wrote: “While we are on the subject, it is reported that the U.S. Post Office will lose $1.50 on average for each package it delivers for Amazon. That amounts to Billions of Dollars. The Failing N.Y. Times reports that ‘the size of the company’s lobbying staff has ballooned,’ and that…”

The president continued with a second tweet sent seven minutes later: “…does not include the Fake Washington Post, which is used as a ‘lobbyist’ and should so REGISTER. If the P.O. ‘increased its parcel rates, Amazon’s shipping costs would rise by $2.6 Billion.’ This Post Office scam must stop. Amazon must pay real costs (and taxes) now!”

Geddit? It took him seven minutes to compose that one tweet. Seven minutes.

Trump is typically motivated to lash out at Amazon because of The Post’s coverage of him, officials have said. One person who has discussed the matter repeatedly with the president explained that a negative story in The Post is almost always the catalyst for one of his Amazon rants.

Or to put it less indirectly, he’s abusing his power.

The Post on Friday afternoon published online an exhaustive account of the Trump Organization’s finances “under unprecedented assault” because of three different legal inquiries: Special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s Russia investigation; the $130,000 payment to secure the silence of adult-film actress Stormy Daniels after her alleged sexual encounter with Trump; and lawsuits alleging that Trump is improperly accepting gifts, or “emoluments,” from foreign or state governments through his businesses.

Oh I missed that one; will have to read it.

Beyond Trump’s use of his bully pulpit to single out Amazon, the White House has indicated that there are no plans to take action against the behemoth.

Lindsay Walters, a White House spokeswoman, told reporters traveling aboard Air Force One on Thursday, “The president has expressed his concerns with Amazon. We have no actions at this time.”

But White House officials have struggled to back up Trump’s theories about the retailer. Asked why Trump believes Amazon is hurting the Postal Service when experts say it ships so many packages it helps keep the Postal Service in business, Walters offered no explanation.

Still, Trump’s attacks, irrespective of their factual accuracy, could impact damage public confidence in the company. After Axios reported Wednesday that Trump was “obsessed” with Amazon, shares fell more than 4 percent. They continued their tumble on Thursday, when Trump tweeted, falling more than 3.8 percent in morning trading.

Textbook abuse of power.

Trump…

takes deep breath

Trump proclaims April as National Sexual Assault Awareness and Prevention Month.

During National Sexual Assault Awareness and Prevention Month, we remain steadfast in our efforts to stop crimes of sexual violence, provide care for victims, enforce the law, prosecute offenders, and raise awareness about the many forms of sexual assault. We must continue our work to eliminate sexual assault from our society and promote safe relationships, homes, and communities.

Unless the sexual assaulter is Donald Trump. Then we sue the accusers.

Sexual assault crimes remain tragically common in our society, and offenders too often evade accountability. These heinous crimes are committed indiscriminately: in intimate relationships, in public spaces, and in the workplace.

Donald Trump should know; he’s committed them in all three of those environments…and evaded accountability.

We must respond to sexual assault by identifying and holding perpetrators accountable. Too often, however, the victims of assault remain silent. They may fear retribution from their offender, lack faith in the justice system, or have difficulty confronting the pain associated with the traumatic experience. My Administration is committed to raising awareness about sexual assault and to empowering victims to identify perpetrators so that they can be held accountable. We must make it as easy as possible for those who have suffered from sexual assault to alert the authorities and to speak about the experience with their family and friends.

We must? For real? But then why aren’t you?

Together, during Sexual Assault Awareness Month, we recommit ourselves to doing our part to help stop sexual violence. We must not be afraid to talk about sexual assualt and sexual assult prevention with our loved ones, in our communities, and with those who have experienced these tragedies. We must encourage victims to report sexual assault and law enforcement to hold offenders accountable, and we must support victims and survivors unremmittingly. Through a concerted effort to better educate ourselves, empower victims, and punish criminals, our Nation will move closer to ending the grief, fear, and suffering caused by sexual assult. The prevention of sexual violence is everyone’s concern.

NOW, THEREFORE, I, DONALD J. TRUMP, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim April 2018 as National Sexual Assault Awareness and Prevention Month. I urge all Americans, families, law enforcement, healthcare providers, community and faith-based organizations, and private organizations to support survivors of sexual assault and work together to prevent these crimes in their communities.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this thirtieth day of March, in the year of our Lord two thousand eighteen, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and forty-second.

