Trump 40: Donald Trump and the Chamber of Incompetence

[GreyhoundFan]

"Two years of Trump have shaken my faith in America"

Spoiler

I have always been a cockeyed optimist about America. That’s due, in part, to my own family story: We came here in 1976 as penniless refugees from the Soviet Union and found a land of freedom and opportunity. It’s also due to my reading of history, which led me to conclude that, for all of its undoubted problems, America has been the greatest force for good in the world over the past century. And it’s due, finally, to my life experience: Having lived long enough to see predictions that America would be overtaken by the Soviet Union, Japan or the European Union proved wrong, I became skeptical of declinism.

But my faith in America has been badly shaken by more than two years of Trumpism. I now fear that the United States’ days as a superpower may be numbered, especially if President Trump wins a second term — as well he might.

I do not doubt that America will continue to be free, wealthy and militarily strong. Although Trump is trying his damnedest to undermine our democracy, our institutions are strong enough to survive his onslaught. Despite his trade wars and fiscal irresponsibility, our economy remains a world-beater. Our gross domestic product is still 1.5 times larger in nominal terms than China’s, and our per-capita GDP is more than three times larger. And, though our relative military advantage is waning, our armed forces remain the most powerful in the world.

But it’s one thing to have great power; it’s another thing to be a great power. After World War II, the United States became an “empire by invitation” whose power projection depended on popular support at home and abroad. Both are now in peril.

Americans’ backing for international leadership began to wane after the end of the Cold War and suffered a body blow after the Iraq War. President Barack Obama promulgated a “leading from behind” foreign policy and declared that “it is time to focus our nation building here at home.” He stood by while slaughter unfolded in Syria and Russia annexed Crimea. But at least Obama still believed in the basic principles of American leadership, and, when it came to free trade, he was even willing to buck the protectionist sentiments of his own party.

Trump, by contrast, is an out-and-out isolationist and protectionist. He has launched trade wars with all of our major trade partners; praised dictators and castigated democratic allies; and pulled out of international agreements such as the Paris climate accord, the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the Iran nuclear deal. Although the United States remains in NATO, Trump has raised uncertainty about whether he would come to the defense of its members. His “America First” mantra — a throwback to the 1930s — suggests that American foreign policy will no longer be based, as it has been since 1945, on support for security alliances and free trade.

As corrosive as Trump’s policies is his personality. He is so erratic and ignorant that he makes dictators such as China’s Xi Jinping look good by comparison. Xi may be presiding over a Big Brother state, but at least he appears to be rational and knowledgeable. Trump’s tweets, by contrast, often sound deranged. His actions frequently make as little sense as his words. Typical is the way he flip-flopped on Syria, announcing a total withdrawal of U.S. forces in December before now deciding to keep 1,000 troops.

If you’re an ally of the United States, how can you entrust your security to a superpower that seems to have lost its marbles? If Americans could elect Trump, what kind of demagogue will we choose in the future? We are fast losing the global confidence needed to maintain our global power. A shocking Pew Research Center poll last year found that far more people around the world view the United States as a threat than China or Russia. That perception is a bigger blow to American primacy than any new weapons system that China or Russia could develop.

We are also losing backing at home for U.S. leadership abroad. Although a Chicago Council on Global Affairs survey finds that 70 percent of respondents support an “active part in world affairs,” leading Democrats sure aren’t acting like it. While they revile Trump, many are in sympathy with his isolationist and protectionist instincts. Progressives even attack Trump for being too activist in Venezuela, while congressional Democrats are blocking ratification of the renegotiated North American Free Trade Agreement because they view it as too pro-trade. Republicans used to be the party of free trade and a hawkish foreign policy, but under Trump those have become minority sentiments.

We may still see a snapback to a normal U.S. foreign policy after Trump is gone — but I wouldn’t count on it. This may be, gulp, the new normal. And that’s bad news for the world, because if America doesn’t underwrite global security, no one else will. The likely result will be a new global disorder where everyone pursues a “me first” policy and no one looks out for the common good.

