Trump 32: Pissing off the World, One Country at a Time

[singsingsing]

It took me a second...

G7 Meeting: Putin's envoy calls Trudeau 'very dishonest and weak' on US tariffs

Quote

LA MALBAIE, QC – Russia’s diplomatic envoy Donald Trump expressed his frustrations to Twitter to call Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on tariffs on US products.

The Russian representative, who once had a popular TV show in the US, took issue with what he called Canada’s unfair trade practices in the auto and dairy sectors.

(The Beaverton is satire, of course. But as we all know, satire has basically become reality. And this is truly just barely satire.)

[Howl]

On that note, let me EMPHASIZE, this is from THE ONION.  I emphasize this because we're so enured to insanely outrageous shit that we could read this and go, Oh well, here's to the start of another successful Infrastructure Week.  

Trump Touts Success Of Singapore Summit After Securing $10 Billion Trade Deal To Sell Nuclear Warheads To North Korea

Quote

SINGAPORE—Saying the agreement represents a major high point in American international relations, President Trump concluded his summit with Kim Jong-un Monday by securing a $10 billion trade deal to sell both strategic and tactical nuclear warheads directly to North Korea. “There was some negotiating involved in getting [Jong-un] to buy as many nukes as we wanted to sell, but by cutting the price, we came out with a deal that’s profitable for America and therefore good for the world,” said Trump of the pact, which requires the United States to provide the East Asian authoritarian state with 50 thermonuclear fusion weapons over the next five years. “We’re taking this $10 billion and investing it right back into our economy, our arms industry, and especially our great military, because now more than ever we’re going to need them to help train, supply, and reinforce North Korean troops.” At press time, Trump had threatened to pull out of the deal in a series of invective-laced tweets accusing Kim Jong-un of attempting to acquire $10 billion worth of nuclear weapons.

 

[Cartmann99]

Part two of the Four Corners investigation on Trump's ties to Russia is up:

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=10155630016065954&id=206765960953&ref=page_internal

Transcript below:

Spoiler

SARAH FERGUSON, REPORTER: In the heart of Moscow is the place that best represents what Vladimir Putin stands for, the Lubyanka, the headquarters of the old KGB.

MASHA GESSEN, PUTIN BIOGRAPHER: Putin sees himself still very much as a member of that corporation, as a member of the brotherhood.

SARAH FERGUSON, REPORTER: That brotherhood is now called the FSB, but it still operates inside the Lubyanka

Next door is a large toy store with a giant neon Pinocchio.

A reminder that in this city spies like Vladimir Putin have always been the puppet masters.

MASHA GESSEN, PUTIN BIOGRAPHER: Whenever he can, he has reaffirmed his allegiance to the Russian secret police.

He is still a KGB agent.

That's how he sees himself.

JAMES CLAPPER, US DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE 2010-2017: You have to remember how things work in Russia.

No big decisions are made, they all go to one guy, Putin.

So certainly, what Putin's doing is waging warfare against the United States.

That wouldn't be going on without not just his acquiescence or his blessing, but his active direction.

And again, remember his background.

He's a KGB product.

SARAH FERGUSON, REPORTER: James Clapper was Obama's Director of National Intelligence - the most senior intelligence official in the US during the election campaign.

JAMES CLAPPER, US DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE 2010-2017: There's a long history there trying to involve themselves and influence elections in our country since at least the 1960's, but never ever as aggressive, direct and multi-dimensional as this interference in our election process.

They clearly were interested in, the Russians were, I think in penetrating the Trump campaign.

SARAH FERGUSON, REPORTER: Throughout the 2016 campaign grassroots support for the rogue Republican candidate grew, as Trump continued to welcome the endorsement of the Russian leader.

DONALD TRUMP, REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE (March 12, 2016): Because Putin called me a genius.

Putin said Donald Trump is a genius.

Thank you, she said, you are.

Putin said good things about me.

He said, 'he's a leader and there's no question about it, he's a genius.

I love you all, thank you Ohio.

SARAH FERGUSON, REPORTER: When news broke that Russia had hacked the emails of the Democratic National Committee, directly interfering in the election.
Trump not only defied political convention, he flirted with notions of treason.

DONALD TRUMP, REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE (27 July 2016): Russia, if you're listening I hope you're be able to find the 30 thousand emails that are missing.

I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press.

SARAH FERGUSON, REPORTER: By the time of the first Presidential debate in late September 2016, Russian espionage during the campaign was a hot topic

HILLARY CLINTON, DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE (26 September 2016) : I was so shocked when Donald publicly invited Putin to hack into Americans.

That is just unacceptable.

It's one of the reasons why 50 national security officials who served in Republican administrations.

LESTER HOLT, MODERATOR: Your two minutes have expired.

HILLARY CLINTON, DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: ... have said that Donald is unfit to be the commander- in-chief.

DONALD TRUMP, REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I don't think anybody knows it was Russia that broke into the DNC.

She's saying Russia, Russia, Russia, but I don't -- maybe it was.

I mean, it could be Russia, but it could also be China.

It could also be lots of other people.

It also could be somebody sitting on their bed that weighs 400 pounds, OK?

SARAH FERGUSON, REPORTER: Only a week earlier, as the candidates were doing their debate prep, a former spy arrived discreetly in the US capital on a mission involving the Presidential election.
Not a Russian spy in this case but an ex-MI6 agent and Russia expert now working as a corporate investigator.
His name was Christopher Steele.
LUKE HARDING, AUTHOR 'COLLUSION': He was hired in the spring of 2016 by Fusion GPS, a lobbying firm, the ultimate client was the Democratic party, Chris didn't know that, but the question was what is Donald Trump's relationship with Russia, so he funneled this out to his secret sources and he waited.

SARAH FERGUSON, REPORTER: Steele was an MI6 agent in Moscow in the 1990's. As a private investigator he had worked on Russian cases for decades.

ANDREW WOOD, BRITISH AMBASSADOR TO RUSSIA 1995-2000: The former head of, of our, secret service had a very high opinion of him, and that his professional colleagues that I know also had a good, opinion as to his professional honesty and commitment.

Like any senior, British intelligence officer he would've had close relations with, um, various branches of U.S. intelligence.

SARAH FERGUSON, REPORTER: In mid-2016, Steele's sources had provided shocking answers to the question about Trump's links to Russia.

LUKE HARDING, AUTHOR 'COLLUSION': What his sources were telling him was that essentially there was a conspiracy.

First of all, there was a real-time espionage operation to try and affect the outcome of the 2016 election, and to push Donald Trump across the line.

SARAH FERGUSON, REPORTER: Steele first passed the information to the FBI but believing they had taken no action, decided to meet with a handpicked group of journalists.

Including veteran Washington reporter Michael Isikoff.

MICHAEL ISIKOFF, CHIEF INVESTIGATIVE CORRESPONDENT, YAHOO NEWS: It was at a private room at the Tabard Inn and it was all business.

I mean Steele was there.

It was clear he took this matter very seriously.

I think that he thought he was sitting on some bombshell information that deserved to get out.

SARAH FERGUSON, REPORTER: The former spy had gathered raw intelligence into a dossier 
about members of the Trump campaign and their links to Russia.

The information Isikoff focused on was about the recent trip to Moscow of a Trump foreign policy advisor called Carter Page.

MICHAEL ISIKOFF, CHIEF INVESTIGATIVE CORRESPONDENT, YAHOO NEWS: He told me that Page had meetings in Moscow in which he discussed the Trump campaign and help that the Russians could provide the Trump campaign in exchange for which Trump would be favorably disposed to lift sanctions on Russia.

But what really got my attention was he said that he had reported this to the FBI because he believed it was a national security matter.

I reached a source in the US government who was aware of the particular allegations in the Steele dossier about Carter Page and confirmed to me that the FBI was indeed taking this seriously, was indeed investigating.

It was the first story to report that there was an investigation by the US intelligence community into somebody involved in the Trump campaign and their ties to Moscow.

SARAH FERGUSON, REPORTER: The ritzy streets of mid-town Manhattan, home to Trump's headquarters and former Moscow banker and naval officer Carter Page.

Page was barely known in political circles when Donald Trump named him as an advisor in March 2016,

Two years later he's still embroiled in the Trump Russia investigation.

CARTER PAGE, FOREIGN POLICY ADVISOR, TRUMP CAMPAIGN: In every way it's a witch hunt. There is zero basis for anything related to the controversy surround, surrounding myself.

