Looks like stories are dropping today following the news about McCabe. Here’s an excerpt of a piece NBC News just published:
WASHINGTON — The day after President Donald Trump fired James Comey, he became so furious watching television footage of the ousted FBI director boarding a government-funded plane from Los Angeles back to Washington, D.C. that he called the bureau’s acting director, Andrew McCabe, to vent, according to multiple people familiar with the phone call.
Trump demanded to know why Comey was allowed to fly on an FBI plane after he had been fired, these people said. McCabe told the president he hadn’t been asked to authorize Comey’s flight, but if anyone had asked, he would have approved it, three people familiar with the call recounted to NBC News.
The president was silent for a moment and then turned on McCabe, suggesting he ask his wife how it feels to be a loser — an apparent reference to a failed campaign for state office in Virginia that McCabe’s wife made in 2015.
McCabe replied: “OK, sir.” Trump then hung up the phone…
The phone call between Trump and McCabe after Comey’s firing last May underscores the president’s continued fixation on where the loyalties of people around him may lie and his frustration with autonomous arms of the government — particularly ones involved in the Russia investigation. It’s also emblematic of his early and persistent distrust of top Justice Department officials.
The combination of those sentiments whipped the president into such a fury over Comey last year that he wanted his firing to abruptly strip him of any trappings that come with the office and leave him across the country scrambling to find his own way home.
The incompetence, demagoguery, etc., aside, Trump is just a garbage human being on a personal level — a vindictive dickhead. Congressman Ted Lieu, on the other hand, is awesome:
As a Member of the House Judiciary Committee, I read the partisan, classified Nunes House Intel memo. I can’t talk about it. However, here’s an analogy.
Remember Geraldo Rivera and the infamous Mystery of Al Capone’s Vaults? It’s like that, but Geraldo Rivera has more integrity.
— Ted Lieu (@tedlieu) January 29, 2018
Open thread!
Mike in DC
Noteworthy that he said this over the phone rather than in person. Some people really need the shit kicked out of them at least once in life to understand that they, too, are held accountable for their words and actions.
clay
Because you were too cowardly to fire him face-to-face, so you waited until he was out of town on FBI business. After that, he certainly has a right to not be stranded in a different city with no means of getting home. You lousy piece of shit.
dmsilev
For a guy who built his reputation on the phrase “you’re fired”, Trump is remarkably bad at it.
zhena gogolia
WHAT CAN WE DO TO STOP THESE PEOPLE????
tobie
Pettiness runs in the Trump blood. Here’s Don Jr. regarding McCabe’s eligibility for retirement:
I have never known more vile people than the Trumps.
a thousand flouncing lurkers (was fidelio)
The Al Capone’s Vault bit was fun to watch, harmless, and provided a good laugh. I wish we could say the same of Nunes’s memo.
Bill Arnold
Ted Lieu has some talent for this sort of thing.
Betty Cracker
I just…
Corner Stone
@clay: Trump told Lester Holt he was going to fire Comey, “knowing there was no good time to do it”. Apparently the right time was when he was on the complete opposite coast doing a recruiting gig for the FBI.
Waratah
I am so glad I can read the names you call him Betty, it makes me feel better.
patrick II
Maggie Haberman:
And calling you an embarrassing sycophant is just how I talk.
Corner Stone
And wtf is Trump doing calling the FBI directly?
patrick II
Looks like McCabe got in his first “I am no longer a government employee” punch in.
schrodingers_cat
@Betty Cracker: WH should hire her and give her SHS job.
Mike in DC
@Betty Cracker: Think she was trying for sarcasm but missed the mark.
aimai
I love Ted Lieu. Imma gonna send him some money for that one.
Betty Cracker
@schrodingers_cat: I’m honestly wondering if she’s being sarcastic.
Corner Stone
@patrick II: Some on that twit stream are suggesting MAGA Habs is simply pre-parroting what GOP and Trump defenders will be saying to excuse it away in the coming days.
IMO, when you shoot your credibility in the face, over and over, I think you have lost the right to try deep sarcasm about your meal ticket.
jacy
I kind of love Ted Lieu.
And somebody needs to kick the shit out of Trump and his spawn. Literally. Repeatedly. On a loop for eternity. GAH.
some guy
Haberman is a real piece of shit. Enabler, sycophant, tool.
schrodingers_cat
@Betty Cracker: When one spends their professional life giving T rhetorical (AFAIK) blow jobs that doesn’t sound like sarcasm.