 

[AmazonGrace]

 

[fraurosena]

8 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

"Two years of Trump have shaken my faith in America"

  Hide contents

I have always been a cockeyed optimist about America. That’s due, in part, to my own family story: We came here in 1976 as penniless refugees from the Soviet Union and found a land of freedom and opportunity. It’s also due to my reading of history, which led me to conclude that, for all of its undoubted problems, America has been the greatest force for good in the world over the past century. And it’s due, finally, to my life experience: Having lived long enough to see predictions that America would be overtaken by the Soviet Union, Japan or the European Union proved wrong, I became skeptical of declinism.

But my faith in America has been badly shaken by more than two years of Trumpism. I now fear that the United States’ days as a superpower may be numbered, especially if President Trump wins a second term — as well he might.

I do not doubt that America will continue to be free, wealthy and militarily strong. Although Trump is trying his damnedest to undermine our democracy, our institutions are strong enough to survive his onslaught. Despite his trade wars and fiscal irresponsibility, our economy remains a world-beater. Our gross domestic product is still 1.5 times larger in nominal terms than China’s, and our per-capita GDP is more than three times larger. And, though our relative military advantage is waning, our armed forces remain the most powerful in the world.

But it’s one thing to have great power; it’s another thing to be a great power. After World War II, the United States became an “empire by invitation” whose power projection depended on popular support at home and abroad. Both are now in peril.

Americans’ backing for international leadership began to wane after the end of the Cold War and suffered a body blow after the Iraq War. President Barack Obama promulgated a “leading from behind” foreign policy and declared that “it is time to focus our nation building here at home.” He stood by while slaughter unfolded in Syria and Russia annexed Crimea. But at least Obama still believed in the basic principles of American leadership, and, when it came to free trade, he was even willing to buck the protectionist sentiments of his own party.

Trump, by contrast, is an out-and-out isolationist and protectionist. He has launched trade wars with all of our major trade partners; praised dictators and castigated democratic allies; and pulled out of international agreements such as the Paris climate accord, the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the Iran nuclear deal. Although the United States remains in NATO, Trump has raised uncertainty about whether he would come to the defense of its members. His “America First” mantra — a throwback to the 1930s — suggests that American foreign policy will no longer be based, as it has been since 1945, on support for security alliances and free trade.

As corrosive as Trump’s policies is his personality. He is so erratic and ignorant that he makes dictators such as China’s Xi Jinping look good by comparison. Xi may be presiding over a Big Brother state, but at least he appears to be rational and knowledgeable. Trump’s tweets, by contrast, often sound deranged. His actions frequently make as little sense as his words. Typical is the way he flip-flopped on Syria, announcing a total withdrawal of U.S. forces in December before now deciding to keep 1,000 troops.

If you’re an ally of the United States, how can you entrust your security to a superpower that seems to have lost its marbles? If Americans could elect Trump, what kind of demagogue will we choose in the future? We are fast losing the global confidence needed to maintain our global power. A shocking Pew Research Center poll last year found that far more people around the world view the United States as a threat than China or Russia. That perception is a bigger blow to American primacy than any new weapons system that China or Russia could develop.

We are also losing backing at home for U.S. leadership abroad. Although a Chicago Council on Global Affairs survey finds that 70 percent of respondents support an “active part in world affairs,” leading Democrats sure aren’t acting like it. While they revile Trump, many are in sympathy with his isolationist and protectionist instincts. Progressives even attack Trump for being too activist in Venezuela, while congressional Democrats are blocking ratification of the renegotiated North American Free Trade Agreement because they view it as too pro-trade. Republicans used to be the party of free trade and a hawkish foreign policy, but under Trump those have become minority sentiments.

We may still see a snapback to a normal U.S. foreign policy after Trump is gone — but I wouldn’t count on it. This may be, gulp, the new normal. And that’s bad news for the world, because if America doesn’t underwrite global security, no one else will. The likely result will be a new global disorder where everyone pursues a “me first” policy and no one looks out for the common good.

 

The author of this article makes some valid points, but they also make some glaring mistakes in their analysis. Yes, America may have a good economy and a GDP that is 1,5 times langer than China’s and per capita three times higher. But that is a median number. If you look closer at the factual distribution of wealth, then a large portion of Americans live in third world poverty in third world conditions. I wouldn’t be touting the GDP as an example for how good the American economy is doing, and then concluding America is doing great, when only the rich are.

