TRUMP, word for word: "I think a clean DACA bill, to me, is a DACA bill, but we take care of the 800,000 people … but I think, to me, a clean bill is a bill of DACA, we take care of them, and we also take care of security."
— Ryan Struyk (@ryanstruyk) January 9, 2018
Note the timestamp — he wasn’t sundowning, this was early afternoon.
This is amazing.
Feinstein: "What about a clean DACA bill now, with a commitment that we go into a comprehensive immigration reform procedure?"
Trump: “I would like it…. I think a lot of people would like to see that.”
— MJ Lee (@mj_lee) January 9, 2018
POTUS seems to be short-handing "DACA" to mean "DACA plus increased border security plus an end to chain migration"…. And Feinstein seems to be just referring to DACA…. https://t.co/z8DoKduqmG
— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) January 9, 2018
Is there a DC-area hotline for elder abuse? Because the Repubs would seem to be determined to ignore the old man’s openly stated wishes…
As I made very clear today, our country needs the security of the Wall on the Southern Border, which must be part of any DACA approval.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 10, 2018
Besides that Trump tweet, a senior WH official just threw cold water on today's theatrics, making it clear that a "wall" must be a part of "phase 1" of DACA fix negotiations.
— Jim Acosta (@Acosta) January 10, 2018
Just that thing where the White House manages to omit inconvenient statements from the president from the official record pic.twitter.com/Xaad9itsNI
— Edward-Isaac Dovere (@IsaacDovere) January 10, 2018
Seriously, though: Our “president” can’t make a coherent statement about one of the top priorities he’s just been prepped to discuss on camera, and the GOP is totally fine with that.
B.B.A.
He doesn’t even know what DACA is, does he?
EBT
As this is the open thread, I will start by saying I passed 100k words on my interactive fiction I am writing.
efgoldman
Incoherence R’Us
And eliminating inconvenient wording from the official transcript.
THAT certainly inspires confidence!Next I expect pictures of official occasions with the purged people scrubbed out.
Calouste
Where is the check from Mexico, stable genius?
efgoldman
@B.B.A.:
Are you surprised?
The part that made me ralph was “we do DACA out of love”- while his gestapo is rounding up people as fast as they can, changing the rules every day as they go.
RandomMonster
What comes to mind is Uncle Leo: “I’m an old man! I’m confused!”
Calouste
@efgoldman: Going to be pretty empty pictures from the early days with Priebus, Spicer, Flynn, and Bannon all gone. And whoever was communications director before the Smooch.
Roger Moore
Somebody needs to remind the Republicans that dystopian novels are not intended as instruction manuals.
Fair Economist
A DACA bill is a DACA bill is a DACA bill? Erudite! Obviously he’s making allusions to Gertrude Stein.
efgoldman
@Calouste:
And eventually, Kushkie, Uday and Qusay in jail.
Roger Moore
@Fair Economist:
Gertrude Stein? Fantastic woman. The very best. Helped enormously by pointing out what a warmonger Crooked Hillary is.
Sister Golden Bear
@Fair Economist: Well, there is no there there…
Roger Moore
@efgoldman:
Just wait until Don Sr. follows them. The historical revisionism is going to make Stalin look like an amateur.
Ruckus
@B.B.A.:
Among many, many, many other things. The breadth and range of things he doesn’t know would fill the encyclopedia britannica several times over. There may be an entry from 1972 that he has some knowledge of but that entry was found to be in error in 1973 and changed completely. He gets all his info from faux news and they haven’t published anything true, ever. So, he literally knows, nothing, zip, zero, the square root of jack.
efgoldman
@Roger Moore:
“Love those Alice B. Toklas brownies!”
?BillinGlendaleCA
@efgoldman:
That’s quite easy to do in Photoshop, even I can do that.
matt
If the Republicans had a functioning party their primary would have weeded this guy out. He was like this then.
Fair Economist
@matt: He was pretty bad during the campaign, but he’s deteriorated even from that. During the campaign it was more long ungrammatical rambling full of lies to support his claims. Now he can’t even lie to support what he says – just repeat it over and over in slightly different ways.
(((CassandraLeo)))
@EBT: Well done. I wrote over five thousand words today. I think this is the first time in months that I’ve managed to write something longer than about eight hundred words without feeling completely drained afterwards. In fact it’s probably the first time I’ve written anything longer than about two thousand words in months, too.