Mike in NC
The answer he should have gotten was, “Did you expect him to walk home, you fat fuck?”
laura
@Bill Arnold: Call the burn unit!
Also, President Shithole has as much respect for the Constitution as he does for the Office. He is literally incapable of thinking about anything other than himself.
Humdog
Another reason 80+% of R’s say he is a good role model for children. You know, send an employee out on company biz, fire him and leave him stranded. All the best people do this!
T S
@Betty Cracker: I’m sure Maggie’s gotten plenty of responses along the lines of “hey, and THIS is just how I talk…[string of expletives here]…Alright?”
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
@Mike in DC:
I could totally see that. She’s too much of a dweeb to pull off deadpan snark.
KickBoxBanana
Sheezus. No wonder he’s quitting. Who wants to put up with that BS. What a horrible thing to say to someone. For anyone anywhere, any boss. Anything! Just a horrible shitweasel thing to say.
jharp
Ted Lieu is my new favorite Congressman.
Fucking awesome tweet, Congressman Lieu.
JustRuss
For my mental health, I’m going to focus on Lieu’s awesomeness and pretend Haberman doesn’t exist. I suggest the Times try the latter.
The Moar You Know
I posted this last thread but it bears repeating: Trump has a singular talent. A rare one and it’s amazing. He gets everyone around him to instantly forgo their dignity.
Because if he had said what he said to McCabe about his wife to me about MY wife, my response would have not been “yes, sir.”
Corner Stone
@Humdog: Didn’t Romney cancel all campaign credit cards like one minute after he lost the election? All the staff were stranded if I remember the details correctly.
JDM
@dmsilev: he’s bad at most everything.
As for “it’s just how he talks”, yes indeed, but that doesn’t work as the excuse you think it is, Maggie, because he talks like a petty whiner.
MisterForkbeard
@Betty Cracker: Maybe it should occur to Haberman that “if this guy talks like this all the time, maybe he’s just a gigantic asshole”? Why choose to TRY and defend this kind of behavior?
Tom
@Betty Cracker: Ah yes, Maggie Haberman, the Judith Miller of our time.
rikyrah
Burn them, Congressman Lieu
Humdog
@Corner Stone: I think you are correct. Didn’t Shitstain leave Priebus or someone stranded off Air Force One as well? What a vulgar conman.
dmsilev
@Betty Cracker: It’s true. However, Haberman refuses to make the next logical step, which is that he talks like an asshole because he is an asshole.
Frankensteinbeck
@Betty Cracker:
Certainly true. He is always, consistently, and without bothering to hide it a complete mean-spirited asshole. It’s a major reason why Republicans support him.
HypersphericalCow
@Corner Stone: Yep, there were people who had their cards canceled as they were in their cabs on the way back home.
Gelfling 545
@Betty Cracker: Yeah. We know. He talks like an a$$hole because he is one.
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
@The Moar You Know:
Keep in mind, as much of an asshole Trump is, he’s still the president with SS protection. If you threatened him, even over the phone, he would not hesitate to turn your life upside down for having the temerity to talk back to him. He’s an extremely petty person, so McCabe did the best he could given circumstances.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
I can see why Trump is so paranoid about his staff if this is the way he treats them. Likely he constantly being robed blind by his employees or they just merely deliberately make bad decisions to lose him money in revenge.
The hilarious bit is Trump is faced with getting charged with treason in revenge for Comey and Trump still doesn’t get it.
rikyrah
@some guy:
Everytime I see her garbage, makes me even happier that Wolff scooped her and made her book a piece of worthless trash.
dmsilev
@Corner Stone: My favorite reply in that thread was this:
Manyakitty
@Mike in DC: I’m anti-violence as a rule, but in this case, I want to throw the first punch, right at his stupid sphincter mouth.
rikyrah
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) backed out of an interview with Seven Days Monday morning after the newspaper refused to accept conditions his staff attempted to set. The senator then accused a Seven Days reporter of being a “gossip columnist.”
A spokesman for Sanders, Daniel McLean, called the reporter Sunday evening to offer up an interview with his boss the next morning. McLean said Sanders could make time for a brief interview after appearing at a press conference at Burlington International Airport and before boarding a plane to Washington, D.C.