I also take offence at the thought that only America underwrites global security. Everyone will be persuing a ‘me first policy’? WTF? As if only Americans somehow have the moral fortitude to police the world? What a narcissistic thought.

[AmazonGrace]

Oh I see, all the wars that America has waged around the world have been completely justified, enhanced global security and happened out of purely altruistic motives with no civilian casualties and no torture and other war crimes whatsoever, no siree. Signed, "Still Looking For WMDs In Iraq"

[Penny]

Trump's handlers have not been doing their work. With his rants escalating to a new level, I just wonder if he is setting himself up to fail in 2020. We know Melania doesn't want to be in the White House, but I wonder if he does not want to do this 4 more years and this is the only way he knows how to bow out? 

[fraurosena]

Just now, Penny said:

Trump's handlers have not been doing their work. With his rants escalating to a new level, I just wonder if he is setting himself up to fail in 2020. We know Melania doesn't want to be in the White House, but I wonder if he does not want to do this 4 more years and this is the only way he knows how to bow out? 

Nah, he's too narcissistic to ever knowingly set himself up to fail. He's got a cushy job with 80% executive time, 15% rallies and 5% playing in the Oval Office. He's got emoluments thrown at him left right and center. He's got a great corruption thing going on and money is pouring in without him actually having to do anything for it, which suits his lazy fat ass just fine. He's never going to give that up willingly.

[fraurosena]

Oh dear. Georgie really got to him with his DSM tweets, didn't he? 

 

[fraurosena]

 

[laPapessaGiovanna]

2 hours ago, fraurosena said:

The author of this article makes some valid points, but they also make some glaring mistakes in their analysis. Yes, America may have a good economy and a GDP that is 1,5 times langer than China’s and per capita three times higher. But that is a median number. If you look closer at the factual distribution of wealth, then a large portion of Americans live in third world poverty in third world conditions. I wouldn’t be touting the GDP as an example for how good the American economy is doing, and then concluding America is doing great, when only the rich are.

I also take offence at the thought that only America underwrites global security. Everyone will be persuing a ‘me first policy’? WTF? As if only Americans somehow have the moral fortitude to police the world? What a narcissistic thought.

I agree. That article is steeped in American exceptionalism ideas. And while I agree that Trump is an especially horrible boil on the face of the USA, to me it seems more of a symptom than the malaise itself. Let's not forget that 35% to 45% of Americans unconditionally support him (it may be a minority but it's a big and vocal one), that he won thanks to an electoral system that personally I wouldn't define democratic and that he received the illegal support of a foreign power that helped to successfully hijack the election. The illness seems to run way deeper than Washington's swamp. 

The article sounds like a long whining about the loss of American hegemony. Blaming it mostly on Trump is a red herring imho. The author recognises that Iraq wars had already taken their toll on America's reputation long before this presidency. But if we want to be honest we need to admit that the Iraq wars weren't more ludicrous neither more unjustified than ie the Vietnam war.

Maybe the illness lies in that exceptionalism whose loss the author laments. Maybe the aggressive pursuit of world hegemony under the pretense of carrying the superior values of democracy to less exceptional countries was already a delusion of grandeur that Trump made apparent for many more Americans to see.

[AmazonGrace]

 

[GreyhoundFan]

42 minutes ago, laPapessaGiovanna said:

I agree. That article is steeped in American exceptionalism ideas. And while I agree that Trump is an especially horrible boil on the face of the USA, to me it seems more of a symptom than the malaise itself. Let's not forget that 35% to 45% of Americans unconditionally support him (it may be a minority but it's a big and vocal one), that he won thanks to an electoral system that personally I wouldn't define democratic and that he received the illegal support of a foreign power that helped to successfully hijack the election. The illness seems to run way deeper than Washington's swamp. 

The article sounds like a long whining about the loss of American hegemony. Blaming it mostly on Trump is a red herring imho. The author recognises that Iraq wars had already taken their toll on America's reputation long before this presidency. But if we want to be honest we need to admit that the Iraq wars weren't more ludicrous neither more unjustified than ie the Vietnam war.

