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You are here: Home / Politics / America / Lordy! There Are Tapes! Bob Woodward’s Rage Has Leaked To CNN & By Leaked I Mean Bob Woodward Gave CNN the Book and the Tapes

Lordy! There Are Tapes! Bob Woodward’s Rage Has Leaked To CNN & By Leaked I Mean Bob Woodward Gave CNN the Book and the Tapes

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Boizhe Moi!

From CNN (emphasis mine):

President Donald Trump admitted he knew weeks before the first confirmed US coronavirus death that the virus was dangerous, airborne, highly contagious and “more deadly than even your strenuous flus,” and that he repeatedly played it down publicly, according to legendary journalist Bob Woodward in his new book “Rage.”

This is deadly stuff,” Trump told Woodward on February 7.

In a series of interviews with Woodward, Trump revealed that he had a surprising level of detail about the threat of the virus earlier than previously known. “Pretty amazing,” Trump told Woodward, adding that the coronavirus was maybe five times “more deadly” than the flu.

Trump’s admissions are in stark contrast to his frequent public comments at the time insisting that the virus was “going to disappear” and “all work out fine.”

The book, using Trump’s own words, depicts a President who has betrayed the public trust and the most fundamental responsibilities of his office. In “Rage,” Trump says the job of a president is “to keep our country safe.” But in early February, Trump told Woodward he knew how deadly the virus was, and in March, admitted he kept that knowledge hidden from the public.

“I wanted to always play it down,” Trump told Woodward on March 19, even as he had declared a national emergency over the virus days earlier. “I still like playing it down, because I don’t want to create a panic.”

Woodward reveals new details on the early warnings Trump received — and often ignored.

In a January 28 top secret intelligence briefing, national security adviser Robert O’Brien gave Trump a “jarring” warning about the virus, telling the President it would be the “biggest national security threat” of his presidency. Trump’s head “popped up,” Woodward writes.

O’Brien’s deputy, Matt Pottinger, concurred, telling Trump it could be as bad as the influenza pandemic of 1918, which killed an estimated 50 million people worldwide, including 675,000 Americans. Pottinger warned Trump that asymptomatic spread was occurring in China: He had been told 50% of those infected showed no symptoms.

Asked by Woodward in May if he remembered O’Brien’s January 28 warning that the virus would be the biggest national security threat of his presidency, Trump equivocated. “No, I don’t.” Trump said. “I’m sure if he said it — you know, I’m sure he said it. Nice guy.”

He also disclosed a clandestine and highly classified new nuclear weapons program* to Woodward on tape!

And, of course, we’ve got further confirmation of Jeffrey Goldberg’s reporting from last Friday too!

Both Secretary Mattis and DNI Coats had serious, significant concerns about the President, his abilities, and his allegiance! (emphasis mine)

Mattis is quoted as calling Trump “dangerous” and “unfit” to be commander in chief. Woodward writes that Coats “continued to harbor the secret belief, one that had grown rather than lessened, although unsupported by intelligence proof, that Putin had something on Trump.” Woodward continues, writing that Coats felt, “How else to explain the president’s behavior? Coats could see no other explanation.”

Woodward also has assessments of the President from Dr. Fauci:

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the administration’s top infectious disease expert, is quoted telling others Trump’s leadership was “rudderless” and that his “attention span is like a minus number.”

“His sole purpose is to get reelected,” Fauci told an associate, according to Woodward.

Woodward was also able to get his hands on the love letters, or, at least, copies of the love letters between the President and Kim Jong Un.

As many of you know, I’m generally not a big fan of Bob Woodward’s books. He never cites sources and many of us in the nat-sec world that have had to refer to his books in our professional work have speculated that his modus operandi is that if you refuse to talk to him on or off the record, that he’ll just make stuff up to fit and support the narrative he’s creating. In this case, however, he has tapes. 18 hours of tapes of the President from interviews the President chose to sit for. And tapes, which the President in his own, charming fashion, will spend the next two months loudly, repeatedly, and often incoherently, but definitely angrily denying are actually of him. He’ll tell anyone and everyone who’ll listen or give him air time that he doesn’t think that’s actually him on the tapes. Just as he’s done with the Access Hollywood tape.