He’s really got one hell of a nerve.

H/t Screechy Monkey

Cleaner cars? More efficient cars? We don’t need no stinkin clean efficiency! Bring back the good old polluting carbon-emitting gas guzzlers of yesteryear, says Trump.

The Trump administration is expected to launch an effort in coming days to weaken greenhouse gas emissions and fuel economy standards for automobiles, handing a victory to car manufacturers and giving them ammunition to potentially roll back industry standards worldwide.

Which do you want? Cleaner air or higher profits for car manufacturers? Tough choice, ain’t it.

Scott Pruitt, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency, is expectedto frame the initiative as eliminating a regulatory burden on automakers that will result in more affordable trucks, vans and sport utility vehicles for buyers, according to people familiar with the plan.

And to hell with the buyers’ children and grandchildren who will have to deal with the rising sea levels and dried-up rivers all the sooner.

“This is certainly a big deal,” said Robert Stavins, director of the Harvard environmental economics program. “The result will be more gas-guzzling vehicles on the road, greater total gasoline consumption, and a significant increase in carbon dioxide emissions.”

Achievement unlocked.

The rules, aimed at cutting tailpipe emissions of carbon dioxide, a major contributor to global warming, were one of the two pillars of Mr. Obama’s climate change legacy. Put forth in 2012, they would have required automakers to nearly double the average fuel economy of new cars and trucks to 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025.

If fully implemented, the rules would have cut oil consumption by about 12 billion barrels and reduced carbon dioxide pollution by about six billion tons over the lifetime of all the cars affected by the regulations, according to E.P.A. projections.

The rules also would have put the United States, historically a laggard in fuel economy regulations, at the forefront worldwide in the manufacture of electric and highly fuel efficient vehicles. The United States and Canada are the only major nations that have adopted mandatory emissions standards through 2025. The European Union has only recently proposed standards for 2025 and 2030, while China has only started to work on standards for those years.

Less restrictive regulations in the United States could provide an opening for automakers to push for more lenient standards elsewhere as well, leading to the emission of more pollution by cars around the world.

Don doesn’t care. Don won’t be alive to see the worst of the consequences.

Trump went to Ohio to give a speech on infrastructure (at least that’s what it said on his cue card) but instead talked about the usual cycle of things that interest him whether or not they interest anyone else.

President Donald Trump used what was billed as an infrastructure event on Thursday to instead deliver a politically tinged address that veered from foreign policy to Republicans’ prospects in upcoming elections to the reboot of Roseanne Barr’s sitcom.

Oh yes, a resurrected sitcom, that’s certainly at the core of infrastructure.

Trump’s speech was billed as a pivot to infrastructure to tout the economic benefits of his proposals to help rebuild and repair America’s ailing system. But the remarks focused little on their stated purpose, and appeared more similar to a Trump campaign event than an official White House policy roll out.

No comment made that clearer than when Trump lauded Roseanne Barr for the successful reboot of her sitcom. Trump applauded the new show Wednesday in a phone call to Barr, who plays a Trump supporter and is also one in real life.

“Look at Roseanne — look at her ratings,” Trump, a man who has long been obsessed with ratings, told the crowd. “They were unbelievable. Over 18 million people. And it was about us.”

Isn’t everything?

The day before Trump fired Shulkin in a tweet, the Post reported that Shulkin knew it was coming but didn’t know when.

The uncertainty has left the leader of the federal government’s second-largest agency, its employees, and even senior White House officials wondering if Shulkin still officially speaks for VA. It has raised questions, too, about what’s being done to restore order at the agency after weeks of turmoil have left little doubt that Shulkin, the lone Obama administration holdover in Trump’s Cabinet, is next to go in what’s become a pronounced leadership shake-up.

What’s befallen Shulkin is a favorite tactic of Trump’s, who followed a similar approach with Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and, to a lesser degree, national security adviser H.R. McMaster. The president emasculates those who fall from favor, humiliating them through media leaks and in disparaging comments to friends. The mixed signals often leave even senior White House officials guessing who will be fired and when.

“Emasculate” isn’t the right word since Trump certainly doesn’t treat women any better. Anyway the point is that he does all these firings as sadistically as he can.