Dmbeaster
The whole DACA negotiation theater by Trump/GOP is just give us what we want or the bunny gets it.
Mike in DC
Maybe we can finagle a 3 hour open meeting if we promise to “seriously consider” a wall. Then just press him with comments and questions until he slowly deteriorates on live tv.
Dmbeaster
Hey, if Mexico is not going to pay for the Wall, then insist on a tax increase on the top 1% to pay for it.
danielx
Looking forward to the State of the Union speech with great anticipation. He’ll either be on powerful meds and psychological conditioning, or he will – figuratively speaking, of course – start biting the heads off live bats, revealing thereby that he has not only slipped but stripped his gears. Snarling out sentence fragments and vicious threats, uncontrollably drooling, pharma grade marching powder caked around his nostrils, trembling from the ibogaine effect…
The man cannot get out a coherent sentence, and he sits on the Oval Office. His college roommate was right when he said picking someone out of the phone directory at random would be preferable.
All those people who say they voted with their middle fingers when they voted for Trump? Nice going, morans, you fucked yourselves. I’d enjoy watching them suffer if I didn’t have to suffer along with them.
kdaug
@efgoldman: you say that as if you think he knows what’s happening
raven
Three hours of sleep and the wheezing woke me up. Fuck it, I’m going with the pain pill from my hernia operation last year. The doc was going to prescribe hyrocodone cough medicine but I turned it down.
danielx
@efgoldman:
Shades of Nikolai Yezhov!
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Fair Economist: Well, that “Executive Time” is mentally exhausting.
Anne Laurie
@Mike in DC:
To be honest, I think that’s pretty much Feinstein’s / Pelosi’s / Schumer’s tactic, already. The more often they get these snippets of Trump rambling on camera, followed on the evening news by NOTHING TO SEE HERE MOVE ALONG TOVARICH statements from the “Trump administration”, the more casual voters are gonna wonder exactly who’s in charge in the Oval Office.
The ‘informed’ GOP voters are not Trump loyalists, and the Trumpkins are not GOP loyalists — the more we can get those factions fighting with each other, the better for all the rest of us.
piratedan
and while our current President is a loathsome piece of work, my hatred and anger is aimed squarely at the GOP who is using him as cover for all of their evil shit (not that Trump has any issues with that) and assuming that they will be splash free when this shit hits the fan. I want all of those treasonous fuckers who have placed their political expediency above any kind of morals or ethics or even their own oaths to the Constitution and the nation. They’ve spit on our history, our laws and ideals of who and what this nation is and I want them embarrassed, exposed and jailed.
Duane
Omitting statements Trump made from the transcript is laughable. We heard what he said. The meeting was recorded. What a bunch of Einsteins.
Anne Laurie
@danielx:
I’m 75% sure, right now, that there won’t be a televised State of the Union 2018. It’s not legally required, and while Donny Dollhands will most certainly want to stand in front of all those legislators and high-dollar media, I don’t see his handlers allowing it.
I’m thinking a scheduled screening of a pre-recorded video (where 30-second snippets can be cobbled together to make it look like the old fool is still minimally competent). Possibly with a cast of Big Stars to march down the carpet, signing autographs, assuming they can find any rightwing ‘Big Stars’ who’ll take the job. And if the Democrats have any sense, they’ll individually and collectively announce they’re not gonna bother showing up for the shitshow…
SFAW
@piratedan:
Libtard snowflake.
Damien
This is completely insane. IT HASN’T EVEN BEEN A YEAR
EBT
@(((CassandraLeo))):
I have been in a black hole of no writing at all for so long, a few spurts of a few hundred words each pushed me past 100K. I think I want to finish out this design manual I have mostly translated in to actual playable fiction for now, but I have some technical features I want to add too (the cool part of writing an interactive fiction is writing both the fiction part and the interactive part).
piratedan
@SFAW: and I want all of their assets and properties confiscated as civil forfeitures too…..
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Anne Laurie:
You don’t understand, everyone there is a moron.
ETA: Let’s put it this way; Trump doesn’t want to hire anyone smarter than him, and he succeeded*.
*Gen. McMaster is an exception, but Trump hates him so he’s a short-timer.