Maybe the illness lies in that exceptionalism whose loss the author laments. Maybe the aggressive pursuit of world hegemony under the pretense of carrying the superior values of democracy to less exceptional countries was already a delusion of grandeur that Trump made apparent for many more Americans to see.

The author is a conservative columnist. Even the never-Dumpy conservatives are a bit crazed about American exceptionalism.

[onekidanddone]

51 minutes ago, AmazonGrace said:

 

Get ready for Twitter Rage I 

[AmazonGrace]

1 hour ago, fraurosena said:

 

"Hello how are you?"

"I didn't kill nobody! There's no one buried under the driveway!"

[Drala]

@laPapessaGiovanna wrote:

But if we want to be honest we need to admit that the Iraq wars weren't more ludicrous neither more unjustified than ie the Vietnam war. Maybe the illness lies in that exceptionalism whose loss the author laments. Maybe the aggressive pursuit of world hegemony under the pretense of carrying the superior values of democracy to less exceptional countries was already a delusion of grandeur that Trump made apparent for many more Americans to see.

Being in an age cohort when the Vietnam war was a full bore reality, I also thought about Vietnam when Iraq was mentioned.   Certainly the national hubris and dishonesty that lead us into that fiasco is the same that lead us into Iraq, which is "the aggressive pursuit of world hegemony under the pretense of carrying the superior values of democracy to less exceptional countries."  I have never bought the argument that the US fights wars to ensure democracy and promote freedom.  If that was the case, we'd be fighting wars all the time all over the place.  We fight wars (at a huge expense of blood and treasure) to ensure our access to strategic resources deemed necessary to the national interest.  Hegemony is what my father--a career military officer--told me Vietnam was about.   It's also what Iraq was about--maintaining access to strategic minerals (oil).  Career military are pretty hard-boiled when it comes to knowing why they fight wars and risk death.

Your assessment that Trump is a symptom and not the cause of the national malaise is also spot on.  We have a long, long history of racist policies that disenfranchise people of color.  I believe American exceptionalism is linked to the national mythology of white (European) immigrants, whose collective experience of liberty and democracy is very different than the collective experience of African Americans, Native Americans, Mexican Americans, and groups like the Chinese and Japanese.  The US has come a long way since the civil rights movement of the 60s in leveling the playing field, but we still have a farther way to go on the equality and inclusion front.   The 35%-45% of the population that supports Trump may not all be cross-burning racists, but they are largely White nativists.   With the demographic shift in the USA moving toward people of color--and the unprecedented election of a Black president--White nativists are pushing back.  They've always been part of the political scene, and they're not inconsequential as a power block.    

Edited March 21, 2019 by Drala

[GreyhoundFan]

 

[GreyhoundFan]

Dumpy never lets a chance to line his pockets go unfulfilled. "Trump Has Now Shifted $1.3 Million Of Campaign-Donor Money Into His Business"

Spoiler

Donald Trump has charged his own reelection campaign $1.3 million for rent, food, lodging and other expenses since taking office, according to a Forbes analysis of the latest campaign filings. And although outsiders have contributed more than $50 million to the campaign, the billionaire president hasn’t handed over any of his own cash. The net effect: $1.3 million of donor money has turned into $1.3 million of Trump money.

In December, Forbes reported on the first $1.1 million that President Trump moved from his campaign into his business. Since then, his campaign filed additional documentation showing that it spent another $180,000 at Trump-owned properties in the final three months of 2018.

None of this seemed likely when Donald Trump first got into politics. “I don’t need anybody’s money,” he announced on the day he launched his 2016 campaign, standing inside the marble atrium at Trump Tower. “I’m using my own money. I’m not using the lobbyists. I’m not using donors. I don’t care. I’m really rich.”

At first, he acted like it, spending $50 million of his own money from April 2015 to June 2016. But the following month, when he was officially named the Republican nominee for president, his financing model changed. From July to November of 2016, outsiders contributed $234 million while Trump put up just $16 million.  

Once he became president, Trump had a chance to get some money back. The campaign put more than $800,000 into Trump Tower Commercial LLC, the holding company through which Trump owns his interest in the original Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue. Trump Tower Commercial LLC took in an additional $225,000 in rent from the Republican National Committee, which coordinated those payments with the campaign. That means that, since the inauguration, Trump’s reelection effort has had a hand in funneling more than $1 million into the president’s most famous property.

