this is completely deranged https://t.co/xvmRND42JY pic.twitter.com/RWm21I3oZb
— maggie "produced by debra hill" serota (@maggieserota) October 1, 2019
It was funny as a Simpsons gag, but coming from the Oval Office places this squarely in Caligula territory. The NYTimes chooses to file the story under ‘Decision Points’:
The Oval Office meeting this past March began, as so many had, with President Trump fuming about migrants. But this time he had a solution. As White House advisers listened astonished, he ordered them to shut down the entire 2,000-mile border with Mexico — by noon the next day…
Mr. Trump’s order to close the border was a decision point that touched off a frenzied week of presidential rages, round-the-clock staff panic and far more White House turmoil than was known at the time. By the end of the week, the seat-of-the-pants president had backed off his threat but had retaliated with the beginning of a purge of the aides who had tried to contain him.
Today, as Mr. Trump is surrounded by advisers less willing to stand up to him, his threat to seal off the country from a flood of immigrants remains active. “I have absolute power to shut down the border,” he said in an interview this summer with The New York Times.
This article is based on interviews with more than a dozen White House and administration officials directly involved in the events of that week in March. They were granted anonymity to describe sensitive conversations with the president and top officials in the government.
In the Oval Office that March afternoon, a 30-minute meeting extended to more than two hours as Mr. Trump’s team tried desperately to placate him.
“You are making me look like an idiot!” Mr. Trump shouted, adding in a profanity, as multiple officials in the room described it. “I ran on this. It’s my issue.”
Among those in the room were Kirstjen Nielsen, the homeland security secretary at the time; Mike Pompeo, the secretary of state; Kevin K. McAleenan, the Customs and Border Protection chief at the time; and Stephen Miller, the White House aide who, more than anyone, had orchestrated Mr. Trump’s immigration agenda. Mick Mulvaney, the acting chief of staff was also there, along with Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law, and other senior staff…
Mr. Trump had routinely berated Ms. Nielsen as ineffective and, worse — at least in his mind — not tough-looking enough. “Lou Dobbs hates you, Ann Coulter hates you, you’re making me look bad,” Mr. Trump would tell her, referring to the Fox Business Network host and the conservative commentator.
The happiest he had been with Ms. Nielsen was a few months earlier, when American border agents had fired tear gas into Mexico to try to stop migrants from crossing into the United States. Human rights organizations condemned the move, but Mr. Trump loved it. More often, though, she drew the president’s scorn…
But the problem went deeper than Ms. Nielsen, Mr. Miller believed. L. Francis Cissna, the head of the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services until earlier this year, regularly pushed back on Mr. Miller’s demand for a “culture change” at the agency, where Mr. Miller believed asylum officers were bleeding hearts, too quick to extend protections to immigrants.They needed to start with the opposite point of view, Mr. Miller told him, and start turning people away…
When Ms. Nielsen presented her plan to Mr. Trump at the White House, he dismissed it and told her what he really needed was a cement wall.
“Sir,” she said, “I literally don’t think that’s even possible.” They couldn’t build that now even if it would work, which it wouldn’t, Ms. Nielsen told him. The designs for steel barriers had long since been finalized, the contracts bid and signed.
The president responded that it was time for her to go, Mr. Trump recalled later. “Kirstjen, I want to make a change,” he said.
The president said he would wait a week to announce her resignation, to leave time for a transition. But before Ms. Nielsen had left the White House that day, the word was leaking out. By evening, Mr. Trump was tweeting about it.
“Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen will be leaving her position,” Trump wrote, “and I would like to thank her for her service.”
The dismissal was a turning point for Mr. Trump’s immigration agenda, the start of the purge that ushered in a team that embraced Mr. Miller’s policies…
The NYTimes reporters are well-placed to sell their upcoming book, but the question is: Who knew about it then, and why is it ‘breaking news’ now?
B-T-Dubs, per my whole thread about people holding onto simmering grievances from back when others leveraged the cult leader’s favor/disfavor to harm them…
That whole NYT story tracks back to Kirstjen Nielsen’s friends.
She got knifed. Her friends have the knives now.
— The Hoarse Whisperer (@HoarseWisperer) October 2, 2019
Baud
No way he said that to her directly. Probably got Mulvaney to say it.
The Dangerman
Why not sharks with lasers?
mrmoshpotato
That’s putting it nicely.
Did Dump fall asleep to Tobe Hooper’s Eaten Alive?
Baud
Amir Khalid
@The Dangerman:
Because someone should really tell the President about Balrogs with particle-beam Gatling guns.
mrmoshpotato
@The Dangerman: Why not a Sharknado wall instead of his stupid border wall?
mrmoshpotato
@Amir Khalid: Moat full of Predators?
psycholinguist
Has anybody checked on Gina Haspel lately? I know she had some nasty torture skeletons in her closet but she’s career intelligence. I’m wondering if she’s sharpening any knives for these assholes, given their excellent European adventures of late. She’s smart enough to recognize Russian hands all over this, and can’t be happy about that.