[Shulkin’s] predicament is no doubt familiar to others once in the president’s inner circle.

During the last few weeks of Reince Priebus’s tenure as White House chief of staff, for example, he was so widely seen as weakened that some aides said they began skipping the meetings he called. Trump, meanwhile, told him he was doing a good job, even as other aides bet on how much longer he could survive. Trump eventually announced his replacement on Twitter minutes after Priebus walked off Air Force One onto a rainy tarmac.

In the case of Tillerson, foreign diplomats and prime ministers complained to U.S. lawmakers that they did not believe the secretary of state was speaking for the administration in the final six months of his tenure because Trump had so undercut him.

McMaster used to joke to other officials in the West Wing that any day could be his last and aides said his tenuous status kept him from doing his job.

Trump’s aides frequently ask him for the status of certain Cabinet officials so they will not say anything inaccurate publicly. Not checking frequently can leave an aide “looking dumb” with yesterday’s information, according to one former senior White House official. For instance, Trump told aides for several weeks that he was planning to oust McMaster. After a story said that, he told aides to deny it — and then moved to replace him less than a week later.

He’s such a prankster.

Shulkin, say people close to him, is under no illusions that he still has the president’s confidence. He has long feared that Trump will mete out the same fate on Twitter as some of his former colleagues have.

To that end, the secretary is laying low. He is limiting his travel to destinations close to Washington, canceling plans to speak next week at an annual ski competition for paralyzed veterans in Aspen, Colo. Shulkin is concerned, allies say, about the optics following an inspector general report that criticized a trip he led to Europe last summer.

Shulkin has told those he trusts that he wants to avoid what happened to former FBI director James B. Comey, who learned of his firing last May from a television report while meeting with agents in Los Angeles. Trump wanted to fire Tillerson via tweet while he was traveling in Africa to maximize the humiliation, advisers say, but Chief of Staff John F. Kelly convinced him otherwise.

Let me repeat that.

Trump wanted to fire Tillerson via tweet while he was traveling in Africa to maximize the humiliation, advisers say, but Chief of Staff John F. Kelly convinced him otherwise.

Yeah.

Trump misses Rob wifebeater Porter and wants him back.

President Trump has stayed in touch with Rob Porter, the former White House staff secretary who stepped down after allegations that he had abused his two former wives came to light, according to three people familiar with the conversations, and has told some advisers he hopes Mr. Porter returns to work in the West Wing.

He sees Porter as a “they just don’t understand us!” bro.

From Fire and Fury:

Here was, Bannon saw again, the essential Trump problem. He hopelessly personalized everything. He saw the world in commercial and show business terms: someone was always trying to one-up you, someone else was always trying to take the limelight.

Bannon realized it was about institutions rather than people.

To Trump, he was just up against Sally Yates, who was, he steamed, “such a cunt.”

What do we do to women who are such cunts? Bam, that’s what.

Poor Don. Yet another will you come to my party? will you be my lawyer? meets with a Sorry, no.

Two more high-power attorneys have had to turn down President Donald Trump. Tom Buchanan and Dan Webb confirmed to The Daily Beast that Trump reached out to them about representing him, and that they couldn’t do it.

“President Trump reached out to Dan Webb and Tom Buchanan to provide legal representation,” they said in a statement. “They were unable to take on the representation due to business conflicts. However they consider the opportunity to represent the President to be the highest honor and they sincerely regret that they cannot do so. They wish the president the best and believe he has excellent representation in Ty Cobb and Jay Sekulow.”

Do they really though? Maybe they do, but I don’t. It depends on who it is. It’s kind of pathetic what a lot of duds have been president over the past few decades. You’d think the job would attract really talented people but it doesn’t seem to.

Buchanan and Webb’s decision highlights the challenges the president has faced in assembling a legal team to represent him for matters related to the Mueller probe. Over the weekend, Trump tweeted that numerous lawyers were eager to work for him. But so far, his team has been shrinking rather than expanding.

If they’re so eager, where are they?

Let’s have another little hit of Fire and Fury.

Bannon described Trump as a simple machine. The On switch was full of flattery, the Off switch full of calumny. The flattery was dripping, slavish, cast in ultimate superlatives, and entirely disconnected from reality: so-and-so was the best the most incredible, the ne plus ultra, the eternal. The calumny was angry, bitter, resentful, ever a casting out and closing of the iron door. [p 35]

Lawyers probably don’t want to deal with On or Off.