I expect that between The Lincoln Project, VoteVets, Don Winslow, and several other groups, as well as the Biden campaign, will have all of this teed up and ready to go in advertisement over the next two months. Including, if they can get permission to use them, the audio from Woodward’s tapes of the President.

ETA: Audio at the CNN link.

Open thread!

* Would one of our New Mexican readers please do a welfare check on Cheryl? Thanks, The Management…

Reader Interactions

220Comments

  2. 2.

    Suzanne

    FORDALUVVAPEET, why on Earth would he say these things to Woodward?! Does he not know that the dude writes books?!

    I don’t get it. Is he really THAT dumb?

  7. 7.

    lamh36

    190,000 Americans have died!! a large number of them Black and Brown folks! And this mofo downplayed numbers when he could have been doing more!! he knew in February! imagine if we’d close down and masked up earlier nationwide!

  12. 12.

    germy

    Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and senior adviser, is quoted by Woodward as saying, “The most dangerous people around the president are overconfident idiots,” which Woodward interprets as a reference to Mattis, Tillerson and former National Economic Council director Gary Cohn.

    Washington Post

  16. 16.

    SiubhanDuinne

    Trump admits he knew weeks before first US coronavirus death it was dangerous, airborne, highly contagious and “more deadly than even your strenuous flus,”

    And yet knowing all this, he still refused to mask up, let alone ensure that first-line health care workers were protected.

  19. 19.

    germy

    Just popping in to remind everyone Wikileaks’ Julian Assange is a stone cold anti-Semite. Once when he got mad about me not publishing smear documents on Adrian Lamo, he called me “worse than a Jew.”

    — Xeni Jardin (@xeni) October 29, 2018

    There’s a reason he aligned with Trump, Stone, Bannon, and others in Europe on the extreme right before most reporters took notice. There was a reason he slid into my DMs with threats when I called out visible Wikileaks/Trump/Russia links in 2016.

    — Xeni Jardin (@xeni) October 29, 2018

  22. 22.

    bbleh

    It WILL be interesting to see how his cult defends him on this one — or I guess these ones.

    I suppose “those are fakes” is pretty predictable.  Also “those must be taken out of context,” “that isn’t what he REALLY meant,” etc.

    And I’m sure there will be several variations on side-stepping the evidence, eg “he would NEVER say something like that.”

    And there’s always the ultimate go-to, “oh I don’t believe THAT.”

    Betting pool?  Wisdom of the market?

  27. 27.

    lamh36

    Don’t even get me started on Bo. Woodward holding onto this shit for months as 1000s of people died darn near daily since fuqn March!

    The mofo MSM and these money grubbing reporters all have blood on their hands…smh.

  29. 29.

    Betty Cracker

    Since Woodward knew that Trump was downplaying the virus in public and gushing about how dangerous it was ON TAPE to Woodward, maybe Woodward could have warned us? Burned his access to Trump, published the tapes and possibly forced the government to acknowledge what was happening sooner than it did, thereby saving lives? Oh well, he got a nice fat book deal, so it’s all good.

  32. 32.

    Gin & Tonic

    @lamh36:

     he knew in February! imagine if we’d close down and masked up earlier nationwide!

    Imagine if Woodward had told us in February, instead of waiting six months until he had a book to sell. He is barely a higher life-form than Trump, IMO

    ETA: I should have read all the comments.

  33. 33.

    MisterForkbeard

    18 hours of tapes of the President from interviews the President chose to sit for. And tapes, which the President in his own, charming fashion, will spend the next two months loudly, repeatedly, and often incoherently, but definitely angrily denying are actually of him.

    Well, this is 18 more hours than Trump spent actually working on the coronavirus response.

    Kay’s right. These people are lazy and don’t do any real work.

  34. 34.

    bbleh

    @Baud: Oh, right.  And other offense-as-defense and what-about-ism, like “you’re just a hater,” “but BLM is burning our cities,” etc.

  35. 35.

    Kay

    I love that Trump and the low quality hires say they had to lie about the virus to avoid panic.

    No one believes a word any of them say. They don’t have the credibility to create panic. The majority of the country ignored their downplaying the virus, understandably- they’re liars.

  36. 36.

    Another Scott

    @Suzanne:  Something that’s always in the back of my head is Bannon’s comment that their job is (roughly) to break the federal government.

