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Trump 25: Stephen King’s Next Horror Story


Destiny

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I think I'll take the Clark Griswold approach and tell people to kiss my ass, their own asses, or other people's asses....

 

 

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How will saying "Merry Christmas" to a Jewish person stop attacks on Judeo-Christian values?

Because the evil Jews should accept Jesus or integrate properly or something. Or because they are assholes who should remember that other religions exist. They equals the people spouting that shit for the record. Not Jews.

 

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18 hours ago, Cartmann99 said:

You know there's going to be some craptastic meltdowns between now and Christmas when the nutbags do not receive their preferred holiday greeting. :pb_confused:

 

Is it too much to hope that Trump says Merry Christmas to a Fundie and gets royally told off for using that ebil heathen name for the birthday of Jesus? 

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5 hours ago, apple1 said:

He says whatever suits him at the moment. Truth or lie does not come into the equation.

I think this is the core of what comes out of his mouth. He's in over his head and I think he knows it. In the past no one challenged him because they either didn't care or they knew it was pointless. In his little world, it didn't matter. He would draw out lawsuits until people gave up. Or pay people off.

But that won't work now and he is becoming more aware every day that there is a wealth of past public comment from him available to investigators. Even if he knows what the truth is, he can't remember whether he told the truth or not and it's on tape. He probably has no idea what he has emailed to people, what he has said in private conversations, or even worse to some random person eating dinner at Mar-A-Lago.

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I have to agree she is most certainly owed an apology. However, it is wishful thinking on her part if she thinks she will get one.


Frederica Wilson seeks apology from Trump and says Niger is his Benghazi

Quote

Congresswoman Frederica Wilson on Sunday demanded an apology from Donald Trump’s White House for false statements made about her by senior officials, as the president continued to attack the Florida Democrat.

Wilson declared that the deadly ambush of US forces in Niger at the heart of their dispute was Trump’s equivalent of the deadly 2011 terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya, over which Republicans in Congress pursued Hillary Clinton, who was secretary of state when the attack happened.

Senators from both parties urged the administration to release more information about the Niger incident, which happened on 4 October and in which four Americans were killed.

Wilson said John Kelly, the White House chief of staff, had smeared her after she criticised Trump’s handling of a condolence call to the family of one of the soldiers killed in the ambush.

“General Kelly owes the nation an apology because when he lied about me, he lied to the American public,” Wilson said on Twitter.

Kelly on Thursday falsely accused Wilson of using a 2015 speech at the unveiling of a new FBI building in Florida to boast about securing federal money for her district. Video footage of the speech showed Wilson had in fact praised a bipartisan effort to name the complex after two agents killed on duty.

Instead of acknowledging Kelly’s error, the White House falsely suggested that the video had supported his remarks. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the White House press secretary, dismissed Wilson – who is known in Congress for her colourful stetsons – as being “all hat, no cattle”.

The quarrel began when Wilson disclosed Trump had told Sgt La David Johnson’s grieving widow that the green beret “knew what he signed up for” before being killed by insurgents in Niger. Wilson, a friend of Johnson’s family, had been invited to join them to listen to the president’s call.

Trump repeatedly denied making the comment and said he had proof Wilson’s claim was untrue. After Trump failed to produce such proof, Kelly appeared to confirm Wilson’s account of the call in his remarks on Thursday at the White House, even while condemning her for making it public.

Trump on Sunday morning posted his fifth tweet criticising Wilson. “Wacky Congresswoman Wilson is the gift that keeps on giving for the Republican Party, a disaster for Dems,” he wrote. “You watch her in action & vote R!”

The dispute has revived wider concerns about the fatal incident – in which the US soldiers were killed during an attack on their convoy and five Nigerien soldiers also died – and about America’s role in anti-terror efforts in the west African state. Authorities suspect militants affiliated to the Islamic State were responsible for the ambush. Sgt Johnson was buried in Florida on Saturday.

Conflicting accounts of what led to the attack given by US and Nigerien officials have led members of Congress including John McCain, the Republican chair of the Senate armed services committee, to criticise the Pentagon’s response.

Senator James Lankford, Republican of Oklahoma, said on Sunday he shared concerns over the contradicting narratives. “At this point we have conflicting stories,” Lankford said on CBS’s Face The Nation. “We want to be able to get the full, accurate story and get it right.”

Lankford’s sentiments were echoed by Senator Lindsey Graham, a Republican from South Carolina, and Senator Charles Schumer, a Democrat of New York.