Haha the Times (Shear and Haberman) calls Trump verbose. In real life (i.e. socially as opposed to pretending to be presidently) that would be the worst thing about him: the windbag aspect. I cannot bear windbags.

The verbose commander-in-chief has posted more than 2,900 times on Twitter since taking office, using the term “FAKE NEWS” to describe everything from the Russia probe and allegations of chaos in the White House to harassment accusations, the size of his inaugural crowds and heated arguments with world leaders.

But he has been uncharacteristically silent in recent days — to the relief of his advisers — as a pornographic film star and a Playboy model described intimate details of sexual encounters with Mr. Trump.

The library produced one of its hundreds of copies of Fire and Fury for me yesterday so here’s a bit about Don’s verbosity:

And yet his entry into the Trump inner circle caused Priebus his share of uncertainty and bewilderment. He came out of his first long meeting with Trump thinking it had been a disconcertingly weird experience. Trump talked nonstop and constantly repeated himself.

“Here’s the deal,” a close Trump associate told Priebus. “In an hour meeting with him you’re going to hear fifty-four minutes of stories and they’re going to be the same stories over and over again.”

Unbearable.

Surprisingly, Melania won’t be settling down on the couch next to Don this evening to watch 60 Minutes. He’s going back to DC but she’s staying on in Florida because reasons.

“The First Lady will be staying in Florida as is their tradition for spring break,” White House spokeswoman Lindsay Walters said in a late Sunday morning statement.

Ah yes their tradition. They have a long long long tradition that goes back to the Norman Conquest that he goes to the White House and she stays at the golf hotel for spring break. Tradition is a beautiful thing.

Trump, meanwhile, has been complaining to associates here this weekend about all the media attention Daniels has been receiving, according to people familiar with the conversations, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to be candid. Among other inquiries, Trump asked one friend how Daniels might affect his poll numbers.

Of course he has. He wants all the media attention to be on him and his amazing awesomeness.

He has 5 hours left to stage a diversion.

Aw. Poor Don is having trouble hiring new lawyers now.

President Trump has decided not to hire two lawyers who were announced last week as new additions to his legal team, leaving him with a shrinking stable of lawyers as the investigation by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, enters an intense phase.

“The president is disappointed that conflicts prevent Joe diGenova and Victoria Toensing from joining the president’s special counsel legal team,” Mr. Trump’s personal lawyer, Jay Sekulow, said in a statement on Sunday morning. “However, those conflicts do not prevent them from assisting the president in other legal matters. The president looks forward to working with them.”

And Dowd quit on Thursday. Rats, sinking ship, at all, maybe?

The president met with Mr. diGenova and Ms. Toensing, who are married, in recent days to discuss the possibility that they would join his legal team in the Mueller case. According to two people told of details about the meeting, the president did not believe he had personal chemistry with Mr. diGenova and Ms. Toensing.

“Personal chemistry” – what does that mean in Trump’s case? They seemed too intelligent? Not quite corrupt enough? Sketchy in the bullying department?

The news about the canceled legal appointments came as White House officials were girding themselves for an interview on Sunday evening on the CBS program “60 Minutes” with the porn star known as Stormy Daniels.

Yes, well, don’t be too surprised if Trump drops a nuke on someone in the next few hours, just to make sure nobody will be watching 60 Minutes.

On Sunday, one of Mr. Trump’s closest friends, Christopher Ruddy, said the president was “perplexed” by reports of turmoil in his administration. Speaking on the ABC program “This Week,” Mr. Ruddy, who is the chief executive of Newsmax Media, said he expected the chief of staff, John F. Kelly, to stay in his job, despite the president’s chafing at what he sees as the restrictions Mr. Kelly has placed on him.

Oh yes? Well if Trump is “chafing” then Kelly is halfway out the door.

Trump thought he was safe from the pesky students.

At least 2,000 people are expected to turn out Saturday afternoon for a March for Our Lives event in West Palm Beach, joining over a million people at more than 800 marches nationwide.

The participants plan to march along Southern Boulevard toward Mar-a-Lago, taking the same route used by Trump’s motorcade to transport him to and from the golf course.