But McLean made clear that two subjects would be off the table: Sanders, the spokesman said, was not interested in answering questions about “political gossip” nor about the senator’s family. He did not elaborate on either condition. (Sanders’ wife, Jane O’Meara Sanders, has been under scrutiny by federal prosecutors over her role leading the now-defunct Burlington college. His stepdaughter, Carina Driscoll, is running for mayor of Burlington.)
The reporter informed McLean that Seven Days does not allow politicians to set such restrictions in exchange for access. He also noted that it would be impossible to ask substantive, policy-oriented questions in such a brief exchange.
Manyakitty
@dmsilev: dayum
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
Can anybody even imagine President Obama saying something like this to anybody?
Manyakitty
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.): No, because that’s not how decent people behave.
SiubhanDuinne
@Corner Stone:
@Humdog:
@HypersphericalCow:
Okay, be fair, you guys. I distinctly remember when Toby, Josh and Donna got stranded in Indiana because Bartlet’s campaign motorcade left without them. See? DemocRATS do it too!
Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady)
@Betty Cracker: What does “just” mean in that Haberman quote? Is it supposed to excuse him for talking this way?
Millard Filmore
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?:
How about this threat: “The courts will tell the USA exactly what a presidential NDA is worth.”
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?: One doesn’t need too; Come 2021 Trump is back to being a private citizen with a lot of powerful enemies and he’s not like say Nixon with a lot of friends in the GOP to protect him. His is and his family’s life are going to be hell.
trollhattan
@SiubhanDuinne:
Heh. But of course it was plot service in order for John Candy to pick them up to drive in the snow, leading to hijinks!
clay
@Corner Stone:
You can always tell when the Trump team gets a criticism that they feel a need to respond to, because Trump will try to insert justifications into his speech for those criticisms, no matter how little sense it makes.
For instance, why insert “knowing there was no good time to do it”? Did Holt ask about that? No. Did it make his answer clearer or more informative? No, the opposite.
He inserted it because a lot of talking heads were saying at the time, “The President has a right to fire the FBI director, but doing so now makes him look like he’s trying to obstruct the Russia investigation,” or “If he was going to fire Comey for cause, why didn’t he do it right after the inauguration?”
So Trump felt he needed to answer these criticisms: “there was no good time”. Pretty weak. There may not have been a good time, but there was absolutely a bad time, and he picked the worst one.
Anyway, he does this all the time, and it’s pretty easy to recognize once you realize what he’s doing.
Corner Stone
@trollhattan: Uncle Buck came to save them?
Aleta
@Betty Cracker: The old ‘just locker room talk’ reasoning huh. Because locker room slurs and dominance rituals are the standard we follow for professional behavior, as described in the Republican manual.
trollhattan
@Corner Stone:
Del Griffith!
Dave
@Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady): She was being sarcastic. That her public work and behavior has given people good reason to take her statement at face value…. Well it doesn’t matter what those of us outside her little Versailles Court think now does it?
Aleta
What I want to know:
DC law allows one party to record conversations without the other person’s knowledge, I read. Unless there’s some other provision, guys like McCabe and the Senators, etc can record every conversation they have with Trump, Sessions, etc. Are they?
Tokyokie
@tobie: I sincerely hope that the American taxpayers are stuck with providing Uday and Qusay three squares a day for the rest of their lives in the Colorado Supermax.
Jack the Second
@jacy: I personally blame Jeb Bush for all of this.
With all the things Trump said about the other candidates and their wives during the debates, it would not have been out of place for one of them to walk over and deck ‘im. And whoever did so would have won the nomination, and the next Republican primary would have been WAY more interesting.
MisterForkbeard
@Aleta: Over the phone, maybe. But apparently you’re searched before going into a meeting with the president, so in-person would be hard to do.
jurassicpork
I almost forgot. It’s my 13th blogging anniversary and here’s what i have to say about it.
Kay
Says the coverage was “misleading”. Which it was. It’s just not that difficult to admit a mistake.
Villago Delenda Est
No quarter for Donald or his family.
None.
Villago Delenda Est
@Tokyokie: Yup. For one thing, we won’t see them on Twitter again.
eric
@Villago Delenda Est: unless drawn first.
Jay S
Has anyone done a SoTU Trump troll bingo card yet for what individuals, institutions and norms he will attack?
I remember speculating that he wouldn’t do it in person, giving it a 30% probability I think, now that is down to less than 5% that he won’t do it live. So what are the odds of going radically off script? Or better that he won’t? Any bets on the number of falsehoods stated as fact? I’d say 30 provable falsehoods are likely.