SARAH FERGUSON, REPORTER: What do you mean by witch hunt?
CARTER PAGE, FOREIGN POLICY ADVISOR, TRUMP CAMPAIGN: Let's look at the definition of a witch hunt.

This is a situation where you're trying to explain away things that you don't expect to happen, so you start attacking individuals.

That's exactly the situation we have in this instance, right?

SARAH FERGUSON, REPORTER: How did an obscure Russo-phile like Carter Page get catapulted into Trump's advisory team?

DONALD TRUMP, REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE (August 2016): Wouldn't it be great if we actually got along with Russia?

Am I wrong in saying that?

Wouldn't it be great?

It would be really nice if we got along with Russia.

And wouldn't it be nice it we teamed up with Russia?

JD GORDON, NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR, TRUMP CAMPAIGN: The boss, Mr. Trump, wanted better relations with Russia, and he wanted that as one of his top priorities.

DONALD TRUMP, REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE (August 2016): Putin said some very good things about me, Putin is saying nice things about me.

Ok.

I said he's a strong guy.

SARAH FERGUSON, REPORTER: J.D Gordon, was director of the Trump campaign national security committee.

In early 2016 the candidate came under pressure to explain where his foreign policy advice was coming from.

JD GORDON, NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR, TRUMP CAMPAIGN: President Trump was criticized because he told the media the truth about his foreign policy advice.

He says he watched the shows, he got his information from people on Saturday shows, Sunday shows, and he got criticized for that quite a bit.

So, he was basically put in the position where he had to come up with a foreign policy team right away.

SARAH FERGUSON, REPORTER: Trump brought a list of advisors to an interview with the Washington Post.

REPORTER (March 21 2016): Mr Trump welcome to the Washington Post. We heard you might be announcing your foreign policy advisory team soon...Any you can start of this morning with us?

DONALD TRUMP, REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE Well, I hadn't thought of doing it, but if you want I can give you some of the names... Carter Page, PhD; George Papadopoulos, he's an oil and energy consultant, excellent guy and I have quite a few more.

SARAH FERGUSON, REPORTER: In the chaos of the Trump campaign, Carter Page wasn't a first pick

JD GORDON, NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR, TRUMP CAMPAIGN: Had the list that Senator Sessions and I have been working on made it first to President Trump, Carter Page, obviously, would not have been on that list, because we did not know who he was.

ROGER STONE, REPUBLICAN POLITICAL CONSULTANT: Every Presidential campaign, and I am a veteran of ten, forms a Foreign Policy Advisory Committee.

They have no authority to speak for the campaign.

They're zealous.

Ah in the case of Carter Page he's smart enough to know that if you can get on the committee that that's a marketable quality abroad and he's in the business of making money.

If he does it legally there's nothing wrong with that.

SARAH FERGUSON, REPORTER: You weren't a well-known figure in foreign policy circles, but you did have some substantial experience in Moscow.

Tell me about that?

CARTER PAGE, FOREIGN POLICY ADVISOR, TRUMP CAMPAIGN: This is another misnomer. Right?

Where people play up that I'm just the Russia guy. Right?

And I think that was part of the reason I was such a central target when they wanted to start this witch hunt, false story line, about some corrupt intent or quote unquote "Collusion with Moscow."

Well here is someone who actually lived there and worked there.

SARAH FERGUSON, REPORTER: Carter Page worked in Moscow for US bank Merrill Lynch in 2004 for three years.

At the time Sergey Aleksashenko was Chairman of Merrill Lynch Moscow, he worked with Carter Page.

Aleksashenko was also deputy chairman of the Russian Central bank.

SERGEY ALEKSASHENKO, FORMER CHAIRMAN AND CEO, MERRILL LYNCH, RUSSIA: He spent several years in Moscow but he was not able to speak Russian fluently.

SARAH FERGUSON, REPORTER: Did he stand out in the company?

SERGEY ALEKSASHENKO, FORMER CHAIRMAN AND CEO, MERRILL LYNCH, RUSSIA: No, no he left Merrill Lynch it seemed to me it was in 2007, in 2007 when he recognized he would not be promoted.

At least from the time I knew him he was very naive as I read what he said in interviews, how he behaved himself in Moscow he was very naive.

SARAH FERGUSON, REPORTER: He said he was an informal advisor to the Kremlin. Does that sound like the Carter you know?

SERGEY ALEKSASHENKO, FORMER CHAIRMAN AND CEO, MERRILL LYNCH, RUSSIA: Nothing close to the truth. Look, he was, once again, he was a very, very medium level guy with no exceptional relationships.

JAMES CLAPPER, US DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE 2010-2017: I honestly, not sure I can sort him out in my own mind whether he was doing something nefarious or was just naive.

I don't know.

But I do know that he was a matter of concern to the FBI since he was on their scope since about 2013 for his interactions with known Russian operatives.

SARAH FERGUSON, REPORTER: With no proper vetting of its hastily announced team, the Trump campaign was unaware that only a few years earlier Carter Page was groomed as an asset by Russian spies.

The spies were based here at the Russian mission to the U.N in New York.

The mission is used as cover for Russia's foreign spy service - the SVR - to carry out espionage on US soil.

Deep inside the building is a special room used for secret communications.

In 2013, the FBI found a way to listen in.

SARAH FERGUSON, REPORTER: According to the FBI, Russian spies used the secure room to transmit their reports back to Moscow Centre.

It sounds like something out of a cold war novel but the reality is deadly serious.

The FBI was able to get round the security here and record two Russian agents discussing their latest target - Cater Page.

The two agents were Victor Podobnyy and Igor Sporyshev.

VICTOR PODOBNYY (ACTOR VOICE): I also promised him a lot: that I have connections in the Trade Representation, meaning that you can push contracts.

This is intelligence method to cheat.

You promise a favor for a favor.

You get the documents from him and tell him to go fuck himself.

SARAH FERGUSON, REPORTER: How did Podobny approach you? How did you come across him?

CARTER PAGE, FOREIGN POLICY ADVISOR, TRUMP CAMPAIGN: This was another complete nothing of a story right? I met this junior diplomat, twenty-something-year-old guy. We had a chat at the Asia Society up on Park Avenue, here.

And we had a chitchat, no big deal.

We exchanged cards, stayed in touch a little bit.

DAN HOFFMAN, FORMER MOSCOW CIA STATION CHIEF: The way that they work sometimes they'll spot someone who looks like they might be potentially of some interest and they'll take a look at them and see whether the person has interesting access, that is to power brokers in the United States and then whether they might be suitable for clandestine operations.

SARAH FERGUSON, REPORTER: In a series of meetings in New York.

Page gave Podobny information on the energy market that was publicly available.

CARTER PAGE, FOREIGN POLICY ADVISOR, TRUMP CAMPAIGN: The level of interaction and engagement with him and the types of things we talked about, you know if you talk about intelligence gathering, let's just put it this way: it was at a much lower level than my average student sitting in my classroom at NYU.

SARAH FERGUSON, REPORTER: In the FBI transcripts of their conversations, the spies focused on Carter Page's interest in Russia's biggest energy company, Gazprom.
VICTOR PODOBNYY (ACTOR VOICE) He went to Moscow and forgot to check his inbox, but he wants to meet when he gets back.

I think he's an idiot.

He got hooked on Gazprom thinking that if they have a project, he could rise up.

Maybe he can.

I don't know, but it's obvious he wants to earn lots of money.

IGOR SPORYSHEV (ACTOR VOICE) Without a doubt

VICTOR PODOBNYY (ACTOR VOICE) For now, his enthusiasm works for me.

CARTER PAGE, FOREIGN POLICY ADVISOR, TRUMP CAMPAIGN: They're talking about Gazprom right?

I know some of the top people in that company.

If they were actually gonna bribe me or try to do some crazy scheme for whatever purpose, I don't know whatever conspiracy theory you wanna throw out there, you think you know they might do that more directly with some better contact either in Moscow or London or something rather than this twenty-something-year-old kid in New York.

SARAH FERGUSON, REPORTER: The FBI decided it was time to step in.

They called Carter Page to a meeting at the Plaza Hotel near his office, to tell him the real identity of the man he was dealing with.

SARAH FERGUSON, REPORTER: It must have been a surprise when the FBI came to see you...

