Trump 37: Tweeting instead of Leading

[AnywhereButHere]

He wants to fire the fed chair for making him look bad, but Mulvaney says he can’t do that (predicting a very short stay for Mulvaney...), so someone has to go in order to soothe the shitstain’s ego. 

Oh hey, I know! Let’s fire the guy who has already resigned. I’ll bet he feels better already. 

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/23/us/politics/trump-mattis.html?action=click&module=Top Stories&pgtype=Homepage

Quote

WASHINGTON — President Trump said on Sunday that he would remove Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, who issued a stinging rebuke of the president when he announced his resignation last week, from his post by Jan. 1, two months before he had planned to depart.

Mr. Trump, in a Twitter post, said that Patrick M. Shanahan, Mr. Mattis’s deputy, would serve as the acting defense secretary.

Aides said that the president was furious that Mr. Mattis’s resignation letter — in which he rebuked the president’s rejection of international allies and his failure to check authoritarian governments — had led to days of negative news coverage. Mr. Mattis resigned in large part over Mr. Trump’s hasty decision to withdraw American forces from Syria.

When Mr. Trump first announced that Mr. Mattis was leaving, effective Feb. 28, he praised the defense secretary on Twitter, saying he was retiring “with distinction.” One aide said that although Mr. Trump had already seen the resignation letter when he praised Mr. Mattis, the president did not understand just how forceful a rejection of his strategy Mr. Mattis had issued

 

 

[onekidanddone]

26 minutes ago, AnywhereButHere said:

He wants to fire the fed chair for making him look bad, but Mulvaney says he can’t do that (predicting a very short stay for Mulvaney...), so someone has to go in order to soothe the shitstain’s ego. 

Oh hey, I know! Let’s fire the guy who has already resigned. I’ll bet he feels better already. 

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/23/us/politics/trump-mattis.html?action=click&module=Top Stories&pgtype=Homepage

 

 

Seen yes, read no. If it is longer than a tweet he won’t read it 

[formergothardite]

30 minutes ago, AnywhereButHere said:

One aide said that although Mr. Trump had already seen the resignation letter when he praised Mr. Mattis, the president did not understand just how forceful a rejection of his strategy Mr. Mattis had issued

In other words the orange idiot didn't read it, didn't pay attention to the people around him who did read it and then got mad when he watched Fox News. 

[onekidanddone]

Every day I dread looking at the news to see what the did the fornicate fornicating fornicate face did now.

[fraurosena]

 

[fraurosena]

Unremarkable, and a sign of the times. You can only become part of this administration if you are shady enough...

 

[AmazonGrace]

Apparently he's a Boeing guy so if there are any good deals...

[Howl]

From CNN: 

Quote

Trump did not immediately realize how critical Mattis' resignation letter was until some time after the two men ended their Oval Office meeting last week. Aides said the President was relatively relaxed in the aftermath and seemed fine with Mattis' decision to depart.

Because of course he didn't realize anything....he's oblivious

Quote

But after Trump announced Mattis' retirement and the Pentagon released Mattis' letter, Trump began watching the coverage and realized the former general was leaving in protest of him -- and not quietly, either.

 TV talkers having to clarify for clueless Trump that he'd just been bitch slapped by  Mattis -- priceless.  I hope Mattis gets some dark pleasure from this. 

Quote

The stream of praise that followed from Democrats and Republicans alike irked Trump. He remarked that Mattis was only being portrayed as the smartest guy in the world because he was leaving the Trump administration.

Because, frankly, any shrewd, sane person would leave, having realized that Trump has entered a completely unhinged phase. 

[formergothardite]

2 minutes ago, Howl said:

  I hope Mattis gets some dark pleasure from this. 

Since he has spent time around Trump I'm pretty sure he was expecting it to go this way and it is what he wants. Trump firing him now just makes him look even more stupid. 