Corner Stone
@eric:
Like one of Jack’s French girls?
Brachiator
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
Nixon was a strange, paranoid little man whose impeachment embarrassed the Republican Party, and who was never described as someone who was likeable or who had many close friends. And still he got respect and protection after leaving the office in disgrace.
Trump has earned the undying gratitude of the GOP and the oligarchs for delivering the biggest and juiciest tax cut in years. He will get love and protection all the days of his life.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Jay S
@Betty Cracker: I read the tweet as confirmation that he could well have said that. But it could be sarcasm or minimization. Tweets are often inscrutable.
Villago Delenda Est
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Oh, what nonsense. Donald has no problem with illegal or unethical, because he has no moral compass to speak of, not even a broken one.
Tenar Arha
@Betty Cracker: @Betty Cracker: Yep. Based on her responses to getting batted around, yeah, she intended sarcasm. (But of course, she lost the privileges of irony & sarcasm long ago acting as the primary stenographer for the Dolt).
ETA Dang, I’m not even original in my snark!
Betty Cracker
@jurassicpork: jurassicSPAM!
MJS
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: It would be nice to see that Nazi Kelly caught up in this, too.
LanceThruster
@jurassicpork:
It always saddened me the constant financial difficulties you endure. Sadly, I am in a somewhat similar boat. I wish you well, JP.
SiubhanDuinne
Just got in the car to run out and grab a few groceries and had MSNBC audio on SiriusXM. Whoever is hosting MTP Daily said that it had just come to notice that the visitor tickets for tomorrow’s SOTU all read:
Only the best people….
(To be fair, greatly as it pains me: the fuckup is apparently the responsibility of the Sergeant at Arms’ office, not the WH. But still worthy of laughing and pointing.)
NotMax
OT.
Rarely keep milk in the house. Needed some for a recipe wanted to try out for potato bread, however. Both amazed that it is there at all and amused that it is deemed necessary by a disclaimer printed on the top of the carton: “Cream on the top is normal.”
NotMax
@Betty Cracker
Yup. 13 years seems too short a span to be on the cusp of losing his house 233 times.
;)
hedgehog the occasional commenter
@Betty Cracker: /headdesk/
I can’t even…..
dollared
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: Actually, Trump will be able to name his price for the political reality show he will have on ABC and his commentary show on Fox. And maybe for once his merchandise will sell. There are still 40 million followers that can be monetized, and another 50 million that are always willing to pay to watch a car crash or a live suicide.
dollared
@MJS: This. I’m sure that many people in our glorious all volunteer armed forces dream of the day their tanks will be called into the streets of our cities to stop an uprising of all those brown and black people. Kelly actually has the plans in his head. And maybe on an encrypted key in his desk drawer.
Yutsano
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
In Dolt45Speak:
“Anything that will embarrass or make the President look bad. Or criminal. Basically, just shut up.”
Gravenstone
@Betty Cracker: Someone needs to throw themselves in front of a subway train. The world will be better for her final act were that to happen.
Jay S
@Jay S: And looking at her tweet stream it looks like she was shooting for sarcasm and missed.
Jake the antisoshul soshulist
@Corner Stone: The Polka King.
randy khan
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I’m guessing that McGahn is no longer deemed to be sufficiently reliable. They’re worried that he’d actually tell the DoJ folks that they should feel free to do their jobs.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Yutsano: reminds me of Tony Soprano telling his various captains, “you gotta do what you gotta do…”
randy khan
@Corner Stone:
He did. There were several stories about it. My guess is that it was pre-planned, and that they were going to be cancelled regardless of the result, which was both petty and stupid. (Suppose there had been a 2000 situation, for instance.)
trnc
I’m actually not sure which is more stupid – the cowardly firing of Comey while he was 3000 miles away, or the idea that it would be very difficult for Comey to get back home on his own.
randy khan
@The Moar You Know:
The report suggests that “Yes, sir,” was not the response Trump wanted, since he hung up right after that. I would guess that it really irked him that McCabe did not rise to take the bait.
Gravenstone
@NotMax: Only if you’re getting non-homogenized. Which I’m sure you know.
Shakti
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
Any man who tried to push a NDA and a noncompete on volunteers, people giving their labor for free clearly is a fucking nightmare to be around. I think half these “leaks” are people venting.
KS in MA
@jharp: Co-sign!
Betty Cracker
@NotMax: Somewhat relatedly, my favorite poem about canned milk:
Pet Milk, best in the land.