CARTER PAGE, FOREIGN POLICY ADVISOR, TRUMP CAMPAIGN: I had been speaking to the CIA and FBI on countless occasions over decades, right? No big deal. So, surprise? No, not really.

SARAH FERGUSON, REPORTER: But in this case-

CARTER PAGE, FOREIGN POLICY ADVISOR, TRUMP CAMPAIGN: People reach out to me, and I'm happy to help.

You know, it's similar to my volunteering in the Trump campaign.

SARAH FERGUSON, REPORTER: Sure, though Podobny was an agent for the SVR. He was the real thing, and he was trying to cultivate you as an asset. So that's a real thing.

CARTER PAGE, FOREIGN POLICY ADVISOR, TRUMP CAMPAIGN: He never cultivated anything as an asset, so that's a complete misnomer.

SARAH FERGUSON, REPORTER: The spies were indicted for espionage in 2015, but because they had diplomatic cover they were allowed to leave the US.

Carter Page wasn't accused of any wrongdoing.

But he was now on the FBI's books as a potential Russian asset.

By the middle of 2016 Donald Trump was close to clinching the Republican nomination...

Behind the scene Page was trying to insert himself into the campaign.

JD GORDON, NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR, TRUMP CAMPAIGN: I told him I didn't need to hear anything he had to say about Russia, 'cause he had all these ideas and thoughts, and I said, "Carter, look. Mr. Trump's world view is fairly clear: he wants to have better relations with Russia.

We don't need to get into the details of that. You don't need that for the campaign."

SARAH FERGUSON, REPORTER: Page might have continued to fly under the media radar had he not accepted an invitation during the campaign to deliver a speech in Russia...

CARTER PAGE, FOREIGN POLICY ADVISOR, TRUMP CAMPAIGN: I'd spoken at a lot of the top universities in Moscow countless times before over the years, and I was offered, invited to come then.

JD GORDON, NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR, TRUMP CAMPAIGN: I advised him against it.

I thought it would reflect poorly on the campaign, and it would generate a lot of negative publicity.

He eventually went around me to the campaign chairman and got permission anyway, and he went.

Uh, and we've been paying the price since then, unfortunately.

SARAH FERGUSON, REPORTER: Page had been selected by the Russians to give the commencement speech at the New Economics School in Moscow - the same event President Barack Obama spoke at in 2009.

Page's mostly turgid address included one section on Russia bound to please his hosts.

CARTER PAGE, FOREIGN POLICY ADVISOR, TRUMP CAMPAIGN (7 July 2016): Thank you very much.

Washington and other Western capitals have impeded potential progress through their often-hypocritical focus on ideas such as democratization, inequality, corruption and regime change.

SARAH FERGUSON, REPORTER: On his journey home, Page emailed the Trump campaign, boasting of the high-level contacts he'd made in Moscow fueling speculation that there was more going on than a simple speech.
He wrote - "I'll send you guys a readout soon regarding some incredible insights and outreach I've received from a few Russian legislators and senior members of the Presidential administration here."
SARAH FERGUSON, REPORTER: is it possible that you were overstating your connections in order to make yourself look good with the campaign? We call it, big noting in Australia.

CARTER PAGE, FOREIGN POLICY ADVISOR, TRUMP CAMPAIGN: So what is the basis for your conspiracy theory?

SARAH FERGUSON, REPORTER: It's not so much conspiracy theory, I'm just asking whether you were exaggerating the contacts you had,

CARTER PAGE: What I can explain to you is the nature of the constant interrogation I've had for two years now. Right?

You are typical, no offence to you, but you're typical of what I have to deal with all the time. Right?

SARAH FERGUSON, REPORTER: To be straight, what we're looking for is clarity, that's all. So there's a series of things that have been said about you-

CARTER PAGE: What you're saying is taking a step away from clarity-

SARAH FERGUSON, REPORTER: Well let's go back to-

CARTER PAGE: you're just throwing more mud in the water.

SARAH FERGUSON, REPORTER: Let's go back to clarity. Let's get on track to that-
CARTER PAGE: Okay.

SARAH FERGUSON, REPORTER: because obviously what happened as a result of that particular trip is that your life went really significantly off the rails.

CARTER PAGE: No, but you're insinuating that, that's me.

That's not my action, that's the fact that they have a photo of me in Moscow. Right?

So, if you have this false theory out there and you want to attack someone, and you have someone who's a supporter of this individual, and a photo of him in Moscow, this is wonderful jackpot, and that's what it's all about.

SARAH FERGUSON, REPORTER: Dan Hoffman was one of America's top spies - he was CIA station chief in Moscow.

He's back now in the CIA homeland of Virginia.

Hoffman recognizes Page's value as a target for Russian espionage.

DAN HOFFMAN, FORMER MOSCOW CIA STATION CHIEF: If Carter Page had asked me before he went to Moscow, "Hey, what should I be concerned about?" I would have said, "You're under a microscope like you've never been.

You are a person of interest, and they will be tracking you.

SARAH FERGUSON, REPORTER: We don't know who was tracking Page on the Russian side.

But the former MI6 officer Christopher Steele was being sent information about Page from his sources in Moscow.

Less than 2 weeks after Page's trip, Steele filed a memo recording details of Page's visit to Moscow.

According to Steele, Page had met senior Russian officials, including Igor Sechin, head of Russian oil giant Rosneft - Russia's 2nd largest state-owned energy company.

SERGEY ALEKSASHENKO, FORMER CHAIRMAN AND CEO, MERRILL LYNCH, RUSSIA: Rosneft is a huge, the biggest Russian oil company.

That, okay, grabbed assets, stolen assets, nationalised assets of other companies.

I would say it's maybe 35, 37 percent of Russian oil production.

It's really big company.

SARAH FERGUSON, REPORTER: Rosneft HQ sits on the Moscow River overlooking the Kremlin ... CEO Igor Sechin is a close ally of Putin's.

Igor Sechin was personally targeted by US sanctions imposed after Russia's invasion of Ukraine the toughest sanctions ever imposed by the US on Russia

Michael McFaul was ambassador to Moscow under Obama.

SARAH FERGUSON, REPORTER: Igor Sechin had a great interest, a profound interest in having those sanctions lifted?

MICHAEL MCFAUL, US AMBASSADOR TO RUSSIA 2012-2014: Without question.

I mean, remember, he's on the sanctions list.

He can't travel to the United States.

It's hard to be the CEO of the largest oil company in Russia if you can't travel to the United States when your chief partner is located in Houston.

SARAH FERGUSON, REPORTER: Did you meet Igor Sechin on your visit to Moscow?

CARTER PAGE, FOREIGN POLICY ADVISOR, TRUMP CAMPAIGN: Never. I never met him then, and I've never met him at any time in my life.

SARAH FERGUSON, REPORTER: Steele's sources claimed that Sechin offered energy deals for the US if Trump would lift the sanctions and a personal kick back for Carter Page.

CARTER PAGE, FOREIGN POLICY ADVISOR, TRUMP CAMPAIGN: What I can tell you for sure, without question is, there was never any discussion of any quid pro quo or anything, I myself or anyone I was supporting at the time could possibly do to change that one particular policy, which is sort of a piece of minutiae in a much broader set of issues.

SARAH FERGUSON, REPORTER: The sanctions issue isn't a minutiae issue, it's a big deal.

Whatever else we know, we know that those people who are targeted by sanctions would very much like the sanctions to be lifted, so it is a significant subject.

CARTER PAGE, FOREIGN POLICY ADVISOR, TRUMP CAMPAIGN: To me, it is minutia so you're free to have your opinion. I think now I'm free to have mine

SARAH FERGUSON, REPORTER: Page has repeatedly denied meeting Sechin in Moscow.

But under oath to the congressional committee he conceded he had met with another Rosneft official - Andrei Baranov.

CARTER PAGE, FOREIGN POLICY ADVISOR, TRUMP CAMPAIGN: So what?

This is a complete joke.

We went to a party to watch the Euro Cup football match. Right?

It's organised by a bank, it's a packed bar in Moscow.

There's tonnes of people there and we're watching a football game.

Portugal I think, was playing Wales that day.

Everyone's focused on Ronaldo's goal. Right?

So that was sort of the topic of conversation.

We had a brief chat and so, this is just sort of the desperation of various DNC operatives to this day trying to make something out of nothing.

SARAH FERGUSON, REPORTER: So did you discuss sanctions with Baranov?

