I am very skeptical @RepCummings told Trump he would be one of the greatest presidents ever. https://t.co/G58PAvBnqf pic.twitter.com/UOdpfZA0Ox
— Kevin Robillard (@PoliticoKevin) April 6, 2017
[Laughter]
The best explanation for this highly implausible Elijah Cummings quote is that Trump has mixed up his black people. https://t.co/5kzyOPgowd
— Jamelle Bouie (@jbouie) April 6, 2017
Here is the interview from which that quote came:
Trump on Syria & Russia to @maggienyt @glennthrush: “I think it’s a very sad day for Russia because they’re aligned" https://t.co/RhPL489o00
— Jennifer Epstein (@jeneps) April 5, 2017
The Haberman/Thrush interview is getting all kinds of attention, because it is just full of what might be called “nuggets” (aka “lies”). This no doubt pleases them, since H&T seem to have decided to play court jesters in Lord Smallgloves’ four-year promotional project, but what seems IMO to be under-discussed is the degree to which the people around Donald Trump just don’t trust him to be left unsupervised. The NYTimes “partial transcript” reads like a reboot of the Marx Brothers’ Night At the Opera stateroom scene…
At least six White House aides were sitting in: Gary D. Cohn, President Trump’s lead economic adviser and a former president of Goldman Sachs; Reed Cordish, an assistant to the president; Sean Spicer, the press secretary; Hope Hicks, a long-serving Trump aide; and eventually Vice President Mike Pence and the chief of staff, Reince Priebus…
Also — and not for the first time — if your grandpa couldn’t stay on topic any better than this, you’d be planning to hide his car keys and checkbook before something terrible happened:
GLENN THRUSH, White House correspondent: Why do you think Democrats feel the need to oppose Gorsuch? What do you think the politics is?
TRUMP: Well, I think that some of it had to do with the election. They thought they were going to win. You know, winning the Electoral College is, for a Republican, is close to impossible and I won it quite easily. And I think they are still recovering from that, but they are recovering now. I think the Susan Rice thing is a massive story. I think it’s a massive, massive story. All over the world, I mean other than The New York Times.
HABERMAN: We’ve written about it twice.
TRUMP: Huh?
HABERMAN: We’ve written about it twice.
TRUMP: Yeah, it’s a bigger story than you know. I think —
HABERMAN: You mean there’s more information that we’re not aware of?
TRUMP: I think that it’s going to be the biggest story…
******
HOPE HICKS, White House director of strategic communications: Can we get to infrastructure? [Laughter.] Because I know we are sensitive about time.HABERMAN: I understand. I just want to ask one last follow-up on that note, and then we’ll move on, not on O’Reilly.
TRUMP: You certainly covered O’Reilly big. Not Susan Rice, boy, O’Reilly [unintelligible]. He’s taking my place. He’s taking my place.
HABERMAN: Sir, if you could give us more information about Rice. If the administration would give us more information —
TRUMP: No, you have a lot of information. No, you have so much information…
THRUSH: [Transportation Secretary] Elaine Chao said that [Trump’s infrastructure bill] would likely come “later in the year.” Are you thinking about accelerating?
TRUMP: I am. I’m thinking about accelerating it. I’m thinking about putting it with another bill. Could be health care, could be something else. [Cross talk.] Could be tax reform.
HABERMAN: What’s your time frame, at this point, that you’re looking at as an accelerated?
TRUMP: Well, we’re working — you know when people said, when you guys, because you know we have a very solid administration. We have some very, very good people. This man was the president of Goldman Sachs. I mean, he was, like, the president of Goldman Sachs…
It’d be mildly funny, in an improv skit, with the right cast. But I actually found myself thinking, Well, I’m 61 years old, I’ve had a pretty good run, if they manage to break the world…
.@GlennThrush 2/ not a coincidence. Came days after @GlennThrush and I reported that some Pence allies question Priebus's chops
— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) April 6, 2017
We.Are.So.Fucked.
THANKS, REPUBLICANS!
?BillinGlendaleCA
This Trump fella doesn’t seem to be “all there”.