[AmazonGrace]

How can a man this dumb be in charge of his own underwear? Everyone else knew that letter was a bitchslap even before reading it

[Howl]

The shock in the Twittersphere is palpable, over realizing that there are no longer any constraints on Trump.  Mattis has his share of critics, but he played a key diplomatic role, traveling extensively to reassure nervous allies and to cement key relationships and he was also able to check or redirect some truly idiotic Trump impulses. 

Apparently, Erdogan was ALARMED over Trump's malleability in their phone call this past week.  Erdogan is an authoritarian asshole who is preparing to commit genocide on the Kurds who have fought alongside the US to make major inroads in controlling ISIS. 

[AmazonGrace]

 uh what? But I thought Trump knows more about ISIS than anybody

[fraurosena]

59 minutes ago, formergothardite said:

Trump firing him now just makes him look even more stupid. 

I hope you don't think the coward in chief did the actual firing himself. The tangerine toddler is way too craven for that.

 

[fraurosena]

Shutdowns have consequences.

 

[47of74]

Shutdowns have consequences.
 

Surprised fuck head didn’t have the message changed to blame the Democrats for the shut down.

[Howl]

3 hours ago, AmazonGrace said:

 uh what? But I thought Trump knows more about ISIS than anybody

Whoa! Is Mulvaney going to spin better than Kellyanne?

A FB friend from my past is a super Never Trumper and posts anti-Trump stuff almost daily.  Today she posted a generic "Despite our differences, everyone have a very merry X-mas" post and then something light about trying to bring everyone over to her side. Which instantly brought forth a frothy pro-Trump rant from an extremely irritated distant relative on how Trump is still trying to fix all the problems created by Obummer.  Good times. 

[Dandruff]

What, I wonder, is going on at the White House now?  Is someone feeling lonesome tonight?

[fraurosena]

I wonder what McTurtle got in return for this presiduncial ass-licking?

 

[Howl]

Well, exactly.  The GOP loves Trump because they have been able to pass their most draconian wet-dream policies, while completely fucking over the American citizenry who are not billionaires. They are dismantling DoE, DoJ, EPA, State, Interior and who knows what the hell is going on with Ben "They stored wheat in the pyramids!" Carson and Rick Perry.  Obamacare is in tatters.  Trump is malleable and can be manipulated to their ends, so there were no impediments to implementing what they've wanted to do all along.  So yes, I'd say that Mitch considers the last two years to be his finest.  As Senate leader,  he has amply demonstrated his absolute power and finesse as a political fighter. His is wife is Secretary of Transportation.  Ultimate DC power couple. It doesn't get much better than that in Washington.  Life has been good to them. 

[Howl]

16 hours ago, fraurosena said:

Shutdowns have consequences.

Not to unnerve the entire damn planet,  but the awesome and prescient Sarah Kendzior reminded us of 2014 Trump: 

Something for all of us to remember: Trump says unhinged shit, maybe backtracks, but HE DOESN'T FORGET THE UTTERLY UNHINGED SHIT THAT HE SAID. 

[AmazonGrace]

 

[GreyhoundFan]

 

[Howl]

This has to do with Barron; FLOTUS, I'm sure, is DGAF re: spending XMas with POTUS. 

[GreyhoundFan]

"This is what we were afraid of"

Spoiler

When the new year begins next week, President Trump will have an acting chief of staff, an acting secretary of defense, an acting attorney general, an acting EPA administrator, no interior secretary, and no ambassador to the United Nations. The officials originally in all those positions have either been fired or have quit in various measures of disgust or scandal. His former campaign chairman, deputy campaign chairman, national security adviser and personal lawyer have all pleaded guilty to crimes. His campaign, his transition, his foundation and his business are all under investigation. The United States’ allies are horrified at the chaos Trump has brought to our foreign policy. The stock market is experiencing wild swings as investors are gripped with fear over what might be coming and what Trump might do to make it worse — a situation alarming enough that the treasury secretary felt the need to call up the CEOs of major banks to assure them that everything is under control.