Pet Milk, comes in a can.
No tits to pull,
No hay to pitch.
You just punch a hole in the son of a bitch!
[I’ll show myself out, thanks.]
Miss Bianca
@Betty Cracker: LOL! I never heard that one! Is that a Betty Cracker original?
geg6
@Betty Cracker:
Jesus fucking Christ, she is just the most vile piece of shit that ever walked.
WaterGirl
@Betty Cracker: Wow, somebody pissed off Maggie H. After carrying his water for all this time, I am trying to imagine what the last straw could possibly have been.
Edit: I see from the comments that many of you think that Maggie H. was making an excuse. As you can tell from my comment, I did not see it that way.
Anotherlurker
@Betty Cracker: LOL! (spits wine all over keyboard!)
WaterGirl
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.): There is a story about Barack Obama, from before he was famous, buying some woman he did not know a plane ticket when she was stranded somewhere. What Obama and Trump have absolutely nothing in common.
Betty Cracker
@Miss Bianca: I wish! Read it years ago somewhere, and it stuck with me.
Shalimar
@LanceThruster: It always saddened me that he never comments here except to link to a request for money. This is a generous community. If he had spent 1/10th as much time commenting here as he has writing blog posts no one reads, there would most likely have been a fund-raiser or two to help him.
Aleta
@WaterGirl: Her comment coming after “A White House official, who would not speak on the record, disputed the account, saying, ‘this simply never happened. Any suggestion otherwise is pure fiction.'” does seem = to “The WH is lying.”
OldDave
@Betty Cracker:
I remember the last three lines showed up in John Muir’s “How to Keep Your Volkswagen Alive: A Manual of Step-by-Step Procedures for the Compleat Idiot” alongside lines like “Learn to cure Rod Knock … I didn’t know he was sick!”
dww44
@WaterGirl: I too think she is still carrying water for Trump. Maggie Haberman has been seriously bought and paid for.
NotMax
@Betty Cracker
And here I was picturing a tyke with an ear-to-ear grin, braids swinging to and fro, reciting it while jumping rope.
NotMax
@Shalimar
Not just here. He’s been pulling the same scam simultaneously on many blogs for years and years. Can remember seeing it even before he announced his change of nym and blog title to what they are currently.
Bobby Thomson
@Mike in DC: a few well-timed swirlies might have saved the country.
Bobby Thomson
@Betty Cracker: and repeating White House spin is just how Haberman talks.
zhena gogolia
@Betty Cracker:
I know it from somewhere too, and I can’t for the life of me remember where.
ETA: I’m hearing it in the voice of Paul Newman, if that helps any. Maybe it’s in Nobody’s Fool.
zhena gogolia
@Betty Cracker:
Snopes has an article on it regarding Carnation: “Printed references to this verse indicate that it might be almost a century old itself. For example, the following presentation appears in a college literature textbook:”
But I think I know it from Richard Russo somehow.
Bobby Thomson
@schrodingers_cat: I haven’t seen such naked campaigning for that job since 2008.
Bobby Thomson
@Tenar Arha: revisionist history after the reaction was stronger than she anticipated. She stays bought.
Ladyraxterinok
@Betty Cracker: Some people will invent excuses for anything T does or says. Have we ever had another politician given this kind of treatment by news media? Maybe Reagan??
hueyplong
It’s the nature of this age that requires its Judith Miller to take servility to a level previously unimagined and perhaps unimaginable.
If there is a debasement to which she is unwilling to subject herself, I do not wish to read a description of it.
zhena gogolia
@Betty Cracker:
I know now where I saw it. It was Richard Russo, in Everybody’s Fool, the sequel to Nobody’s Fool. Paul Newman played the character in the film made from Nobody’s Fool, and his performance as Sully was so indelible that when I read the sequel Everybody’s Fool I just heard all the dialogue of that character in Paul Newman’s voice. But the jingle itself is ancient folklore, I just never heard it before Russo and thought it was very funny.
Hkedi [Kang T. Q.]
@dollared: Especially since approximately 40% of the armed forces are minorities. that would get REAL interesting.
dollared
@Hkedi [Kang T. Q.]: I read a science fiction short story in about 1972 that foretold of an dirty, violent ongoing civil war covering Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi led by black draftees that had erupted in 2005 and was still at stalemate three years later. Didn’t seem like an impossibility. Had a lot of infrared sensors, drones and smart missiles too.