According to press reports, Trump arrived at Trump International Golf Club just after 10 a.m. on Saturday.

When he leaves, thousands of protesters will be waiting to greet him — and they’re coming prepared to make sure he hears their message.

“They will have bullhorns. They are going to do everything they can to make their voices heard,” said local resident Michelle Kendall, who helped secure permits for the event.

“He may not like to hear what we have to say,” said Valerie Rangel, the 17-year-old student who organized the march. “I think he’ll get a really angry response from the crowd because a lot of people are angry that he allows groups like the NRA (National Rifle Association) to hold our lives hostage.”

Don’t worry, I’m sure he’ll tweet that the protesters love him.

He’s off to Florida for the weekend leaving the peasants to pick up the smashed crockery.

President Trump left the White House for Florida on Friday after a head-spinning series of moves on national security, trade, the budget and his legal team that left the capital reeling, sent the stock market into another dive and left his own advisers nervous of what comes next.

The decisions attested to a president riled up by cable news and increasingly unbound. Mr. Trump appeared heedless of his staff, unconcerned about Washington decorum, confident of his instincts and determined to set the agenda himself, even if that agenda looked like a White House in disarray.

Inside the West Wing, aides described an atmosphere of bewildered resignation as they grappled with the all-too-familiar task of predicting and reacting in real time to the shifting moods of the president.

In other words, he’s getting even worse, and we’re stuck with him. Let’s hope we survive the next three years and if we don’t, it’s been fun.

He had a tantrum about how nobody will buy him his Big Border Wall and threatened to veto the spending bill, thus shutting down the government again. Yes that’s what presidents do: threaten to damage the country and many of the people in it when they can’t force Congress to buy them a trillion-dollar toy.

Then he called a press conference and had a crazy tantrum there.

What followed was a bizarre spectacle that was part-signing ceremony and part venting session as Mr. Trump presented his audiences with his dilemma in real time. He raged against the bill’s contents and the process that yielded it.

“Nobody more disappointed than me,” Mr. Trump said in a verdict from a president who has called himself a master dealmaker.

In short the Times is frantically signaling us: “He’s crazy, he’s gone COMPLETELY OVER THE EDGE, prepare for THE END.”

Those funny eccentric people who forgot to be American have their thoughts about Trump’s choice of John Bolton for new national security adviser:

A fiercely intelligent man with deeply conservative, nationalistic and aggressive views about American foreign policy, Mr. Bolton may bring more consistency and predictability to President Trump’s foreign policy, many suggest. But others worry that his hawkish views on Iran and North Korea, among others, may goad Mr. Trump into seeking military solutions to diplomatic problems.

…and kill us all.

Unless, of course, Trump gets bored with him as quickly as he gets bored with most people and trades him in for a different Fox “personality.”

“Bolton is relentless, intelligent and effective,” said François Heisbourg of the International Institute for Strategic Studies, who as a French military analyst dealt with Mr. Bolton during the administration of George W. Bush. “But he’s not a neoconservative and has no interest in democracy promotion. He is a man of the Trumpian world — no allies, no multilateralism.”

Just all “Us First” all the time.

The appointment of Mr. Bolton has set teeth on edge in Asia, where American allies are highly anxious about a developing nuclear crisis that appears all but inevitable. Mr. Bolton, Mr. Pompeo and Mr. Trump all say that North Korea could face pre-emptive warfare if it does not agree to dismantle its nuclear weapons.

Set teeth on edge? That’s a weird metaphor. Anyway, that one’s the biggest terrifier.

Lee Byong-chul, senior fellow at the Institute for Peace and Cooperation in Seoul, said that South Korea must now manage its “very bad chemistry” with Mr. Bolton, “who is all about sticks.”

Mr. Bolton has derided South Korea for trying to play peacemaker with Pyongyang, saying the South was “like putty in North Korea’s hands.”

“We will have to see if Bolton opens his mouth and launches his verbal attacks against the North,” Mr. Lee said. “That will give North Korea an excuse to step away from its summit proposal. The Trump-Bolton team then will ramp up pressure. And we will hear more talk about a pre-emptive strike and see tensions rising again on the Korean Peninsula.”