I can't say that I'm careful in terms of the wording. Right?

Look, sanctions is a topic that people in the economy talk about at some point.

Did it possibly come up? I have no recollection. I have no idea. It may have been a couple of words in passing.

MICHAEL ISIKOFF, CHIEF INVESTIGATIVE CORRESPONDENT, YAHOO NEWS: It's interesting because Page denied everything, just sort of sweeping, this is all nonsense, nothing like this is true.

When he finally was forced to testify before the House Intelligence Committee, turns out that those denials were not quite as air-tight as he initially suggested.

It does suggest that there was something real that Steele was picking up on.

SARAH FERGUSON, REPORTER: The former Moscow station chief has a different theory about the information Steele collected.

DAN HOFFMAN, FORMER MOSCOW CIA STATION CHIEF: I can tell you from my own experience, it's extraordinarily difficult to collect intelligence inside Russia.

It's especially difficult to do it in that way when the person who was collecting that information, Steele, didn't travel himself to Russia.

The Russians might have been tracking him as well, and certainly tracking his sources travelling inside to Russia or trying to collect information inside Russia.

And then once they spotted that, if my theory is right, then they would have used the dossier as a conduit for their own disinformation.

KELLYANNE CONWAY, CNN INTERVIEW (25 September 2016): He's not part of our national security or foreign policy

SARAH FERGUSON, REPORTER: When news of Page's trip to Russia broke in the media, he was denounced by Trump's team.

REPORTER (25 September 2016): No.

He is certainly not part of the campaign that I am running meaning we don't have him, have a number of people, fabulous people in our foreign policy team and he is not among them.

JD GORDON, NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR, TRUMP CAMPAIGN: Unfortunately, Carter Page fell right into the trap, he walked right into the lion's den, dragging the rest of us with him.

And deep state folks like James Comey they latched onto this piece of evidence to say, "Oh ho! There could be collusion, Carter Page!"

SARAH FERGUSON, REPORTER: You must've felt bad about the fact that, I think you said that you'd, "caused embarrassment to the campaign"

CARTER PAGE, FOREIGN POLICY ADVISOR, TRUMP CAMPAIGN: I didn't cause, "embarrassment to the campaign." Just to be clear.

SARAH FERGUSON, REPORTER: This is a complete smear from people that were paid millions of dollars, those big dollar funded propaganda campaign to just tear someone down. So it's pretty sad actually.

SARAH FERGUSON, REPORTER: Page was investigated by the FBI but never charged with wrong doing.

He was out of the campaign.

But another of Trump's foreign policy advisors was targeted by Russian spies in a game with even higher stakes.

It's been a bitterly cold winter in Chicago, another city where the Trump brand has made its mark.

This is the hometown of Donald Trump's former foreign policy advisor George Papadopoulos.

One of the central characters in the case for collusion.

DAN HOFFMAN, FORMER MOSCOW CIA STATION CHIEF: The question you always ask is are they witting or unwitting of Russian interest in them. Papadopoulos may not have been witting of Russian intelligence interest in him.

SARAH FERGUSON, REPORTER: Papadopoulos was arrested last October for lying to the FBI about his Russian contacts during the campaign.

SIMONA MANGIANTE, WIFE OF GEORGE PAPADOPOULOS: He said when he was arrested he gave my number to the agents.

Like say please call her to say what has happened to me.

SARAH FERGUSON, REPORTER: His wife Simona, a lawyer, is telling his story, because he can't.

Papadopoulos is co-operating with Mueller's investigation of Trump campaign officials.

SIMONA MANGIANTE, WIFE OF GEORGE PAPADOPOULOS: When time is right, he will share his own experience.

So as far as I know, Russia was a priority and they were informed of every initiative, he would take.

His purpose was to look bigger and to please his bosses.

JD GORDON, NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR, TRUMP CAMPAIGN: George was a young guy in his 20s, a very ambitious guy.

But he really didn't have the qualifications to be on the national security advisory committee.

SARAH FERGUSON, REPORTER: Just like Carter Page, Papadopoulos was plucked from obscurity to join Donald Trump's team of advisors.

JD GORDON, NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR, TRUMP CAMPAIGN: I inherited George and I inherited Carter and the others.

So, my job was to manage them and to make sure that they, didn't embarrass the campaign and didn't embarrass Mr. Trump.

SARAH FERGUSON, REPORTER: In the end what happened to Papadopoulos went way beyond embarrassment.

Papadopoulos' story takes us to London, the location of so many Russian spy stories from the cold war to the present day.

Here in 2016 - soon after he was named as an adviser to the Trump campaign - Papadopoulos was cultivated by a Maltese professor, Joseph Mifsud who boasted of high level kremlin contacts.

DAN HOFFMAN: He's not someone that Papadopoulos would have been worried about meeting.

What you don't realize is that behind that guy maybe there are some nefarious people with some nefarious aims.

SIMONA MANGIANTE, WIFE OF GEORGE PAPADOPOULOS: Until this name come up, which is Joseph Mifsud, at the time, I didn't know it was the genesis of the entire Russian investigation.

I didn't know any of that.

SARAH FERGUSON, REPORTER: Professor Joseph Mifsud taught at universities in the U-K and Europe and ran an organisation called the London Centre of International Law Practice

Simona worked for Mifsud.

SIMONA MANGIANTE, WIFE OF GEORGE PAPADOPOULOS: They never paid me, and they said don't worry, you have to think big, they told me. Joseph Mifsud said you have to think big, you don't have to think about the salary.

I thought everything was a facade for something different. I thought everything was extremely unclear and unprofessional, my feeling were he was the most shady person I ever met.

SARAH FERGUSON, REPORTER: Did you have any sense of his connections to Russia at that point?

SIMONA MANGIANTE, WIFE OF GEORGE PAPADOPOULOS: Yes, because he was constantly in Moscow.

SARAH FERGUSON, REPORTER: Professor Mifsud's first offer to Papadopoulos was to use his connections in the Kremlin to broker a meeting between Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump.

SIMONA MANGIANTE, WIFE OF GEORGE PAPADOPOULOS: He wish he could organize such a meeting.

SARAH FERGUSON, REPORTER: Between Trump and Putin?

SIMONA MANGIANTE, WIFE OF GEORGE PAPADOPOULOS: Yes.

SARAH FERGUSON, REPORTER: Excited by the prospect, he took Mifsud's offer to a meeting of the foreign policy committee, headed by future attorney general Jeff Sessions with the candidate Donald Trump.

JD GORDON, NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR, TRUMP CAMPAIGN: The one meeting we did have with President Trump in March of 2016, George floated the idea of a meeting with Putin and Mr Trump.

And that meeting, the idea was shot down by Senator Sessions, and the Senator asked us not to ever speak about it again, 'cause it was a bad idea for a lot of reasons.

MICHAEL ISIKOFF, CHIEF INVESTIGATIVE CORRESPONDENT, YAHOO NEWS: There are contradictory accounts of what happened in this meeting.

Others at the meeting say this idea was dismissed, but Papadopoulos has said something different.

He's told Mueller's investigators that he believes he got a green light.

SARAH FERGUSON, REPORTER: What was his understanding about whether it was encouraged to continue?

SIMONA MANGIANTE, WIFE OF GEORGE PAPADOPOULOS: I can't answer straight this question, because again, it's the hot topic of the investigation, but I would give my personal opinion, which is it's very unlikely that a young foreign policy advisor would take an initiative or put forward an initiative without the blessing of the campaign.

SARAH FERGUSON, REPORTER: Papadopoulos says his efforts to make contact with the Kremlin were approved by senior campaign officials.

SARAH FERGUSON, REPORTER: He checked everything with the campaign. He wasn't running around-

SIMONA MANGIANTE, WIFE OF GEORGE PAPADOPOULOS: No.

SARAH FERGUSON, REPORTER: doing it himself?

SIMONA MANGIANTE: Absolutely not. No, never. Steve Bannon definitely, Michael Flynn. Yes, he was touch with them. Bryan Lanza.

SARAH FERGUSON, REPORTER: And all of them, Steve Bannon, Lanza, Flynn, all encouraged him to continue his liaison with Russians?

SIMONA MANGIANTE Yes. He was trying to set up a meeting between Putin and Trump. He never was stopped in this purpose.

SARAH FERGUSON, REPORTER: On April 26th Mifsud invited Papadopoulos to breakfast at a hotel in London's business district

This was two months before the news broke about the Russian attack on the Democratic National Committee.