In addition, the campaign has paid $54,000 to Trump Plaza LLC, which controls a property that includes two brownstone apartment buildings in New York City. The reason for those payments, which are listed as “rent,” remains unclear. Forbes staked out the property for 14 hours on a November day but still could not pin down what exactly the campaign was renting. A person working behind the front desk couldn’t make sense of it either. “If there was any kind of office rented out for campaigning or whatever, I would know about it.” Six residents also said they had never seen any indication of the campaign in the buildings. A 2016 campaign staffer, however, said people sometimes crashed at an apartment there when they were in town.

It is also unclear what exactly the 2020 effort is renting from Trump Restaurants LLC, which has received $60,000 in campaign funds. Trump Restaurants LLC is another holding company tied to Trump Tower. The building’s website, which features a handful of Trump-branded eateries, includes a page of legal disclaimers for Trump Restaurants LLC.

Inside the building lie clues to the purpose of the payments. Near Trump Grill and Trump’s Ice Cream Parlor, there’s a kiosk where tourists can buy T-shirts, hats and other campaign memorabilia. The fine print at the bottom of a poster next to the stand says, “Paid for by Donald J. Trump for President, Inc.”—the official name for the president’s 2020 campaign committee.

The Trump Organization did not respond to a list of questions, including whether the stand is in fact the basis for the payments and how many square feet it occupies. So a Forbes reporter paced out the space to take a rough measurement. It appears the entire stand is approximately 60 square feet. With monthly payments of $3,000, that implies that the campaign is paying $600 per square foot in annual rent. For comparison, Gucci rents prime space upstairs, along Fifth Avenue, for only $440 per square foot, according to an analysis of a debt prospectus obtained by Forbes.

Real estate experts offered varying opinions on whether $3,000 a month represented an appropriate price. “That’s robbery,” said one person familiar with the New York market, surveying the kiosk from inside the building. Two others said it seemed like a fair deal, since smaller spaces often command higher rates on a per-square-foot basis. A Trump campaign official said the 2020 effort pays market rents.

It’s a key question because federal regulations allow candidates to put campaign money into their own businesses only if they pay going rates. Given the varying opinions on whether $3,000 a month constitutes a fair price, however, it seems unlikely that the payments will spark an investigation by the Federal Election Commission. “If something is really egregious, yeah, it’s there,” says Bradley Smith, a Republican who served as a commissioner of the FEC from 2000 to 2005. “But they’re just not going to try to pick apart things on a difference of a few percentage points and try to second-guess what should be paid.”

That means Trump should be free to continue shifting his supporters’ money into his business for the rest of the election cycle.

 

[AmazonGrace]

 

[onekidanddone]

1 hour ago, AmazonGrace said:

 

What kind of freaking hornet’s nest is he kicking now? Somebody must be whispering in his ear over this because I bet you on a stack of matzo he just learned about the heights today.  What he wants to build a shit tower there? The evangelicals want it? He thinks this will help him get more Jewish voters? 

Sorry Shit Stain this little old Jewish momma hates you. 

 

[AmazonGrace]

 

[AmazonGrace]

 

[GreyhoundFan]

"For Trump, attacking McCain is a way to appeal to his political base"

Spoiler

Republican leaders gasped again this week at President Trump’s conduct, expressing horror at his scathing criticism of John McCain, the late Arizona senator and former GOP presidential nominee.

But to many Trump allies — and to Trump himself — it all makes perfect sense.

Inside the powerful and populist wing of the party that is most loyal to Trump, McCain is not a revered war hero but a useful foil — encapsulating everything his core voters have come to loathe about establishment Republicans, from their support for the Iraq War to their opposition to Trump’s nativist agenda to their esteem for the Justice Department as it oversees the ongoing Russia investigation.

By attacking McCain, Trump allies said Thursday, the president is stoking his supporters’ rawest emotions and suspicions about the GOP’s political elite.