Others thought he might temper his words, but China would still worry about Mr. Bolton having Mr. Trump’s ear, said Chen Dingding, a professor of international relations at Jinan University in Guangzhou, China.

“He’s a hard-liner, not just toward China but to the whole world,” Mr. Chen said. “North Korea, Iran, the European Union, the United Nations — every side — it’s not just China. But he does represent a worldview of the Trump administration, one of ‘America First’ and unilateralism over multilateralism. I think the whole world should be concerned, not just Asia.”

War with China – that’s an enticing prospect.

I see a bad moon rising.

President Trump said Thursday that he was naming former ambassador John Bolton, a Fox News commentator and conservative firebrand, as his new national security adviser, replacing Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster.

…

The appointment of Bolton, which doesn’t require Senate confirmation, could lead to dramatic changes in the administration’s approach to crises around the world.

His appointment is certain to scramble the White House’s preparations for a proposed summit by the end of May between Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. Bolton is a fierce North Korea hawk who, in his prolific writings and television commentary, has said that preemptive war would likely be the only way to stop North Korea from obtaining the capability to attack the United States with a nuclear missile.

Bolton has touted “the legal case for striking North Korea first” in an editorial in the Wall Street Journal. In a subsequent interview with Breitbart News, Bolton warned that the North was on the cusp of being able to strike the continental United States and raised the specter of Pyongyang selling nuclear devices to other hostile actors such as Iran, the Islamic State or al-Qaeda.

“We have to ask ourselves whether we’re prepared to take preemptive action, or live in a world where North Korea — and a lot of other people — have nuclear weapons,” he said.

We’re doomed.

During his brief run at the U.N., Bolton was often at odds with then-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. She told colleagues that Bolton undermined her and went behind her back to Cheney, his old friend and patron.

Those old grievances resurfaced before Trump took office, when as president-elect he considered selecting Bolton as deputy secretary of state. That job would have been subject to Senate confirmation, and opposition to the potential choice was swift and bipartisan. Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) vowed to block it, and the nomination never materialized.

Really, really doomed.

White House officials said that Trump made the final offer to Bolton on Thursday afternoon and then called McMaster a few minutes later and thanked him for his service.

A senior White House official said that Trump did not want to embarrass McMaster publicly as he had done with Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who learned of his dismissal through a presidential tweet.

Oh, iddn that sweet. This one time he decided not to insult someone who worked in his administration.

His struggles with Trump were often personal. When the president would receive his morning schedule and see that he was expected to spend 30 minutes or longer with McMaster outside of his intelligence briefing, Trump would complain and ask aides to cut it back, according to two people familiar with the matter, who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.

At times, Trump would tell McMaster that he understood an issue largely to make him stop talking, these people said. “I get it, general, I get it,” Trump would say, according to two people who were present at the time.

Some days, Trump would tell his staff that he did not want to see McMaster at all, one of these people said.

Of course, he didn’t get it.

But it doesn’t matter; we’re doomed.

Aaron Blake reminds us of other reasons – other than the danger of Putin – to be very afraid of Trump’s confidence that he knows what he’s doing without any help from pesky adults.

The episode crystallizes Trump’s tendency to eschew basically any expert guidance — even on issues of huge import. That certainly has implications for U.S. relations with Russia and for efforts to combat Russian interference in U.S. elections. On the latter, Trump has declined to take a harsh tone and has even suggested that he believes Putin’s denials. But, more immediately, it has huge implications for Trump’s impending meeting with Kim.

Immediately the blood temperature drops.

Trump’s penchant for off-the-cuff diplomacy and policymaking has been on full display during his presidency. High-profile meetings with nuclear-weapon-wielding dictators with questionable states of mind, though, tend to require intensive preparation and adherence to scripts. Experts generally tell you that you should go into such meetings knowing how they will turn out, one way or another. Failure to anticipate and successfully guide the conversation could have dire consequences, both from propagandistic and militaristic standpoints.

Existential standpoints – whether everything goes boom or not.

[G]iven that Trump has essentially accepted Putin’s denials of interference in the 2016 election, there is little guarantee that he will actually press Putin on the Skripal poisoning. Trump’s rhetoric has been pretty measured thus far, and he has apparently ignored his national security team’s desire to get him to broach the topic directly with Putin. As with the conversation about Russian interference, it seems Trump simply doesn’t want to press Putin in the way those around him wish he would, and he apparently can’t be persuaded to abide by even a very basic strategy.