“I didn’t know there was 1,000 troops in Niger,” Graham said on NBC’s Meet the Press. “This is an endless war without boundaries and no limitation on time and geography … You’ve got to tell us more and [McCain] is right to say that.”

Schumer, the Senate minority leader, said he was similarly unaware. Schumer said information being provided by the Trump administration was “not adequate” and should be re-examined.

“We need to look at this carefully,” Schumer told NBC. “This is a brave new world. There are no set battle plans.”

 

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1 hour ago, 47of74 said:

I think I'll take the Clark Griswold approach and tell people to kiss my ass, their own asses, or other people's asses...

Sung to the tune of Jingle Bells:

Oh, kiss my ass

kiss my ass

kiss my ass today!

Oh, what fun it is to tell you to kiss my ass today! :kiss-ass:

 

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1 hour ago, Palimpsest said:

Is it too much to hope that Trump says Merry Christmas to a Fundie and gets royally told off for using that ebil heathen name for the birthday of Jesus? 

Well, of course many fundies sold their souls to Satan to get Donald J. Putinfluffer elected so they'd probably smile, nod, and say what a great big time Christian said Putinfluffer is.

 

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36 minutes ago, 47of74 said:

Well, of course many fundies sold their souls to Satan to get Donald J. Putinfluffer elected so they'd probably smile, nod, and say what a great big time Christian said Putinfluffer is.

 I posted this earlier today in the doom bucket thread:

:pb_rollseyes:

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9 minutes ago, Cartmann99 said:

 I posted this earlier today in the doom bucket thread:

:pb_rollseyes:

Citations required. Not for the going insane part, but for the loving and honouring god bit. What, exactly, has he done to indicate this is true?

I'll wait for those sources credible sources, not Faux News, Mr. Bakker.

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Jim Bakker says that "unsaved people are going insane" over the fact that Trump loves and honors God.

Little Jimmie Bakker is selling more than doom buckets. 

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1 hour ago, Cartmann99 said:

 I posted this earlier today in the doom bucket thread:

:pb_rollseyes:

I want nothing to do with the demon that Bakker worships and says that der Trumpenführer loves and honors.  If that's truly who God is then I want no part of Him.

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2 hours ago, 47of74 said:

Well, of course many fundies sold their souls to Satan to get Donald J. Putinfluffer elected

Does anyone remember the article written by a Christian before the election where the author warned Christians that they were making a deal with the devil by voting for Trump? And that when you make a deal with the devil you always end up losing? In the end all these Christians who supported him and continue to support him are having to come out and defend really, really awful stuff. 

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2 hours ago, Cartmann99 said:

 I posted this earlier today in the doom bucket thread:

:pb_rollseyes:

How does Trump honor and love God?  Trump isn't affiliated with any church or denomination, instead worshiping at The Church of the Holy Golf Club.  He also breaks commandments on a regular basis and has zero regard for the poor (unlike Jesus).  So, again, how does Trump honor and love God?

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24 minutes ago, JMarie said:

How does Trump honor and love God?  Trump isn't affiliated with any church or denomination, instead worshiping at The Church of the Holy Golf Club.  He also breaks commandments on a regular basis and has zero regard for the poor (unlike Jesus).  So, again, how does Trump honor and love God?

Love this ... The Church of the Holy Golf Club.  Where's Michelle Bachman now, decrying how much money Trump is costing the American people? 

Where are all the Republicans that were condemning Obama for golfing?  Obama golfed 333 times in 8 years, Trump has already golfed 75 times since taking office 276 days ago.  Trump is on pace to more than double, in only 4 years, how many times Obama golfed in 8 ! 

Where's the hue and outcry about this president ... oh yeah, he's a Republican so it doesn't matter.  Again, do as I say not as I do, or criticize!

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2 hours ago, Smoochie said:

Love this ... The Church of the Holy Golf Club.  Where's Michelle Bachman now, decrying how much money Trump is costing the American people? 

Where are all the Republicans that were condemning Obama for golfing?  Obama golfed 333 times in 8 years, Trump has already golfed 75 times since taking office 276 days ago.  Trump is on pace to more than double, in only 4 years, how many times Obama golfed in 8 ! 

Where's the hue and outcry about this president ... oh yeah, he's a Republican so it doesn't matter.  Again, do as I say not as I do, or criticize!

Yeah these GOP fucksticks only worry about how often the President and family are taking vacation or how much they golf when it's a Democrat in the White House.  Especially if the President in question isn't white. 