Professor Mifsud had just returned from a trip to Russia.

He had astonishing news.

Over breakfast Mifsud told Papadopoulos he'd met high level Russian officials on his trip to Moscow those officials he said had dirt on candidate Hillary Clinton in the form of thousands of emails - it's not clear where Mifsud got his information or why he passed it on to the young American - but the information was correct.

It seems likely the Russians targeted George Papadopoulos to pass that information back to the trump campaign.

DAN HOFFMAN, FORMER MOSCOW CIA STATION CHIEF: There's that possibility the Russians were throwing this out as a little bit of churn in the water, a little blood in the water there for the sharks to come out.

It would have been the kind of thing that they would have been happy to give up, and it would have served their purposes.

The best way for Vladimir Putin, the best way to soil our democratic process, was link it in some conspiratorial way back to the Kremlin.

SARAH FERGUSON, REPORTER: Did George tell the campaign what Mifsud had told him?

SIMONA MANGIANTE, WIFE OF GEORGE PAPADOPOULOS: This is the objective of the investigation going on.

There is secrecy out of that.

I can't talk about it.

SARAH FERGUSON, REPORTER: For the special prosecutor looking for evidence of collusion this piece of the puzzle could prove to be critical.

We don't know who in the campaign Papadopoulos told about the Russian stolen emails

But we do know he passed on the information to another contact in London soon afterwards

At a wine bar in South Kensington Papadopoulos met Australia's high commissioner Alexander Downer.

SARAH FERGUSON, REPORTER: How did he come to meet Alexander Downer?

SIMONA MANGIANTE, WIFE OF GEORGE PAPADOPOULOS: I think he was introduced to him by his assistant.

SARAH FERGUSON, REPORTER: Downer's colleague from the High Commission organized and attended the meeting...a witness to the conversation

It's been widely reported that Downer and Papadopoulos were drunk - both men deny it.

JD GORDON, NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR, TRUMP CAMPAIGN: I don't know how many they had to drink, the two guys, the ambassador and George. It basically fed into this witch hunt of, here's this kid in his 20s mouthing off to this Australian ambassador who he probably shouldn't have even been with in the first place.

Both of them over drinks, and then that gets through the Australian Intelligence to the US National Intelligence Agencies.

SARAH FERGUSON, REPORTER: Papadopoulos told Downer that the Russians had dirt on Hilary Clinton and were planning to use it.

Downer promptly cabled the startling information back to Canberra .... after careful deliberation it was passed on to the American authorities, prompting the FBI to open an investigation and send agents to London to interview Downer.

SARAH FERGUSON, REPORTER: So, the now far reaching investigation into whether Trump or his associates colluded with the Kremlin may have started here at the Kensington wine rooms with Australia's former foreign minister.

MICHAEL ISIKOFF, CHIEF INVESTIGATIVE CORRESPONDENT, YAHOO NEWS: Opening up an investigation about a presidential candidate's campaign in the midst of a campaign is, that's a big step to take.

And the FBI is going to be cautious about doing something like that.

It doesn't necessarily mean that they think that there's active collaboration by people in the Trump camp, although you can't rule that out, but you want to understand what a major foreign adversary is doing on your soil.

SARAH FERGUSON, REPORTER: Last year, 6 months into the new presidency, after a summer holiday with Simona, Papadopoulos flew back to the US.

He was still hoping to secure a job in the Trump administration.

SIMONA MANGIANTE, WIFE OF GEORGE PAPADOPOULOS: I was with my sister in Rome, and just waiting for his flight to land. Then he was messaging me from the shuttle train

At some point he tell me, I see somebody staring at me in a suit and tie, and it's quite weird, weird look.

I thought it was paranoia. Maybe he was jetlagged.

SARAH FERGUSON, REPORTER: The man in the red tie was an FBI agent - he arrested Papadopoulos and took his phone.

And then silence?

SIMONA MANGIANTE, WIFE OF GEORGE PAPADOPOULOS: Yeah.

They took him to jail, then to the courtroom, all this in the space probably of 48 hours, and he was literally scared to death.

COREY LEWANADOWSKI, FORMER TRUMP CAMPAIGN MANAGER, MSNBC INTERVIEW: To the best of my knowledge, George Papadopoulos never had a Donald Trump email address ever in his life, he was a volunteer like the tens of thousands.

SARAH FERGUSON, REPORTER: As the bearer of another scandal linked to Russia, when news of Papadopoulos's charges broke, he was immediately denounced by the President and his former campaign colleagues

MICHAEL CAPUTO, FORMER TRUMP CAMPAIGN ADVISOR (31 OCT 2017): He was the coffee boy.

He had nothing to do with the campaign and all of this contact with alleged Russians, is something completely beyond the scope of his volunteer duties.

JD GORDON, NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR, TRUMP CAMPAIGN: He wasn't the coffee boy, obviously, because that- then that fell into the narrative of well, if he's the coffee boy, why is he sitting in a meeting with the current attorney general and the current president, right in the middle?

SIMONA MANGIANTE, WIFE OF GEORGE PAPADOPOULOS: George was constantly in touch with the high-level officials.

He helped organizing the meeting between Trump and el-Sisi, the Egyptian President.

So I mean of course, this is not a task of a coffee boy.

He really was approved in anything he did.

He was not a freelancer taking initiative on his own.

SARAH FERGUSON, REPORTER: George Papadopoulos pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI

He surrendered his passport and is waiting for sentencing.

For now, he's bound by his deal with the Mueller investigation to remain silent.

SIMONA MANGIANTE, WIFE OF GEORGE PAPADOPOULOS: George is the person who was the target identified by Mifsud to offer those hacked emails.

He decided to cooperate with the F.B.I. and is putting his knowledge fully at disposal of the government.

As I said he's a piece of the puzzle, but he's an important piece and his contribution is going to make a difference.

JD GORDON, NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR, TRUMP CAMPAIGN: This is the witch hunt of the century, and it's a hoax meant to destroy the president, and dozens of people around him.

It's sickening, and the people who are doing these things - the media, and the members of Congress - really need to be held accountable.

SARAH FERGUSON, REPORTER: You saw your nation convulsed by division caused by the Watergate Scandal.

How does this compare?

JAMES CLAPPER, US DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE 2010-2017: I don't think, I think what's going on now makes that pale.

That was purely a domestic thing.

We didn't have the involvement of a foreign adversary, our prime foreign adversary, Russia, in that and so to me it's much more worrisome.

SARAH FERGUSON, REPORTER: So, these are dangerous times?

JAMES CLAPPER, US DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE 2010-2017: They are.

 

[AmazonGrace]

 

Dude is a bullshitter and not even trying to hide it 

 

[IntrinsicallyDisordered]

And in six months when we play that clip back he'll call it fake news.

[IntrinsicallyDisordered]

I feel sick.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

"The Daily 202: In Kim he trusts. Trump sounds naive after meeting North Korea’s leader."

Spoiler

THE BIG IDEA: President Trump expressed a bewilderingly high degree of confidence after meeting with Kim Jong Un that the North Korean leader is personally committed to giving up the nuclear weapons that ensure his grip on power.

“I think he might want to do this as much or maybe even more than me,” the president said during a 65-minute news conference on Tuesday, after spending four hours with Kim in Singapore.

“My whole life has been deals,” he added later. “I know when somebody wants a deal. … I just feel very strongly – my instinct… – they want to make a deal.”

Eager to cement what he’s calling “a very special bond” with Kim, Trump is giving someone the benefit of the doubt who has done little or nothing to earn it.

“I do trust him, yeah," the president told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos in an interview that aired on “Good Morning America.” “He really wants to do a great job for North Korea. He's de-nuking the whole place, and I think he's going to start very quickly. He really wants to do something I think terrific for their country.”

Trump’s certitude about Kim’s intentions was reminiscent of when George W. Bush proclaimed early in his presidency that he peered into Vladimir Putin’s eyes, saw his soul and concluded that the Russian leader was trustworthy.

“This is complete denuclearization,” Trump insisted. “I really believe that it’s going to go quickly. I really believe it’s going to go fast. … We will do it as fast as it can mechanically and physically be done.”

When a reporter at the news conference asked how he’ll ensure Kim follows through, Trump was dismissive: “Can you ensure anything? Can I ensure you are going to be able to sit down properly when you sit down?”