There is basically no reason to believe that he wouldn’t freelance in a similar way with Kim — whether because of chutzpah or a complete inability to stay disciplined. And whatever hope there might be for a breakthrough from the meeting with Kim, this should severely temper everyone’s expectations.

Or just plain convince us we’re doomed.

Yesterday it was the leak from the White House that Trump ignored what the security people told him and high-fived Putin for the stolen election and refrained from asking him about that pesky nerve agent thing in Salisbury. Today it’s the outrage over the leak.

The leak was rather striking. CNN says Trump was still at home in his jammies (i.e. “in the residence” having “executive time”) when he made the call.

Trump was fuming Tuesday night, asking his allies and outside advisers who they thought had leaked the information, noting that only a small group of staffers have access to those materials and would have known what guidance was included for the Putin call, the source said.

So it’s probably someone who doesn’t mind being fired, as well as someone who thinks the phone call was bad enough to take the risk.

“If this story is accurate, that means someone leaked the President’s briefing papers. Leaking such information is a fireable offense and likely illegal,” another senior White House official told CNN Wednesday.

Yes but what about when the president is so corrupt and so lunatic that he appears to be handing us over bound and gagged to Putin’s Russia? Who’s committing the real crimes here?

The President often makes calls to foreign leaders while he is still in the residence during what has been dubbed “executive time.” National security adviser H.R. McMaster has been known to join Trump in the residence during these calls, and was present during his Tuesday morning call with Putin. According to the public schedule released by the White House Tuesday, the President was not scheduled to be in the West Wing until noon, when he greeted the Saudi crown prince.

So, CNN delicately hints, maybe it was McMaster.

It is still unclear if Trump actually read the guidance that was given to him by his advisers. Multiple officials have noted that he often follows his own path during his calls with world leaders. The substance of the call was not seen as a major deal by national security staffers, but the leak certainly was.

Another White House official didn’t dispute to CNN Tuesday the language on the notes provided by members of Trump’s National Security Council, but said Trump didn’t read or see the notecard. The official added that Trump often disregards advice in calls with foreign leaders.

Yeeeeaah, that doesn’t make it any better. Trump shouldn’t disregard advice, because Trump has no clue. He’s no more qualified to be talking to foreign leaders than his fashion-marketer daughter is. He’s unqualified and he appears to be corrupt or compromised or both.

Back to Aaron Blake at the Post:

Leaks are something of a self-perpetuating, vicious cycle within the Trump White House. The more Trump does highly questionable things against his advisers’ advice, the more it seems to leak out, the more Trump believes the deep state has penetrated his White House, and the more he disregards his advisers.

But there is an alternate explanation: What if the leakers are trying to help rather than embarrass Trump?

Sure, this could be about retribution against a president who refuses to listen to the Very Smart Experts around him. Those advisers are liable to take that personally and grow frustrated at being so casually and regularly disregarded. Imagine having that situation with your boss.

When your boss is a random unqualified but opinionated and also corrupt numpty. Imagine it then.

These leakers’ efforts might have been in vain, but it’s possible that they were legitimately trying to shift the course of Trump’s actions. Ignoring or disregarding key talking points while on a call with an antagonistic foreign leader such as Putin must be cause for concern. We forget how bonkers that is because everything about this presidency has been so bonkers and unprecedented.

Hey, I don’t. I think it’s as bonkers as it gets.

Oh there’s more. Trump was actually specifically told not to congratulate Putin on the election. By people who do actually know what’s in the security briefings, unlike Trump who refuses to read them or listen to them read by others. But he was elected King and Emperor and God so he can do whatever he wants to.

President Trump did not follow specific warnings from his national security advisers when he congratulated Russian President Vladi­mir Putin Tuesday on his reelection, including a section in his briefing materials in all-capital letters stating “DO NOT CONGRATULATE,” according to officials familiar with the call.

Brief shmief. He used to be a tv star, he don’t need no stinkin brief.

Trump also chose not to heed talking points from aides instructing him to condemn Putin about the recent poisoning of a former Russian spy in the United Kingdom with a powerful nerve agent, a case that both the British and U.S. governments have blamed on Moscow.