Amir Khalid
@mrmoshpotato:
No, Predators don’t work cheap. How about Aliens instead?
Bobby Thomson
I’m glad Pelosi and Schiff have a press conference tomorrow morning to push impeachment back into the news cycle.
smintheus
That’s the purest form of crazy, right there. Sharks, snakes, alligators…that’s a bit off, sure, but those things are somewhat plausible if only barely. But worrying about Dobbs and Coulter is unhinged. Definitely. Who knew they were even still alive?
Yarrow
Missed this earlier today.
No idea if it’s true, but it sure would make sense.
MisterForkbeard
@Yarrow: No idea who Don Winslow is. And while I’d believe it. I also don’t think Graham needed any help to be as awful as he is.
Mnemosyne
@Yarrow:
I would not be surprised, and I hope like hell that all of the House Democrats, male and female, are keeping their pants zipped.
mrmoshpotato
@Yarrow: Dead girl or live boy?
cain
@Yarrow:
I hope it isn’t something like he’s gay or something cuz we wouldn’t be surprised if he was.
BTW I have angered the Bernie Bros and I’m getting a lot of mansplaining going on about how effective Bernie was even though I pointed to his record and said, “wow, he’s said all this stuff, and this is his record on bills he sponsored” Apparently, Bernie has done a lot of behind the scenes, and he has no ego, so he didn’t get credit for any of it but he worked them! No paper trial though..
jl
Trump said he wanted a trench, not a moat. Unfair!
Also note, no sharks. Mr. Trump doesn’t like sharks.
sharks
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vGvI9JJiePQ
Yarrow
@MisterForkbeard: He’s an author. Something changed with Lindsey Graham after that infamous day golfing with Trump. Prior to that he wasn’t a big fan. After that he was one of Trump’s biggest supporters. It was such a noticeable change.
West of the Rockies
@smintheus:
I have it on good authority that the Coulterwocky is working on her new book, Liberals Are Horrible Poo Poo Monsters and Hate America. It promises to be totally different from her previous 25 books on the subject of liberals being horrible poo poo monsters.
Baud
@cain:
I’m the same way. I assure you though, my accomplishments are quite impressive.
Sister Golden Bear
A moat with alligators…. because alligators do so well in the desert heat. //
Yeah it’s delusional, but is anyone surprised by Trump’s sadism?
smike
@Yarrow:
It’s out in the open now. Mincie Graham had/is having an affair with a Muslim man of the un-white persuasion.
I mean, people are saying, is all…
cain
@Baud:
Baud 2020!
oatler.
Thomas Pynchon, why are’t you writing this down for your next novel?
TS (the original)
Making money is much more important than telling the truth about trump – besides he may have taken away maggie’s access.
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
He wanted to have the Border Patrol shoot migrants. When they told him they couldn’t do that, he wanted them to shoot their kneecaps off. I’ve said this about mighty few Americans, but if this shitstain were anybody but an American president, I’d say he needs to be put down.
piratedan
@Yarrow: true, you typically don’t go from carrying water for John McCain to being the presidential mouthpiece so abruptly unless something has taken you down to your inner core. Not saying that Graham was a paragon of principle before, but it was a pretty rapid descent to Senatorial floormat.
mrmoshpotato
@piratedan:
Trying to make understatement of the year I see.
Amir Khalid
@smike:
Not being Republican, I fail to see anything scandalous about this.
mrmoshpotato
@Amir Khalid: The other man must be married, otherwise it’s not an affair.
JGabriel
NYT via Anne Laurie @ Top:
No, Donald, no one is making you look like an idiot – you do that all on your lonesome.
joel hanes
Classic abusive husband.
“Now look what you made me do!”
smike
@Amir Khalid:
I thought about that myself:
Ds – Meh.
Rs – He was never a True Republican!!1!@
montanareddog
@Yarrow: And is Don Winslow or his “friend in federal law enforcement” doing anything with this information apart from letting us rubes know what movers and shakers they are to be party to such insider gossip?
The allegation is that the President is blackmailing a US Senator – it should not be a subject for tittering and nudge, nudge, wink, wink.
Amir Khalid
@montanareddog:
Ideally, it should be added to the articles of impeachment. But could you do that without outing the boyfriend, who might prefer to stay closeted?
Patricia Kayden
@Baud: AHA!! You’ll soon hear Rightwingers claiming that the alligators in the moat was President Obama’s idea.
oatler.
“Expect mastodons:”
Sebastian
@Baud:
OMG it’s been in front of us all this time!
The Russians figured out long time ago that you only have to mention something in a certain way to Donnie and he will after a certain time believe it was his idea and once he is convinced of something he never changes.
Fucking genius move.
We on the other hand are just in denial about how stupid this guy is.
OzarkHillbilly
@Sebastian:
No, I’m not. I am fully aware that no matter how moronic I think he may be, there is a lower level and he is below that.