ETA: Not only would you need to hide the car keys and checkbook, you’d probably need to start thinking about setting up a legal guardianship if this was your relative.
leeleeFL
At 66, I have thought that I have had a decent run myself. Then, immediately, I think of my GrandChildren, and I want to punch something, hard! AARGH!
Ruckus
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
If this was your relative you’d want to think of padding the walls, double bolting the doors, from the outside, and would long ago have set up all the transfers of money and property. Which, I’m pretty sure is being done now because even in just hiding the old man’s keys, everyone involved is incompetent.
TS
And why the media will not tell him “there is no there there” in his continuous attacks on people from the Obama administration is disgusting. He attempts to hide his massive failings behind such nonsense. It is usually (if not always) women that he attacks. Media just doesn’t want to call him out on the dump stupidity.
As for holding his international meetings at his resort – rather than the white house is beyond disgusting. The man’s only policy is to make money for Trump Inc. Way beyond time for the international community to start forming new alliances. The US is still seen as too big to fail – with this fool in charge, that may change.
NO president should be telling the media what is newsworthy. I will never get my head around the fact that they let him manipulate them in this fashion. When my brain says GWB was an incredible president in comparison – I just have to step away & go play with the grandchildren.
amk
No, the simple explanation is the narcissistic lil fingered vulgarian lying pos had to lie about everything.
and of course, lil maggie had to ‘laugh’ at his blatant lying. useless scums.
mai naem mobile
You guys are all wrong. You would pack the relative up and dump him off to the Memory Care AKA Alzheimers Unit in the closest nursing home to you.
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch:
Trump must of confused Cummings with Carson. You know how those people look all alike to Trump.
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch:
Obama never needed a baby sitter.
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch:
Ya know, Chancey Gardner would repeat himself and watch tee vee all day.
TenguPhule
And remember folks, this person has full unrestricted access and auhority over the nuclear codes.
Thanks, morons who voted third-party & Trump.
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch:
Even the liberal Pentagon says this is Trump’s cluster fuck..
ThresherK
I have nothing to add beyond, I so want to give Trump’s handlers a copy of The Pet Goat for his b’day to see if they get the barb.
Oh, and I am tired enough that I free-associated swordfish out of “Sachs Feed Cornish” after seeing Marx Brothers.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@TenguPhule:
You might want to include those that didn’t vote.
qwerty42
They’re probably worried that Section 4 of the 25th Amendment might start getting more interest.
Mustang Bobby
@qwerty42: They’re also starting to think “how’s this going to look on my resume?” when this is all over and, assuming there’s somewhere else to go, they start looking for a job that does not entail inquiring about including a starchy side-dish with their meal.
bystander
Haberman seems to be egging Trump on to repeat his lies about Rice. Not challenging him, just egging him on. Despicable.
TriassicSands
@TS:
I don’t know what media you’re reading — or not reading — but as Kevin Drum points out the default Trump headline is now:
Trump ____________________, citing no evidence.
You can’t tell Trump there is no there there. He’s not listening. The man is delusional. The Post and Times, to name two prominent sources, are both fact checking Trump — and I’d say 4 Pinocchios from the Post — again and again — tell Trump there is no there there. But Trump is glued to Fox & Fiends [sic]. They certainly aren’t going to tell him he’s nuts — they’re responsible for starting some of his delusions.
Trump always promises more to come and then nothing more ever arrives. He’s bat shit crazy, but he’s not going to listen to anyone who tells him his accusations are absurd.
The problem is not the media, in this case anyway. The problem is the people surrounding Trump are not telling him there is no there there. Sean Spicer tells the world every day that Trump is onto something with his delusions. They all support the crazy man because they want their jobs more than they care about the country.
Trump might listen if Jared “Superman” Kushner said something. I wouldn’t count on that happening anytime soon. More likely, Trump would make Ivanka divorce Kushner and he’d be banned for life from Trump World.
MattF
As I’ve said, Trump has a fixed behavioral repertoire, a set way of doing things. One of the features of the ‘old fart’ stage of life is that there’s a list of things you know, a list of things you can do, and your priority is to stick to those lists- even if you don’t quite recall all the reasons for each item on the lists.