And, oh yeah, the government is shut down.

This, my friends, is exactly what we were afraid of when Trump somehow managed to get elected president two years ago. This is what we warned you about.

To give you a flavor of the president’s mind-set, here’s what happened over the weekend with regard to the departure of Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, widely regarded as the sanest of Trump’s national security team and one of the few original members of Trump’s Cabinet who did not show himself to be incompetent, corrupt, or both. The president’s decision to pull American troops out of Syria because of a single phone call with the president of Turkey was apparently the last straw for Mattis, who has watched in dismay as Trump has set about to degrade the alliances that have shaped U.S. foreign policy for the last seven decades. So Mattis tendered his resignation, saying he’d depart in two months to give the president time to find a replacement. And then . . .

President Trump, who aides said has been seething about news coverage of Defense Secretary Jim Mattis’s pointed resignation letter, abruptly announced Sunday that he was removing Mattis two months before his planned departure and installing Patrick Shanahan as acting defense secretary. . . .

Trump decided hastily to remove Mattis in reaction to negative news coverage, according to senior administration officials, one of whom said the president was eager to retaliate against Mattis and show up the widely respected former general. Another official said Trump and other advisers suspected Mattis of being part of a campaign to stoke negative coverage about the president.

Nothing says “well-oiled machine” like that distinctly Trumpian combination of paranoia and vindictiveness.

Meanwhile, the government shutdown is expected to last into the new year, a shutdown that is happening because a bunch of Fox News and talk-radio hosts criticized the president for not being tough enough in fighting for his ludicrous border wall. Trump, always deeply insecure and eager to feed his base’s endless rage and desire for conflict, responded quickly to the accusation of weakness. “He spends ever more time in front of a television, often retreating to his residence out of concern that he is being watched too closely,” reports the New York Times.

Two years ago, as we were still trying to wrap our heads around the idea that Trump was actually going to be president of the United States, it was not uncommon to hear the hopeful prediction that things wouldn’t work out as badly as we feared. The weighty responsibilities of the office would turn Trump serious, sober, “presidential.”

That has not occurred. If anything, Trump has shown himself to be even more of a despicable human being than he appeared then, and utterly incapable of growing into the office. He is just as petty, just as impulsive, just as narcissistic, just as dishonest and, perhaps, even more corrupt than we realized. Not only does he seem to be using every available opportunity to exploit the presidency to enrich himself and his family, but a recent, meticulously documented investigation showed that Trump, his father, and his siblings engaged in a years-long scheme to commit tax fraud on an absolutely massive scale, a story that, in the endless waves of White House madness, has been almost forgotten. And he continues to jealously guard his tax returns, to the point where any reasonable person would conclude that the information contained therein must at a minimum shock the conscience, if not providing evidence of outright criminal behavior.

It is true that Trump has not yet started World War III. And if you’re a Republican, he has done many things that pleased you, such as cutting taxes for corporations and the wealthy, or slashing regulations that protect workers, consumers, and people who enjoy breathing air and drinking water. If you thrill to the sight of immigrant children being ripped from the arms of their parents, then this presidency has been a joy. Indeed, just about the only fear about Trump that hasn’t come to pass is the conservative worry that he would be ideologically unreliable.

But in so many ways, he has shown himself again and again to be not just as bad as we thought, but worse. As as we look forward to the next two years, we must realize that there will be no stability, no settling down, no period of calm. The best we can hope for are brief moments when the lunacy pouring from the White House is more comical than terrifying. But most of the time, they’ll probably be both.

 

[fraurosena]

This is the president of the United States, moaning on twitter that he's alone in the WH for X-mas because he shut down government. I repeat, this is the president of the United States. Think about that.

Crazy indeed. He hasn't even spent 6% of the funding (IIRC 1.5 billion) he has already been allocated for the wall.