GregB
No one could predicted Trump would be a compromised, money-lusting, amoral sociopath.
satby
@montanareddog: @Amir Khalid: would it just be that Graham is gay? He’s turned into a spittle-flecked defender of Trump and creatures like Kavanaugh over something as mundane as being gay? I don’t really think that would be the only reason. And though I usually oppose outing unwilling people, someone should try to find out what that blackmail might be about. That “friend in law enforcement” for instance; instead of gossiping about blackmail, which is still illegal, might want to investigate that illegal behavior.
mrmoshpotato
@GregB: Sarcasm? Before breakfast?!
p.a.
Alligators are a 4 on the crocodillian scale but I guess importing Australian salties won’t Make America Great? Again?
OzarkHillbilly
@mrmoshpotato: Sarcasm, it’s not just for breakfast anymore.
mrmoshpotato
@OzarkHillbilly: Apparently it’s for pre-breakfast. Gotta give that morning appetite a primer.
Geoduck
@OzarkHillbilly: There is a strange compulsion even among people who hate the Tangerine Shiatgibbon to grant him more intelligence than he possesses. (“He’s doing X to distract from Y!” is a perennial favorite.) My theory is that people can’t bear to accept the fact that a complete ignoramus and moron managed to bumble his way into the presidency of the United States, when… he did.
different-church-lady
Now this here fella is aware a fair amount of the border already is a moat of sorts, yes?
WereBear
Oh, this was no oopsie Presidency. They hauled him up with mountaineering equipment.
When you look at the facts, Trump is a fool’s gold-plated failure. As a rich white man, he had no social, or legal, barriers to overcome. He got an expensive education, an existing web of corruption, and 20 million dollars to play with.
Give me that and I can run a casino at a profit.
mrmoshpotato
@WereBear:
Or launder the hell out of Russki mob money and declare bankruptcy leaving others holding the bag.
ETA – just saying that you have options
Patricia Kayden
Ha!
https://twitter.com/darth/status/1179160041804505088
Sounds like Miller alright.
Patricia Kayden
@GregB: Except Secretary Clinton. She figured him out and warned us.
I know you’re joking because every sentient being knew he was a sociopath back in 2016. We just didn’t know how craven and subservient Republicans were going to be towards Trump.
p.a.
@WereBear: once saw: “Newt Gingrich is a stupid person’s idea of what a smart person is like”… Trump is their idea of a successful person.
mrmoshpotato
@Patricia Kayden:
https://crooksandliars.com/2016/07/dont-you-dare-call-it-trump-ism
ETA – better link
trnc
@smintheus:
Hannity, Dobbs and Coulter were essentially the policy shop, so you can bet DT let everyone in the WH know their positions on issues at all times. Most likely the reason we didn’t hear more about alligators from DT was because the three of them didn’t pick it up and run with it.
trnc
@Yarrow:
Ya know, I’ll laugh all day long if we ever find out what this is and it’s somehow verified, but unless Winslow is getting ready to do some real reporting on this, it’s just another example of bullshit from NYT. Asshole should either man up and report or not say anything. I hate crappy rumor based reporting when they do it to us, so I have no more love for it when it’s turned against dedicated asshole LG.
In fact, I wouldn’t be a bit surprised to learn this is a trick designed to entice dems back into their readership.
trnc
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.):
I’d have settled for the type of state mental institution that sometimes winds up on 60 Minutes.
trnc
@satby:
Yes. Perhaps even an NYT reporter. Maybe even, and I’m just spitballing here, Don Winslow.
But until then, he should stop with the stupid ass rumor mongering. Until then, I assume it’s just a way to get us to subscribe again or it’s a shiny object to get the dems all worked up but ultimately leads to nothing.
trnc
@WereBear:
He did run casinos for a profit. The money launderers made a significant amount of money.
trnc
Hmmm … looks like I’m the last one here. I’ll turn off the lights on my way out.
OzarkHillbilly
@trnc: I’m not dead yet!
Ken
@West of the Rockies: Actually it’s been re-titled, “Liberals are Nasty Poo-Poo Monsters and Hate America”. She’s playing to the vocabulary of her number one fan.
danielx
@trnc:
Only Don Winslow I’ve heard of is an author, and not a bad one
OzarkHillbilly
“Boop, BEEPBEEP”
“911”
“Yes, I’d like to report a kidnapping.”
“A kidnapping?”
“Yes, somebody is holding our Morning Open Thread hostage.”
“A front Pager is on the way sir.”
“Thankyou.”
NotMax
(stubs toe in the dark, mutters invective)
@danielx
Naval gazing.
:)
debbie
Children, this is why there should never, ever be a CEO in the Oval Office.
OzarkHillbilly
Knock knock
Jinchi
@Baud:
Oh my God. This is almost certainly where Trump got the idea from.
Yarrow
@trnc: What makes you think he’s a New York Times reporter? He’s an author. In his bio he lists publications for which he has written columns and the NYT is not among them. He does say he’s a NYT bestselling author.