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Jody Hodnett has posted on his face book page trying to make a link between Trumpface and God. Why? Because Trumpface's mother was born on the Scottish Island where a "revival" took place in the 1930's. She emigrated around 1934 ish. It's a shame she did. Trumpface wouldn't exist if she had stayed put or emigrated to Canada instead.

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10 minutes ago, Gobsmacked said:

Jody Hodnett has posted on his face book page trying to make a link between Trumpface and God. Why? Because Trumpface's mother was born on the Scottish Island where a "revival" took place in the 1930's. She emigrated around 1934 ish. It's a shame she did. Trumpface wouldn't exist if she had stayed put or emigrated to Canada instead.

Or told her S.O. not tonight, I have a fucking headache.  

 

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7 minutes ago, 47of74 said:

Or told her S.O. not tonight, I have a fucking headache.  

 

Sadly, I don’t think it would have made a difference with that white pointy hat wearing husband of hers... :my_cry:

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@Gobsmacked I just recoiled in revulsion at the thought of trump being in Canada. Makes my skin crawl.

Being inside his head must be thoroughly confusing for him these days. Everything he has done his whole life - lying , pivoting attention away from him and paying people off is no longer working. The Mueller investigation is coming closer every second and he can't stop it. To me he seems more frantic and unfocused as if he could just hit on the right tweet all his problems would go away. I have zero sympathy for him. I hope he goes to jail.

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"The great dealmaker? Lawmakers find Trump to be an untrustworthy negotiator."

Spoiler

President Trump campaigned as one of the world’s greatest dealmakers, but after nine months of struggling to broker agreements, lawmakers in both parties increasingly consider him an untrustworthy, chronically inconsistent and easily distracted negotiator .

As Trump prepares to visit Capitol Hill on Tuesday to unify his party ahead of a high-stakes season of votes on tax cuts and budget measures, some Republicans are openly questioning his negotiating abilities and devising strategies to keep him from changing his mind.

The president’s propensity to create diversions and follow tangents has kept him from focusing on his legislative agenda and forced lawmakers who might be natural allies on key policies into the uncomfortable position of having to answer for his behavior and outbursts.

For instance, Trump’s news conference last Monday with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), which was orchestrated to project GOP unity on taxes, instead gave birth to the self-inflicted controversy over Trump’s treatment of fallen soldiers, which set the White House on the defensive and dominated the national media for seven days.

Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) spent weeks cooking up a health-care bill with Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) — and felt he suddenly had Trump’s attention and encouragement when the president called him Oct. 7.

Dinner with his wife interrupted by the call, Alexander said he sat on a curb outside a restaurant for 15 minutes talking about health care with Trump, whom he said supported reaching a bipartisan deal.

Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) said Trump called him one morning that same week, interrupting his workout at the gym to tell him, “Let’s do some bipartisan work on health care!”

But this past week, Trump created whiplash. On Monday — just moments after Alexander and Murray released the blueprint for a short-term authorization of federal subsidies that help lower-income Americans afford coverage but that the administration had just halted — Trump said he supported the effort.

A few hours later, however, the president was decidedly cool to it.

“There was a lot of momentum building for Lamar’s effort, until the president changed his mind after encouraging him twice to move ahead,” Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) said. “You know, who knows where he’ll be? Maybe where he is this very second?”

Corker said his fellow Tennessean has “the patience of Job” to negotiate with Trump, referring to the biblical prophet who suffers one curse after another but keeps his faith.

If the absence of any signature legislation is an indication, the dealmaking skills that propelled Trump’s career in real estate and reality television have not translated well to government.

Tony Schwartz, a longtime student and now critic of Trump who co-wrote the mogul’s 1987 bestseller “The Art of the Deal,” said Trump’s dealmaking modus operandi is, “I am relentless and I am not burdened by the concern that what I’m doing is ethical or truthful or fair.”

“The expectation that you will stand by what you said you would do is higher in politics than it is in the cutthroat world of real estate,” Schwartz added. “That’s a brutal environment in which misdirection and bullying and making one offer and changing it later are all common practice.”

Trump has blamed the absence of major accomplishments on Capitol Hill — one exception is the Senate’s confirmation of Justice Neil M. Gorsuch, Trump’s Supreme Court nominee — entirely on lawmakers.

“We’re not getting the job done,” Trump said last Monday at his Cabinet meeting. “And I’m not going to blame myself, I’ll be honest. They are not getting the job done . . . I’m not happy about it and a lot of people aren’t happy about it.”