“You’re talking about a group of people who have felt powerless and voiceless for many years until President Trump came along, and they’re going to be loyal to him. It’s part of the fabric of their life,” said Mississippi state Sen. Chris McDaniel (R), who has run Trump-style insurgent campaigns in his state. “To those people, McCain was the embodiment of a lifetime career politician.”

Mike Shields, a Republican consultant who has worked with Trump’s political team, said Trump is tapping into how “a significant number of voters in this country have seen politicians that lie to them, make promises, are disingenuous, who are basically not themselves. They aren’t real. When the president does things like this, he is real. There’s a currency for that.”

And there is an audience. On social media, Fox News and other conservative-leaning platforms, Trump’s searing critiques of the late senator are acceptable to many rank-and-rile Republicans.

“There is a reason for those nasty remarks. There is a history between those two men,” Fox Business Network host Lou Dobbs, who is friendly with Trump, said on his Thursday evening broadcast. He called critics of Trump over the McCain controversy “asinine.”

McCain wanted to “stick it to the president” by voting against a GOP health-care overhaul in 2017, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), one of Trump’s allies on Capitol Hill, told Fox News this week. “It’s reasonable for the president to be very frustrated and let down by that.”

When Donald Trump Jr., the president’s eldest son, knocked Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) on Twitter, he called him “Schmuck Schumer” for defending McCain and full of “crap” for being outraged, and drew more than 30,000 “likes” in the process.

There was no coordinated strategy among Senate Republicans this week to respond to Trump’s continued attacks on their deceased colleague, multiple senior aides said. The smattering of GOP senators who felt compelled to push back against Trump — whether on Twitter, in town halls or in radio interviews — have done so on their own.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who is up for reelection next year, called McCain “a rare patriot and genuine American hero in the Senate” amid Trump’s attacks Wednesday, but he did not mention Trump in his statement.

Sen. Martha McSally (R-Ariz.), who was appointed to the seat held by McCain, spoke privately to Trump on Wednesday to convey her sentiments about McCain, although a spokeswoman said McSally did not request anything from Trump, including stopping the attacks.

“There is a lot of disrespect going on out there all the way around,” McSally told reporters in Arizona on Thursday. “I did talk to the president yesterday. I wanted to make sure he understood how I felt about Senator McCain and how Arizona felt about Senator John McCain, and he heard me.”

Antonia Ferrier, a former senior McConnell aide, said that in today’s GOP, McConnell and others like him find it difficult with Trump to “smack his wrist.”

“There is no recourse because what kind of punishment can you do when a person is fundamentally a boxer?” Ferrier said. Republican leaders, she added, feel like “they’ve been down this path with the president before. He’s not changing his mind.”

Trump, meanwhile, has repeatedly assured his aides that McCain is not popular with his supporters and that the fallout is negligible, according to a senior Trump administration official who was not authorized to speak publicly.

Several Trump and GOP officials, who were not authorized to speak publicly, said that Trump’s animus is fueled by his own seething anger more than anything and by his long-held belief that McCain and his allies in the party have worked to undermine his presidency from the start.

“I’m not a fan,” Trump reiterated on Thursday in an interview with Fox Business Network’s Maria Bartiromo, listing his grievances. “What he did to the Republican Party and to the nation, and to sick people that could have had great health care, was not good.”

Tim O’Brien, a Trump biographer, said Trump’s dislike of McCain also likely stems from the two men’s contrasting experiences during the Vietnam War, when McCain was captured and held prisoner for more than five years, while Trump received five draft deferments.

Some Trump advisers this week said the mere mention of McCain in the news can instantly bring about a grim atmosphere in the West Wing as Trump grouses about the coverage of the late senator. McCain’s funeral in September prompted a particularly dark mood, they recalled, and Trump was irate about former White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly’s praise for McCain at the time.

Shields said Trump knows exactly what he’s doing as he vents about perceived past slights from McCain.

“He knows he’s going to offend people on TV. His supporters want those people to be offended. They elected him because he thought they were going to make them all really angry,” Shields said, adding that he nonetheless would urge Trump to “drop” the McCain attacks and move on.

Ahead of the 2020 campaign season, Trump is “reaching for feelings out in the country about McCain that are much deeper,” said veteran Republican strategist Ed Rollins.