That’s a far cry from Ronald Reagan’s mantra during arms control talks with the Soviets: “Trust but verify.”

-- Instead, Trump attacked with relish the three men who preceded him as commander in chief for their failure to do what he just had.

The president said Kim, without prompting, brought up North Korea’s repeated failures to live up to deals with the United States. “He wants to get it done,” Trump told his friend Sean Hannity on Fox News. “You know, you hear the whole thing about his father and other administrations or his grandfather. The fact is, and he brings that up, they weren’t dealing with me! They were dealing with different people. … I talked about (how) we have to de-nuke – his country has to be de-nuked – and he understood that. He fully understood that. He didn’t fight it.”

During the news conference, on foreign soil, he called out Barack Obama and Bill Clinton by name. “In one case, they took billions of dollars during the Clinton regime … and nothing happened. And that was a terrible thing. And he actually brought it up to me,” said Trump. “This is a much different time, and this is a much different president.”

Asked again why this time is different, Trump said that “maybe it wasn’t a priority” for the previous presidents to bring peace to the peninsula. (They’d all very strongly disagree.) “I don’t think they honestly could have done it if it was a priority,” he said. “I’m not just blaming President Obama. This goes back for 25 years.”

Trump does nothing to conceal his belief that he’s smarter, tougher and a better negotiator than his predecessors. The same person who declared “I alone can fix it” when accepting the Republican nomination for president in 2016 believes that he alone could make a deal with Kim.

Showing his high regard for himself, Trump noting during his news conference that he will remember everything that transpired during his conversations with Kim. “I don’t have to verify because I have one of the great memories of all time,” he said.

-- Trump, who turns 72 this week, seemed quite taken with Kim. He really turned on the charm jets during their photo ops. He said it was “a great honor” to be with the 34-year-old, whom he repeatedly referred to as “Mr. Chairman.”

“We will have a terrific relationship, I have no doubt,” Trump said of the ruthless totalitarian leader, who has murdered multiple members of his family.  

The president noted during his news conference that Kim took over from his father at 26 years old and was able to maintain control of the regime. “Well, he is very talented,” said Trump. “You could take one out of 10,000, and they probably couldn’t do it.”

Asked about human rights, the president said he briefly broached the subject: “It was discussed relatively briefly compared to denuclearization. … I think he wants to do things … He wants to do the right thing.”

Trump added that University of Virginia student Otto Warmbier, who was arrested while visiting the country and died last year just days after release from a North Korean prison, “did not die in vain.”

“I think without Otto this would not have happened,” he said. “It was a terrible thing, it was brutal, but a lot of people started to focus on what was going on.”

“Absolutely, I will,” Trump said when asked if he’ll invite Kim to the White House. The president added that he “will” visit Pyongyang “at the appropriate time.”

-- Trump referred to the communique that the two leaders signed at the end of their time together as “very comprehensive,” but it is not.

During the news conference, Trump said he will order an end to regular “war games” that the U.S. conducts with South Korea. But he downplayed ending the joint military exercises as a minor concession, describing them as “very provocative” and “inappropriate.”

“They’re tremendously expensive,” he said of the training exercises. “We fly in bombers from Guam. … (That’s) six and a half hours … I know a lot about airplanes. It’s very expensive. And I didn’t like it.”

Trump also floated that the U.S. might eventually withdraw troops from South Korea. “I want to get our soldiers out,” he said. “I want to bring our soldiers back home. Right now, we have 32,000 soldiers in South Korea … That’s not part of the equation right now.”

Asked what consequences North Korea will face if Kim never follows through on his commitments, Trump demurred. “I don’t want to be threatening,” he said.

 

[AmazonGrace]

 

[Howl]

When this all started, we thought that Trump was Putin's little bitch because of kompromat.  That may be true, but I've been thinking for about a month or two that Trump is driven by greed and solely by greed -- personal aggrandizement on steroids.  He has settled into office, and now fully understands the potential for becoming exponentially richer by virtue of his position. Russia, China, North Korea, doesn't matter.  As an utterly corrupt human being, he sees only the potential for exploitation and profit for himself and his children, whether through real estate, kickbacks, bribes, money laundering, it doesn't matter.  

And dear sweet Rufus, the extent that he's been played by Kim, it's just phuque-ing humiliating.  And I don't think this is the low point, not even close, because globally, EVERYONE has Trump's number, while Congress is smoking pot and watching Caddyshack in the cloak room. 

We've got a few years left in the administration and my concern is that Trump is going to tank the economy in a way that makes 2008 look like a piece of cake.  It could be over trade, it could be unleashing all the financial bad actors by dismantling Dodd-Frank, the shit tax bill that's great for hedge fund managers, any combination of things. 

[Alisamer]

Trump is in it for Trump. Period. And that means, almost always, money. He admires Kim because he wants the type of control Kim has, of the people, of the media, of the country. He may be realizing he's not going to get that in the US, but hey, North Korea has really nice beaches! Maybe this guy Kim can be bought!

I think he'd sell off Melania and Ivanka if somebody made a high enough offer. 

[AmazonGrace]

Dude is an asshole and not even trying to hide it

[Botkinetti]

  http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/steel-tariff-maple-syrup-toilet-paper-1.4686833 

trump and his minions are incensed that Canadians refuse to cower in fear and just give in their demands. Nobody wants a trade war but I don’t believe we are going to back down.

[formergothardite]

I'm glad Canada is refusing to back down. The world needs to stand up to Trump. I hope that they will start finding ways to punish his personal companies, that is truly the only way to make him stop. 

[fraurosena]

The look on Un's face is priceless. You can hear him thinking "Did he just call me fat?"

Judging by that look, I believe Un can understand (and probably speak) English... and everyone should shudder at the implications of that fact. Knowing the presidunce, he will not have been weighing his words at all.

 

[Howl]

51 minutes ago, formergothardite said:

I'm glad Canada is refusing to back down. The world needs to stand up to Trump. I hope that they will start finding ways to punish his personal companies, that is truly the only way to make him stop. 

Trump NEVER forgets what he perceives as a slight or a challenge.  NEVER.  He needs to win, always, and he knows he has won only if the other entity loses.  Played out globally, this could get very very ugly and more than a little scary. 

If voters don't deliver for Dems at midterms, we are all so very very screwed. 

[Howl]

It's *official* -- Canada will invade.  Many cities and states have already capitulated, hoping for cheap meds, free health insurance and an abundance of poutine. 

 

[Cartmann99]

3 hours ago, Howl said:

We've got a few years left in the administration and my concern is that Trump is going to tank the economy in a way that makes 2008 look like a piece of cake.

I'm in the camp that thinks that the wheels are going to really start coming off of the economy sometime later this year, or early next year. 

44 minutes ago, formergothardite said:

I'm glad Canada is refusing to back down. The world needs to stand up to Trump. I hope that they will start finding ways to punish his personal companies, that is truly the only way to make him stop. 

Me too. Anybody that has ever dealt with a Trump-like person knows firsthand the importance of enforcing any boundaries you decide to set. Trump's like that kid who gets grounded, and then asks his parent every five minutes if they can go over to a friend's house. It's very tempting to give in to Trump's demands just to get him out of your face for a minute, but if you buckle to him, you will always end up regretting it.

The NFL tried to figure out a way to appease Trump with their new rule about athletes who wish to kneel during the Anthem must stay in the locker room until the song is over. Once football season starts, Trump will be attacking the NFL even harder, because he doesn't want a compromise, he wants his way. The NFL needs to decide right now if they want to keep doing this stupid dance with Trump, or if they have the guts to tell him to stay in his lane.

[Alisamer]

59 minutes ago, fraurosena said:

The look on Un's face is priceless. You can hear him thinking "Did he just call me fat?"

Judging by that look, I believe Un can understand (and probably speak) English... and everyone should shudder at the implications of that fact. Knowing the presidunce, he will not have been weighing his words at all.

 

I'm fairly sure he does speak English, possibly quite well. It's widely reported that he and his siblings went to school in Switzerland, and at least one of them went to an English-language school. I'd be very surprised if he didn't speak English, considering the opportunities he has had and his position as leader of N. Korea. 

I think Trump has been singing "Blame Canada" lately. 

I'm OK with Canada invading. We could use the healthcare! And hockey!

[AmazonGrace]

1 hour ago, fraurosena said:

The look on Un's face is priceless. You can hear him thinking "Did he just call me fat?"