But senators said the president shares responsibility for this year’s turbulence and gridlock, observing that the glacial pace of writing and passing laws, complicated by fits and starts, has been a culture shock for Trump.

“He’s a guy who, you know, comes from the business world and he’s in a hurry to get things done,” Senate Republican Conference Chairman John Thune (S.D.) said. “Around here, that’s hard. You know, things take a while. So it’s a process — and sometimes, kind of a slow and painful one.”

Trump’s lack of ideological roots makes him an unusual figure in Washington, where most lawmakers adhere rigidly to their party’s agendas. Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.) said Trump “feels much more comfortable working and talking in a bipartisan manner than he does trying to defend a partisan side.”

Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah), who met with Trump and lawmakers at the White House this past week, agreed. “I think the Democrats are crazy to not try and deal with him directly,” he said. “Seven years ago, he was a Democrat. It doesn’t take any brains to realize that he’d be open.”

Indeed, Schumer and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) emerged from a September dinner with Trump thinking they had a deal with the president to back legislation protecting undocumented immigrants, known as “dreamers,” who were brought to the United States as children.

But in October, the Trump administration released a list of hard-line principles that effectively derailed any such deal. The White House wish list included toughening immigration laws and funding construction of a wall at the U.S.-Mexico border, and officials ruled out granting a path to citizenship for the dreamers.

Trump has been traveling the country to pitch his plan for broad tax cuts, targeting in particular Manchin and other Democratic senators up for reelection in 2018 in states Trump won last year. The president boasted this past week of being able to easily pass tax legislation this fall, even though a bill has not been introduced.

“I think we’re going to have the votes for taxes,” Trump said Friday in an interview with the Fox Business Network. “And I will say, the fact that health care is so difficult, I think, makes the taxes easier. The Republicans want to get it done, and it’s a tremendous tax cut.”

But Trump has sent mixed messages about what this tax cut measure will be. In early October, Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (D-N.D.) told constituents that the emerging White House plan seemed to be the kind of bill she would support.

“I’ve met with the president’s people four or five times now, and they’ve told me, no, this really is going to be a middle-class tax cut,” Heitkamp said at a roundtable in Bismarck, near where Trump gave a speech in September pushing his tax cut plan.

Ten days later, however, Heitkamp told reporters at the Capitol that the administration’s plan remained a mystery. “I still don’t know what it is,” she said.

Schumer said the key to getting things done on Capitol Hill is for the president to take a back seat.

“Our Republican colleagues are going to have to realize, if they want to get something done, they can’t follow his erratic path,” Schumer said. “They have to lead him, not follow him.”

Of course, Trump has never considered himself a follower. Asked whether his advice would even be possible, Schumer said the Alexander-Murray health-care fix could be a model. “It’s going to happen on this,” he said.

One way some lawmakers are trying to influence and focus Trump is to interact frequently with him.

“He’s a dealmaker and he’s extremely flexible,” Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) said with a chuckle. Graham’s strategy: “Just keep talking to him. Keep him close.”

Graham has endured fierce fights with Trump — when they were competing for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination, Trump read aloud Graham’s cellphone number at a rally and exhorted his supporters to call it — but is embracing his role as a mediator between fellow senators and the president.

Graham has tried to iron out his differences with Trump over recent rounds of golf. They played together twice this month at Trump National Golf Club in Virginia, and after their first outing Graham apparently tried to flatter the president by heaping praise on his swing in an interview with sportswriter Michael Bamberger, who has golfed with Trump many times .

“What impressed me about the president is that he has a nice, compact swing, and he can get it up and down from jail,” Graham said. He added: “He hit the ball on the screws almost every time. He sets up behind the ball. He has an athletic swing. He goes down and gets it.”

Schwartz said playing to Trump’s ego, as Graham has with his golf compliments, is an effective way to manage him. His advice to those seeking to make deals with Trump: Find the most persuasive way to portray one’s agenda as a personal victory for the president, and be the last person to talk to him.

“Trump is motivated by the same concern in all situations, which is to dominate and to be perceived as having won,” Schwartz said. “That supersedes everything, including ideology.”

I know some think Lindsey Graham is a good guy, but his giving a blow job to the tangerine toddler, shows he has no shame.

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So, now that the Trump administration is in a public relations disaster with another Gold Star family, who will be on the cleanup crew? Will the Trump administration send out Omarosa or Diamond and Silk to try and show how much they love and respect black women? Will Herman Cain tell us that Trump donated a kidney to his wife Candy?