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
they’ll just pump him full of cocaine and use small words and keep the speech to 15 minutes.
then the usual suspects will race to embarrass themselves and call it presidential.
Duane
@raven: You turned down hydrocodone cough medicine? Next time, get it and give it to me. I have a friend who needs it.
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
Hard to see how DACA is saved if they’re gonna link it to “Muh Wall”.
Besides, deporting 800,000 kids/teens “will lead to a glorious revolution”.
danielx
@Anne Laurie:
Hey, I gotta have a dream. Seeing Lord Shortfingers do a complete meltdown at the podium during the State of the Union speech? In front of god, both houses of congress, the supreme court and the rabble at large? That’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
You are probably correct, though. He’ll have a sudden attack of bronchitis or something and the address will be delivered via letter. A letter not written although signed by him, to be sure, but nonetheless a letter purporting to report on…everything, with big words! The BEST words!
SFAW
@danielx:
Higher ratings than the last episode of M*A*S*H. Hell, even I would watch it, and I can’t stand to see that motherfucker’s face nor hear his voice.
I’d pay extra to hear/see someone pull a Joe Wilson (i.e., the fuckhead, not Valerie Plame’s husband) on that fucker, and even more to have a large percentage of Dems laughing out loud at him. I think the laughing would cause him to stroke out. Whereas Jerry Nadler (or whoever) yelling something out would probably get him to have the Marshal of the Supreme Court remove the offender, while insulting the yeller.
Jay S
@Anne Laurie: I suggested that a few days ago. But I’d put the odds at 40%. It will be tough to talk Donald out of a performance where he can imagine adulation from the crowd.
Anne Laurie
@SFAW:
Aren’t there professionals whose clear, vibrant laughter makes them valuable to the soundtrack industry?
Surely some enterprising Democrats could smuggle a few of those professional laugh track specialists into the Senate well…
Jay S
@Jay S: In addition, Donald gets to verbally assault his favorite enemies ETA with a huuge audience. I don’t see him walking away from that opportunity with just a stern talking to.
Jay S
@danielx:
That will never be the Donald’s excuse, it would imply weakness. If that is the official excuse then his handlers have him sedated and in restraints.
Mnemosyne
@EBT:
Yay! I finished a rough draft of my historical romance in December. Now I’m getting ready to take a daylong structure class this weekend to prep for the re-write. It needs a lot of work, but I’m trying to keep in mind the old adage that you can’t fix what you haven’t written.
opiejeanne
@Mnemosyne: Yay! I haven’t written a thing since December 1 and I feel it calling me back now that we’re past Christmas and I’m almost over this cold.
I quit when I was about to wound my great great grandfather in the Chickasaw Bayou. Swamp. Whatever.
SRW1
The confirmation for my prediction that the biggest obstacle for the claim of His Trumpiness being non compos mentis dying down will be His Trumpiness himself has come earlier than anticipated. The only halfways promising countermeasure would be to withdraw the guy from public appearances.
And.The.Ego.Of.His.Trumpiness.Will.Simply.Not.Tolerate.That.
ETA:
Belatedly recognized the irony of the Ego making an appearance in the last sentence.
mardam422
Trump just doesn’t understand legislative procedure. Along with not understanding policy, that’s a bad exacta for a President to be holding.
Vor
One of the joys in the Wolff “Fire and Fury” book was the claim that even people at Trump’s company refer to Don Jr. and Eric as Uday and Qusay.
No way Trump skips a chance to perform in front of an audience. Remember last year when he did a speech in front of the joint Congress and the media pronounced him Presidential? This will be a scripted speech and he will be firmly advised against improvisation. The Republicans will cheer every brain fart and misstatement of fact as the work of the very stable genius. It will be short and he will take no questions.
This kerfluffle yesterday clearly shows he has no grasp on policy and little understanding of process. He didn’t know what was meant by a clean bill. He had few real policy preferences other than get him something to sign.
Tenar Arha
@Anne Laurie: Glad I’m not the only one who thought this. Because I told my Reps last week that if that happens they have my enthusiastic encouragement to get up and walk out. ETA I mean they’re co-equal branch & have no need to participate in a Trumpshow, nor should they.
Rasputin's Evil Twin
@Roger Moore: Nor is the comic strip “Dilbert”.