TriassicSands
Maybe they don’t want to leave him alone because they think he needs a babysitter. Or maybe it’s because they all know that the last person who talks to Trump wins. They may all be so insecure that they don’t want others to be around Trump without them present. To do so gives others the opportunity to bad mouth you and increase their sway at your expense. Trump is so notoriously paranoid that it would be relatively easy to turn him against someone by simply planting seeds in his diseased mind.
NotMax
Dolt 45: more crutches than a medical supply warehouse.
SFAW
@TriassicSands:
Why the [sic]? That’s how it should be written. Unless you think it’s actually “Fox and Other Anti-American Motherfuckers”?
TriassicSands
@MattF:
Trump simply can’t be judged by any set of stereotypes about an “old fart” stage of life or any other imaginary stage. Aging is a very individual thing and from what I’ve seen of Trump his age is less of a problem (unless he has dementia) than is mental illness or at the very least two serious personality disorders (narcissism and anti-social — aka sociopathy) coupled with paranoia, adult ADHD, and who knows what else.
Trying to judge Trump based on “normal” people is a fool’s errand.
SFAW
@TriassicSands:
As the saying goes: “All of them, Katie”
Tokyokie
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch:: Except Chauncey wasn’t evil and malevolent.
muddy
@SFAW: You are right that it should be spelled that way, they are fiends!
OT: had the knees replaced yesterday and am doing we!!.
Alex
Alternative explanation: It was Rep Cummings, but what he said was “You’re going down!” and “It will be a great moment in American history.”
clay
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch:: Good thing Hillary wasn’t elected. Innocent Syrians might have died! /berniebro
Wag
@qwerty42:
Or we could look at this interview as an attempt by Pence and the obvious anagram to begin paying the groundwork for implementation of Section 4 in the near future.
Wag
@TriassicSands:
I’m prepared to entertain that diagnosis.
leeleeFL
@SFAW: THIS INTO INFINITY! I want to scream at the LA editorialists who said even Trump’s awful pre-election behavior didn’t prepare them for what is happening now. Those of us, NewYorkers mostly, who have known Dolt for decades, let them know exactly what to expect. THEY DID NOT LISTEN BECAUSE EMAILS AND BLACK PRESIDENT. SORRY FOR YELLING.
Wag
@Alex:
This.
qwerty42
@Wag: …Or we could look at this interview as an attempt by Pence and the obvious anagram to begin paying the groundwork for implementation of Section 4 in the near future.
Had not considered that, but it works. I don’t think the alt-reich will go for it, but GOP may be waiting to see how the special elections (esp GA-06) turn out. OTOH, how to start that conversation and not end up in Plötzensee Prison …
George Taylor
Look, I comment here very infrequently, so take what I write for what it is worth, but the “we are so fucked” mentality got old a long time ago. It should be retired.
Yeah, we face challenges, but every time I read someone write “we are so fucked,” I begin to think “well, if that’s the case, I got mine and to hell with everyone else.”
Honestly, it reflects an annoying sort of defeatism. Stop it.
slag
One reason that NYT article got so much attention was that they left off the clause in the original title, so it just said:
Classy.
And this is yet another reason why I’m not in a forgiving mood when it comes to how our vaunted 4th estate does business even today.
I don’t have cable television because of course I don’t, but I did frequently go by a bodega that, during the election, always had CNN on mute. And every fucking time I went into that store I was treated to the sight of Jake Tapper’s furrowed talking brow hovering over some sinister “What did Hillary do now?”-type chyron. Every. Fucking. Time.
I had no idea what he was actually saying obviously, but I knew it didn’t matter. And Every. Fucking. Time. I thought to myself that if we got out of this election ok, it would be totally in spite of these people. And well…
For people whose job it is to know how this shit works, they are either unconscionably stupid or they are being extremely dishonest about their real motivations—skating through on plausible deniability. And I will forever hate them for it because it always—Every. Fucking. Time.—leads to tragic results. Not for them, mind you, because of course it doesn’t.
StringOnAStick
@muddy: I wish you a quick recovery and many years of enjoying pain free knees!