…

“It’s blatantly obvious that he has just an inexplicable level of support for President Putin,” said Julie Smith, a European security expert who served as deputy national security adviser for former vice president Joe Biden. “You keep thinking it will change as he sees his own administration take action — that this never-ending well of support for Putin will some how subside. It’s disheartening at a time when our trans-Atlantic partners really need a boost. Europe is looking to us for leadership on Russia in particular and they’re not getting it.”

Thomas Wright, director of the Center on the United States and Europe at the Brookings Institution, said Trump’s actions were “a sign he wants a pro-Russia foreign policy,” which conflicts with the harder line from his administration.

…

Trump’s applause of Putin’s victory was in line with other congratulatory calls he has made, including to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan for winning a much-disputed referendum that increased his already autocratic powers and to China’s President Xi Jinping for his “extraordinary elevation” after Xi last month engineered the Communist Party’s elimination of presidential term limits.

He likes the tough guys. He wants to be like them.

People expect so much of Trump – he can’t even make a damn personal phone call without kibitzers turning up to list all the things he didn’t talk about.

President Trump on Tuesday congratulated President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia on his recent re-election victory, but failed to ask him about either the fairness of the Russian vote, which Mr. Putin won with a lopsided margin, or about allegations of Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election.

Mr. Trump also did not raise Russia’s apparent role in a nerve agent attack on a former Russian spy and his daughter on British soil — an act that prompted the United States to join with Britain, France and Germany in denouncing the Russian government for violating international law.

Yeah, so? He wanted to talk to his friend Volodya, not interrogate a head of state about his crimes. Can’t a president talk to a friend?

“We had a very good call,” Mr. Trump told reporters in the Oval Office, where he was meeting with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia. “We will probably be meeting in the not-too distant future to discuss the arms race, which is getting out of control.”

If Putin wants to, that is. It’s up to him. Trump will do whatever Volodya asks. Meet? Cool. Not meet? Whatever you say, buddy.

The White House said Tuesday it was not the place of the United States to question how other countries conduct their elections — a contention that runs counter to years of critical statements by presidents and other officials about elections in Russia and many other countries.

“We don’t get to dictate how other countries operate,” the press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, said. “We can only focus on the freeness and fairness of our elections.”

Oh yes, Sarah Sanders, anti-imperialist activist, rejecting all that colonialist thinking about Great Powers telling Lesser Powers what to do.

Sen. John McCain, Republican of Arizona, who is chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, was quick to criticize Mr. Trump’s call to Mr. Putin.

“An American president does not lead the free world by congratulating dictators on winning sham elections,” Mr. McCain said in a statement issued by his office. “And by doing so with Vladimir Putin, President Trump insulted every Russian citizen who was denied the right to vote in a free and fair election to determine their country’s future, including the countless Russian patriots who have risked so much to protest and resist Putin’s regime.”

Well they’re not his friends. Vlad is his friend. They’re close.

In his remarks, Mr. Trump noted that Mr. Putin has expressed concern about the escalating arms race between the United States and Russia.

He noted that his administration was spending $700 billion to upgrade the American military, and said he would never allow Russia, or any other country, to approach its military might.

“We will never allow anybody to have anything even close to what we have,” Mr. Trump said.

AMERICA FIRST!!! TRUMP FIRST!!! ME ME ME ME ME

The New York Post reports an exclusive:

President Trump must face a defamation suit filed by former “Apprentice” contestant Summer Zervos after a Manhattan Supreme Court judge denied him immunity through his job as the nation’s commander-in-chief.

“In Clinton v Jones the United States Supreme Court held that a sitting president is not immune from being sued in federal court for unofficial acts,” Justice Jennifer Schecter wrote in a ruling released Tuesday, citing the sexual harassment suit that led to the 1998 impeachment of President Bill Clinton for lying under oath about his affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky.

This means that Zervos can pursue her defamation case against Trump for saying she made up the story that he groped her and pushed his dick against her in 2007.

Donk donk.

Oh look, no women. No women at all.

#Washington| #Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed and #Trump hold a lunch work meeting at the #WhiteHouse#CrownprinceinUSA https://t.co/Vx8eiJAykq pic.twitter.com/GKnKQKe0sg

— Asharq Al-Awsat English (@aawsat_eng) March 20, 2018