Judging by that look, I believe Un can understand (and probably speak) English... and everyone should shudder at the implications of that fact. Knowing the presidunce, he will not have been weighing his words at all.

 

Sure he does:

http://www.sundaytimes.lk/111225/Timestwo/int10.html

Quote

One boy who was with him at the International School said: 'It must have been 1993 when he came to the school. His English was bad at first. He had a strong accent and he was given extra lessons.
'He also learned German and was OK in the basics of both - but just OK. His English got better but not his German.

 

[Cartmann99]

15 minutes ago, Alisamer said:

I'm OK with Canada invading. We could use the healthcare! And hockey!

I am contractually obligated to post this whenever the subject of the Canadian healthcare system is raised:

[GreyhoundFan]

From Jennifer Rubin: "How Trump lost the summit before the photographers even left the room"

Spoiler

The spectacle of the murderous dictator Kim Jong Un on equal footing with the president of the United States — each country’s flag represented, a  supposedly “normal” diplomatic exchange between two nuclear powers — was enough to turn democracy lovers’ stomachs. President Trump naturally made things worse. He gushed: “It’s my honor, and we will have a terrific relationship, I have no doubt.”

An honor to meet the man who maintains slave labor camps, who periodically attacks the ships of our ally South Korea and whose regime is responsible for the death of Otto Warmbier? That should stun Warmbier’s parents — and every decent human being. Trump envisions a “terrific” relationship with a country that conducts mass hacking, is arguably the worst human rights violator, threatens us with nuclear weapons, detains our people and seeks the reunification of the Korean peninsula under its rule of terror. Imagine if President Barack Obama traveled to Iran, shook Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s hand, proclaimed it was a great honor and spoke about his conviction that Iran and the United States would have a terrific relationship. John Bolton and Mike Pompeo, among others, would have had a conniption.

Trump’s impulsive decision to have a summit and his insatiable need for attention provided Kim with a historic victory that no other U.S. president has handed to a North Korean leader. With not a single bomb dismantled or a single gram of fissile material shipped out of the country, Kim got more than he could have dreamed of — and all before the photographers departed.

It went downhill from there. The Post reports:

Trump sounded triumphant following his meeting with Kim, expressing confidence that the North Korean leader was serious about abandoning his nuclear program and transforming his country from an isolated rogue regime into a respected member of the world community.

But Trump provided few specifics about what steps Kim would take to back up his promise to denuclearize his country and how the United States would verify that North Korea was keeping its pledge to get rid of its nuclear weapons, saying that would be worked out in future talks.

This is what happens when one puts a man-child who imagines that characters such as Kim or Chinese President Xi Jinping are his “friends” or “like him” in a room alone with one of them. Giving Kim a major concession such as discontinuance of the “war games” plainly took Seoul by surprise:

The United States has conducted such exercises for decades as a symbol of unity with Seoul and previously rejected North Korean complaints as illegitimate. Ending the games would be a significant political benefit for Kim, but Trump insisted he had not given up leverage.

“I think the meeting was every bit as good for the United States as it was for North Korea,” Trump said, casting himself as a leader who can secure a deal that has eluded past presidents.

South Korea’s presidential office seemed blindsided by the announcement on the joint exercises.

“We need to try to understand what President Trump said,” a spokesman for South Korean President Moon Jae-in said.

Trump swore that he would not repeat the errors of the past. U.S. presidents got worthless agreements in 1994 when “Pyongyang committed to freezing its illicit plutonium weapons program in exchange for aid” and again in 2005 when North Korea “pledged to abandon ‘all nuclear weapons and existing nuclear programs’ and return to the Non-Proliferation Treaty.” The bland statement that Trump obtained seemed almost identical to these past, useless agreements with vows to undertake “complete denuclearization of the Korean peninsula” and commit to a “lasting and stable peace.” That sounds like the same pablum we’ve gotten before. The difference here is that Trump removed North Korea’s stigma as a pariah state, and for good measure, decided to discontinue joint war games with Seoul, which are an “irritant” to the North Koreans. That’s it.

In remarks afterward, Trump insisted that Kim “loves his people,” a ludicrous statement that sounds like something Pyongyang’s propaganda shop issued. Kim is a brutal tyrant who imprisons, starves and represses his own people. Trump then said something remarkably honest: “I may be wrong, I mean I may stand before you in six months and say, ‘Hey I was wrong,'” said Trump. He continued,”I don’t know that I’ll ever admit that, but I’ll find some kind of an excuse.” That’s right: He will.

The president of the United States was fleeced, and worse, has no doubt impressed upon Kim that this country can be played for fools and strung along. Trump gave Kim newfound legitimacy and Kim’s nuclear weapons program can go on and on.

In all of this, Pompeo, Trump’s secretary of state, bears a good deal of the responsibility for excessive happy talk. He apparently was led along as well, resulting in the decision to put Trump in the room with Kim. Pompeo has insisted that this would not be a repeat of past errors. He’s right on that. This is much, much worse. National security adviser Bolton, who tried his best to disrupt the meeting, can feel some measure of satisfaction. Having seen his advice spurned and the disastrous results that followed, he might consider quitting. He would be a powerful, independent voice to explain the peril in which we now find ourselves with a president who alienates allies and gives tyrants around the globe reason to celebrate.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

"Reporters thought this video was North Korea propaganda. It came from the White House."

Spoiler

< video embedded in article >

Reporters crowded into a Singapore auditorium Tuesday, expecting President Trump to walk out and announce the results of his historic meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

Suddenly, two huge screens on either side of the empty podium came to life. Soaring music boomed over the speakers, and the reporters were bombarded with a montage portraying North Korea as some sort of paradise.

Golden sunrises. Gleaming skylines and high-speed trains. Children skipping through Kim Il Sung square in Pyongyang, North Korean flags waving between images of Egyptian pyramids, the Taj Mahal and the Lincoln Memorial.

In a split-screen shot, Kim Jong Un waved to an adoring crowd while President Trump stood beside him with his thumb in the air. The pair appeared over and over again, like running mates in a campaign video.

The film went on like this for several minutes, with brief interludes of missiles, soldiers and warships interrupting the fanfare. Some journalists, unable to understand the Korean-language narration, assumed they were watching one of Pyongyang's infamous propaganda films. “What country are we in?” asked a reporter from the filing center.

But then the video looped, playing this time in English. And then Trump walked onto the stage and explained that the film was not North Korean propaganda.

It had been made in America, by or on the orders of his White House, for the benefit of Kim.

“I hope you liked it,” Trump told the reporters. “I thought it was good. I thought it was interesting enough to show. ... And I think he loved it.”

As the president explained it, the video was an elevator pitch — the sort of glitzy production that Trump might have once used to persuade an investor to finance a hotel and that he now hopes will persuade the leader of one of the most repressive regimes in the world to end nearly 70 years of international isolation and militant hostility to the United States.

The nearly five-minute movie even had its own Hollywood-style vanity logo: “A Destiny Pictures Production,” though a film company by the same name in Los Angeles denied any involvement in making it, and the White House has not yet responded to questions about it.

“Of those alive today, only a small number will leave a lasting impact,” the narrator said near the beginning, as alternating shots of Trump, Kim and North Korean pageantry flashed on the screen. “And only a very few will make decisions or take actions to renew their homeland, or change the course of history.”

The message was clear: Kim had a decision to make. Then the film progressed from grim black-and-white shots of the United States' 1950s-era war with North Korea into a colorful montage of parades and a golden sunrise.

“The past doesn't have to be the future,” the narrator said. “What if a people that share a common and rich heritage can find a common future?”

The same technique repeated even more dramatically a minute later in the film, when the footage seemed to melt into a horror montage of war planes and missiles beating down on North Korean cities — much like the apocalyptic propaganda videos Pyongyang had produced just a few months ago, when Kim and Trump sounded as if they were on the brink of nuclear war.

But in the Trump film, the destruction rewound itself. The missiles flew back into to their launchers, and a science-fiction like version North Korea took its place — one of crane-dotted skylines, crowded highways, computerized factories and drones, all presided over by a waving, grinning Kim.

“You can have medical breakthroughs, an abundance of resources, innovative technology and new discoveries,” the narrator said, the footage more and more resembling a Hollywood movie trailer as it built to its finale:

“Featuring President Donald Trump and Chairman Kim Jong Un in a meeting to remake history,” the narrator concluded, as Korean words flashed on a black background: “It is going to become a reality?”