Gah! I'm going to make garlic knots and take a break from the stupid circus for a little while.

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Gee, despite SHS' protestations that you can't question four-star generals, the WaPo has published yet another demonstration of the utter hypocrisy: "Here are the four-star generals Donald Trump has publicly bashed"

Spoiler

As the controversy surrounding President Trump’s condolence call to a Gold Star widow rolled into its third day, the White House continued to play defense.

Much of Friday’s effort was on behalf of White House chief of staff John F. Kelly, who one day earlier had criticized Rep. Frederica S. Wilson (D-Fla.) for allegedly boasting during an April 10, 2015, dedication ceremony that she secured funding for a federal building named for two slain FBI agents.

Video emerged Friday showing Wilson said no such thing. In response to a reporter’s question, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders warned against getting into a debate with Kelly over whether he misstated facts.

“If you want to go after Gen. Kelly, that’s up to you,” Sanders said Friday.

Kelly also is a Gold Star parent, having lost a son in Afghanistan. His military career spanned more than 40 years.

“But,” Sanders continued, “I think that — if you want to get into a debate with a four-star Marine general, I think that that’s something highly inappropriate.”

There is, of course, an archival Trump tweet for just about every occasion.

In this case, there are at least three in which Trump slammed four-star generals — occasionally for slamming him.

Gen. Colin Powell

... < tweet >

This Sept. 14, 2016, tweet followed the disclosure of more than two years’ worth of emails by former secretary of state Colin L. Powell, which were leaked by a hacker.

Though the emails contain criticism of other political and military figures, including Hillary Clinton, Powell reserved his greatest disdain for Trump. He called the billionaire a “national disgrace and an international pariah” who gave voice to a “racist” movement to question President Barack Obama’s citizenship.

The Powell disclosures were posted on a site analysts have linked to the Russian government.

In a 35-year military career, Powell headed the armed forces during the 1991 Persian Gulf War and rose become a four-star general. Under President George H.W. Bush, he became the first African American to be chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and later became the first African American to serve as secretary of state, during President George W. Bush’s first term.

Last year, the National War College named a hall after Powell.

Gen. John R. Allen

... < tweet >.

Trump’s attack on retired Marine Gen. John Allen came a day after the four-star general spoke at the 2016 Democratic National Convention, where he indirectly assailed the then-Republican candidate’s support for waterboarding and his approach to international relations, The Washington Post reported.

“With her as our commander in chief, our international relations will not be reduced to a business transaction,” Allen said of Hillary Clinton’s foreign policy credentials. “I also know that our armed forces will not become an instrument of torture, and they will not be engaged in murder or carry out other illegal activities.”

Later that day at a campaign rally, Trump again criticized Allen.

“They had a general named John Allen, and he — I never met him,” Trump said. “And he got up and he started talking about Trump, Trump, Trump. Never met him. And you know who he is? He’s a failed general.”

Allen served as commander of the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan and was Obama’s top choice to oversee U.S. and NATO operations in Europe, but instead he retired to assist his wife with chronic health issues, The Post reported. He would later serve as special presidential envoy for the Global Coalition to Counter the Islamic State in 2014, a position he held for a year.

Gen. Martin Dempsey

... < multiple tweets >

Around the time of these September 2013 tweets, then-President Obama was reportedly weighing a military strike against Syria that would be of limited scope and duration, designed to serve as punishment for Syria’s use of chemical weapons and as a deterrent, The Post reported. 

Gen. Martin Dempsey was Obama’s chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from 2011 to 2015, and he had previously warned about the risks and pitfalls of U.S. military intervention in Syria.

“As we weigh our options, we should be able to conclude with some confidence that use of force will move us toward the intended outcome,” Dempsey wrote in a letter to the Senate Armed Services Committee in July 2013. “Once we take action, we should be prepared for what comes next. Deeper involvement is hard to avoid.”

Dempsey headed efforts to train Iraqi security forces during the height of a sectarian war “that ripped the country apart as Shiite militias and death squads as well as Sunni groups linked to al-Qaeda slaughtered thousands of people,” according to Reuters. 

More recently, after Trump erroneously claimed other presidents did not call the families of slain American soldiers, Dempsey said in a tweet Obama and George W. Bush “and first ladies cared deeply, worked tirelessly for the serving, the fallen, and their families.”