“Trump knows there are a lot more anti-McCain people than pro-McCain people in the party, despite the Washington establishment looking back fondly,” said Rollins, the chairman of the pro-Trump Great America super PAC. “He’s turning to them and showing his solidarity with them, reminding them that he’s an outsider who was able to win the White House.”

Still, some of Trump’s biggest supporters are increasingly uncomfortable with Trump’s attacks and dismiss talk of political strategy, while acknowledging that Trump may pay little cost with his base.

“When Trump has a grudge, he just pounds away, whether it’s smart or dumb, wise or foolish,” former House speaker Newt Gingrich (R) said. “This is who he is, this is how he operates. “This isn’t a strategy, but his behavior — and it’s a waste of time to be fighting with McCain when you have all of these opportunities to pick fights with Democrats. It doesn’t make sense at all.”

“I do not appreciate his tweets,” Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) said Thursday at a town-hall event. “John McCain is a dear friend of mine. So, no, I don’t agree with President Trump, and he does need to stop.”

In the wake of Trump’s latest remarks, Senate Democrats are renewing their effort to rename the Russell Senate Office Building after McCain, with Schumer announcing that he will reintroduce a measure to make that change in the coming days.

Other attempts to honor McCain appear to have gone dormant. McConnell announced shortly after McCain’s death that he would bring together a bipartisan group to brainstorm ways to commemorate McCain after some Republican senators objected to renaming the building named for former senator Richard Russell (D-Ga.). But no public announcement has since been made regarding such a group. Instead, McConnell has been talking with McCain’s family about other ways to memorialize him, according to two people familiar with the discussions, who were not authorized to speak publicly.

A Fox News poll conducted a week before McCain died in August 2018 showed him popular nationally, with 52 percent of registered voters viewing him favorably, while 37 percent were unfavorable. That figure was down from a peak of 64 percent popularity in 2009, months after being defeated by President Obama.

Among Republican voters, however, McCain’s popularity suffered following his criticism of Trump and he was much more popular among Democrats at the time of his death. The Fox poll found 60 percent of Democratic voters had a favorable view of McCain, compared with 41 percent of Republicans. Four years prior, a CNN-ORC poll showed that 58 percent of Republicans saw McCain favorably.

Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) — McCain’s close friend and a vocal Trump ally — has been thrust into the center of the debate.

“I don’t know why he continues to do it. I have no idea. I don’t think it’s particularly helpful. I am trying to be helpful to him where I can,” Graham said in an interview. “I’ve told him repeatedly what I think about Senator McCain.”

Graham declined to comment further.

 

[Dandruff]

I think McCain was a fine man.

[smittykins]

He had more class in his pinky than the entire Trump family combined.

[Alisamer]

23 minutes ago, smittykins said:

He had more class in his pinky than the entire Trump family combined.

That's not saying much, TBH. The Trump family sets a really, really, REALLY low bar when it comes to class. Like they seem to actively drain class away from other people in their presence, like a class vacuum.

I really cannot wrap my brain around how anyone can call themselves a patriot, and then cheer someone speaking badly of a deceased former POW who spent his entire life in service to his country. I didn't always agree with McCain, but he seemed to be genuine and had earned respect. Meanwhile private bone spurs can't figure out how to close an umbrella, spends his days watching TV and tweeting, and is financially beholden to several other countries who are NOT our allies. And he wants to take money from military pensions to pay for his silly wall. (That money, of course, is likely to end up in the pockets of a Russian billionaire.)

But no. Trump, who doesn't even know the words to the national anthem, is a tRUe PatRiOt!!!11 sent by God (along with his third, immigrant wife) to MAGA. 

[Dandruff]

3 hours ago, Alisamer said:

I really cannot wrap my brain around how anyone can call themselves a patriot, and then cheer someone speaking badly of a deceased former POW who spent his entire life in service to his country.

I think it's because, even in death, McCain shows him up.  People know the difference between "bone spurs" and service.  Can't make that go away.  So...given that a nerve appears to have been struck...Trump has a choice between letting it go or repeatedly trying to disrespect McCain.  I believe he attacks to pretend he's convincing others so he can give himself points for the battle going on in his head.  Unfortunately for him, the good memory of McCain isn't fading.