The reporters had many questions.

“Do you now see Kim Jong Un as an equal?” asked a Time magazine correspondent.

“In what way?” Trump asked.

“You just showed a video that showed you and Kim Jong Un on equal footing, and discussing the future of the country.”

The president may have misunderstood the question, as he referred in his answer to his closed-door talks and a few carefully negotiated photo ops with Kim — not the U.S.-made video that presented the totalitarian autocrat as a hero.

“If I have to say I'm sitting on a stage with Chairman Kim and that gets us to save 30 million lives — it could be more than that — I'm willing to sit on a stage, I'm willing to travel to Singapore, very proudly,” Trump said.

“Are you concerned the video you just showed could be used by Kim as propaganda, to show him as ...”

Trump cut the question off. “No, I'm not concerned at all. We can use that video for other countries.”

The president was more talkative when discussing how Kim had reacted to the video, which Trump had presumably played for him during a brief, private meeting hours earlier.

“We didn’t have a big screen like you have the luxury of having,” Trump said. “We didn't need it, because we had it on cassette, uh, an iPad.

“And they played it. About eight of their representatives were watching it, and I thought they were fascinated by it. I thought it was well done. I showed it to you because that's the future. I mean, that could very well be the future. And the other alternative is just not a very good alternative. It's just not good.”

Trump admitted that some of the imagery he pitched may have been a little far-fetched, as North Korea is mired in poverty, internationally isolated, and has been mismanaged for decades by a family of dictators — Kim, his father and grandfather.

“That was done at the highest level of future development,” Trump said of his pitch video. “I told him, you may not want this. You may want to do a much smaller version. ... You may not want that — with the trains and everything.”

He waved his hands. “You know, with super everything, to the top. It's going to be up to them,” he said.

And then, in his usual style, Trump was thinking out loud about the “great condos” that might one day be built on the “great beaches” of North Korea.

“I explained it,” he said. “You could have the best hotels in the world. Think of it from the real estate perspective.”

As the screens above Trump emphasized, he certainly had.

 

[fraurosena]

1 hour ago, GreyhoundFan said:

"Reporters thought this video was North Korea propaganda. It came from the White House."

  Hide contents

< video embedded in article >

Reporters crowded into a Singapore auditorium Tuesday, expecting President Trump to walk out and announce the results of his historic meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

Suddenly, two huge screens on either side of the empty podium came to life. Soaring music boomed over the speakers, and the reporters were bombarded with a montage portraying North Korea as some sort of paradise.

Golden sunrises. Gleaming skylines and high-speed trains. Children skipping through Kim Il Sung square in Pyongyang, North Korean flags waving between images of Egyptian pyramids, the Taj Mahal and the Lincoln Memorial.

In a split-screen shot, Kim Jong Un waved to an adoring crowd while President Trump stood beside him with his thumb in the air. The pair appeared over and over again, like running mates in a campaign video.

The film went on like this for several minutes, with brief interludes of missiles, soldiers and warships interrupting the fanfare. Some journalists, unable to understand the Korean-language narration, assumed they were watching one of Pyongyang's infamous propaganda films. “What country are we in?” asked a reporter from the filing center.

But then the video looped, playing this time in English. And then Trump walked onto the stage and explained that the film was not North Korean propaganda.

It had been made in America, by or on the orders of his White House, for the benefit of Kim.

“I hope you liked it,” Trump told the reporters. “I thought it was good. I thought it was interesting enough to show. ... And I think he loved it.”

As the president explained it, the video was an elevator pitch — the sort of glitzy production that Trump might have once used to persuade an investor to finance a hotel and that he now hopes will persuade the leader of one of the most repressive regimes in the world to end nearly 70 years of international isolation and militant hostility to the United States.

The nearly five-minute movie even had its own Hollywood-style vanity logo: “A Destiny Pictures Production,” though a film company by the same name in Los Angeles denied any involvement in making it, and the White House has not yet responded to questions about it.

“Of those alive today, only a small number will leave a lasting impact,” the narrator said near the beginning, as alternating shots of Trump, Kim and North Korean pageantry flashed on the screen. “And only a very few will make decisions or take actions to renew their homeland, or change the course of history.”

The message was clear: Kim had a decision to make. Then the film progressed from grim black-and-white shots of the United States' 1950s-era war with North Korea into a colorful montage of parades and a golden sunrise.

“The past doesn't have to be the future,” the narrator said. “What if a people that share a common and rich heritage can find a common future?”

The same technique repeated even more dramatically a minute later in the film, when the footage seemed to melt into a horror montage of war planes and missiles beating down on North Korean cities — much like the apocalyptic propaganda videos Pyongyang had produced just a few months ago, when Kim and Trump sounded as if they were on the brink of nuclear war.

But in the Trump film, the destruction rewound itself. The missiles flew back into to their launchers, and a science-fiction like version North Korea took its place — one of crane-dotted skylines, crowded highways, computerized factories and drones, all presided over by a waving, grinning Kim.

“You can have medical breakthroughs, an abundance of resources, innovative technology and new discoveries,” the narrator said, the footage more and more resembling a Hollywood movie trailer as it built to its finale:

“Featuring President Donald Trump and Chairman Kim Jong Un in a meeting to remake history,” the narrator concluded, as Korean words flashed on a black background: “It is going to become a reality?”

The reporters had many questions.

“Do you now see Kim Jong Un as an equal?” asked a Time magazine correspondent.

“In what way?” Trump asked.

“You just showed a video that showed you and Kim Jong Un on equal footing, and discussing the future of the country.”

The president may have misunderstood the question, as he referred in his answer to his closed-door talks and a few carefully negotiated photo ops with Kim — not the U.S.-made video that presented the totalitarian autocrat as a hero.

“If I have to say I'm sitting on a stage with Chairman Kim and that gets us to save 30 million lives — it could be more than that — I'm willing to sit on a stage, I'm willing to travel to Singapore, very proudly,” Trump said.

“Are you concerned the video you just showed could be used by Kim as propaganda, to show him as ...”

Trump cut the question off. “No, I'm not concerned at all. We can use that video for other countries.”

The president was more talkative when discussing how Kim had reacted to the video, which Trump had presumably played for him during a brief, private meeting hours earlier.

“We didn’t have a big screen like you have the luxury of having,” Trump said. “We didn't need it, because we had it on cassette, uh, an iPad.

“And they played it. About eight of their representatives were watching it, and I thought they were fascinated by it. I thought it was well done. I showed it to you because that's the future. I mean, that could very well be the future. And the other alternative is just not a very good alternative. It's just not good.”

Trump admitted that some of the imagery he pitched may have been a little far-fetched, as North Korea is mired in poverty, internationally isolated, and has been mismanaged for decades by a family of dictators — Kim, his father and grandfather.

“That was done at the highest level of future development,” Trump said of his pitch video. “I told him, you may not want this. You may want to do a much smaller version. ... You may not want that — with the trains and everything.”

He waved his hands. “You know, with super everything, to the top. It's going to be up to them,” he said.

And then, in his usual style, Trump was thinking out loud about the “great condos” that might one day be built on the “great beaches” of North Korea.

“I explained it,” he said. “You could have the best hotels in the world. Think of it from the real estate perspective.”

As the screens above Trump emphasized, he certainly had.

 

Please don't step on those little white things you see rolling around on the floor. Those are my eyes, that just fell out of my head after they popped so hard after seeing that video. 

I guess that was one of his wet dreams, a propaganda video just like Un's. "Look-it world, Imma big bad boss man too!" 

 

[JMarie]

Just putting this here, because sometimes fiction becomes fact

 

[formergothardite]

4 hours ago, fraurosena said:

The look on Un's face is priceless. You can hear him thinking "Did he just call me fat?"

His face is a reflection of what we all were thinking. "WTF is wrong with this man?!" He was almost certainly thinking that this is going to be easier than he thought. 

3 hours ago, Cartmann99 said:

Anybody that has ever dealt with a Trump-like person knows firsthand the importance of enforcing any boundaries you decide to se

Yep, Canada cannot give in. Not one inch. Seriously, Canada, a lot of Americans are on your side. And the rest of the world can start working overtime to punish him financially. 

If the democrats don't at least get control of the house, America is fucked. We are done for and I hope some nice country invades and gives us healthcare.