 

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I do wonder who will be this week's sacrificial lamb. The hot topic, or more to the point, the raging fire that needs to be extinguished involves black women, military service and the usual I-did-not-lie lie. This is a tough one for him, Omarosa has no military service record, he doesn't employ any black generals or even anyone who is black who has served to my knowledge. A problem for him

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http://www.cnn.com/2017/10/23/politics/trump-johnson-call/index.html

Quote

Calling the widow of an American soldier killed in action is, emotionally speaking, absolutely gut-wrenching. Knowing that nothing you will say can bring true comfort. Knowing a life -- and likely many lives -- have been altered forever. Facing down pure loss and pure grief.

As difficult as it is emotionally, it is just as simple politically speaking. You call -- or write -- expressing deepest sympathies and condolences. You offer any assistance you can. The end.

Which makes what President Donald Trump has done -- and is doing -- with Myeshia Johnson (and Florida Democratic Rep. Frederica Wilson) all the more appalling.

On Monday, in an interview with "Good Morning America," Johnson, the widow of slain Sgt. La David Johnson, spoke for the first time in public about her phone call with Trump. She confirmed Wilson's account that Trump had told her that her husband "knew what he was getting into" and added: "It made me cry because I was very angry at the tone of his voice and how he said it. He couldn't remember my husband's name."

To which Trump almost immediately replied via Twitter: "I had a very respectful conversation with the widow of Sgt. La David Johnson, and spoke his name from beginning, without hesitation!"

It's staggering to consider what Trump is doing here.

After spending the weekend attacking Wilson for allegedly lying about the nature of the call between himself and Johnson -- even though White House chief of staff John Kelly confirmed last week the basics of Wilson's account of the words Trump used -- the President is now suggesting that the widow of a soldier killed in action is lying.

There's simply no other way to read this. Johnson says Trump couldn't remember her husband's name. Trump says he used La David's name "without hesitation" from the start of the call. Both of those things can't be true.

Here's the thing: It is absolutely possible that, at root, this is all one big misunderstanding. Trump, awkward and unfamiliar with the empathy required to make this sort of call, came across as callous and uncaring to Johnson and Wilson in an entirely unintentional way. They were offended.

At that point, Trump could have made much -- maybe all -- of this go away by simply calling Myeshia Johnson back and saying something along these lines: "I'm so sorry our previous call made you upset. I struggle with every death of an American soldier and I simply am not great all the time at conveying how much your loss means to me and the country."

Would Johnson (and Wilson) be totally satisfied? Maybe not. But, it would be a respectful gesture to someone who has just lost a husband fighting for this country under orders from the commander in chief.

It would be taking the high road. It would be saying: Whether or not I said the right things, they weren't received in the way I meant them. So I am going to admit that and move on.

Doing that, of course, would mean not being Donald Trump. Throughout his life -- in the business world and over the past two-plus years in politics -- Trump has repeatedly shown a lack of empathy for people who are not him. And he has demonstrated, on a near-daily basis, that he will say and do anything in support of "winning."

That includes crossing lines in terms of criticizing the military.

McCain appears to mock Trump's draft deferments

He attacked Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain, who spent almost six years in a North Vietnamese prison camp, as a war hero only because he was captured. "He's not a war hero," Trump said. "He was a war hero because he was captured. I like people that weren't captured." (Trump received five medical deferments -- including one for "bone spurs" -- to avoid Vietnam service.)

He hit back at Khizr Khan, a Gold Star father who lost his son in Iraq in 2004, after Khan gave a speech critical of him at the Democratic National Convention. "Who wrote that? Did Hillary's script writers write it?" Trump said of Khan's speech. "I think I've made a lot of sacrifices. I work very, very hard."

And now this -- perhaps the lowest Trump has sunk: Disputing the account of a condolence call with a recently widowed soldier's wife.

Put aside, for a moment, the fact that Trump seems largely incapable of empathy. That's a massive problem in any person, much less in someone who is the leader of the free world.

Consider only how badly Trump botched this from a political perspective. We are now on Day 8 of this story, which boils down to: "Trump calls widow of soldier who died in battle, upsets her, disputes nature of call."

Politically speaking, this was a layup. Trump not only missed the layup. He threw the ball over the backboard and out of the gym. Then he went and found the ball in the hallway and deflated it.

It's hard to imagine how Trump could have handled all of this any worse. And what's amazing is that there is a 0% chance he will admit that he mishandled it or try to make things even marginally better with Johnson or Wilson. Instead, if past is prologue, he will continue on the attack and then use any public appearance in the coming weeks to insist events proved him right.

Stunning -- even for Trump.

 

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