    If one looks at it that way, Donnie saying all this stuff is part of the effort. If one can never believe what a President says, then why should one trust the government about anything? Why should one pay taxes for it?

    Yes, Donnie is brain damaged. But he’s been consistent about acting and saying things that lessen trust in the federal government.

    My $0.02.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  37. 37.

    lamh36

    @Betty Cracker: All these deaths on the hands of Chump and all these access journos caring more about your publishing deals than the deaths of Americans??. Guess their book advance keep that conscious at bay

  38. 38.

    Baud

    In Volume II of the book, to be published in January, Bob Woodward reveals how Trump laid out his plans to steal the election the previous summer and the important new role Russia was going to play in the effort.

  39. 39.

    Kay

    @MisterForkbeard:

    I feel like audio matters. Biden has a competent campaign and they can use it. I myself would use the part where he admits it’s a risk to young people interposed with Trump and the low quality hires demanding young people return to school and work and entertain them with college football.

    They knew there was risk to kids. They sent your kids in, but protected their own.

  40. 40.

    jackmac

    One would think Woodward’s revelations would sink Trump.

    One would think his disparaging remarks about killed military members would sink Trump.

    One would think that any of the scores of other statements, lies, lack of empathy, ignorance would sink Trump.

    Unfortunately, so far he continues to somehow skate past  each. It’s depressing and as much a commentary about how many people buy Trump’s bullshit.

  41. 41.

    Ken

    @SiubhanDuinne: It’s their job to the extent of telling him “the NATO alliance is more strategically valuable to the United States than an non-existent deal to sell soybeans to the Russians.”
    I’ll allow them to hold back “or build a hotel in Moscow,” or only mutter it under their breath.

  42. 42.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    I think they’re all loathsome careerists too, but at this point in the campaign I’ll take whatever I can get :)

    This is a gift. Accept it!

  43. 43.

    Baud

    @Kay: I guess we should be thankful Woodward isn’t writing an expose on the secret ice cream parlor Biden has in his basement.

  44. 44.

    Benw

    @lamh36: jeez that’s fucked up, even for Trump. 190.000 dead, many of them black and brown and it’s his fault and THAT’S his take!? Fuck him

  45. 45.

    Brachiator

    This is how the Woodward book helps Trump with his true believers.

    Trump’s admissions are in stark contrast to his frequent public comments at the time insisting that the virus was “going to disappear” and “all work out fine.”

    Trump supporters will read this as bold leadership, keeping the American people safe. They won’t connect the dots from Trump’s statements to his subsequent mismanagement of the pandemic crisis.

    Woodward reports on Trump’s tensions with military leaders, writing a Mattis aide heard Trump say in a meeting, “my f—ing generals are a bunch of pussies” because they cared more about alliances than trade deals.

    Again, this only makes Trump’s supporters love him more. They see the government as satisfied to maintain the status quo and to protect their own comfortable jobs rather than to help the American people. This is just another confirmation that Trump is doing what he promised, “draining the swamp” and shaking up the establishment.

    And of course these revelations raise the question of why all these people who think Trump is an idiot are so eager to work for him. And their comments after being fired or their resignation look like sour grapes.

    These revelations also doom Fauci’s future in the administration. Trump will have his childish revenge.

    Biden should probably use this material if he can, to help rally people who want to get rid of Trump. It needs to be connected to get out the vote appeals.

    But political strategists always seem to misjudge the value of negative campaign ads. They don’t work when a candidate’s supporters already have created a strong idea in their minds about who they are and why they like them.

  46. 46.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    He never cites sources and many of us in the nat-sec world that have had to refer to his books in our professional work have speculated that his modus operandi is that if you refuse to talk to him on or off the record, that he’ll just make stuff up to fit and support the narrative he’s creating

    I think it was O’Bro Tommy Vietor who got the full Woodward press for one of his books and talked about it on one of their podcasts. I could have this wrong, and I don’t want to exaggerate, but as I recall the charm offensive includes a lavish dinner hosted by the very wealthy Woodward, where he flatters you while passive-aggressively making it clear that he’s talked to people who don’t like you, and you may not want to talk but they have, and don’t you want me to include your point of view….

  47. 47.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Suzanne: Not quite.  He is keep stepping on on a rake dumb.  Then again, moose are also really dumb but they are dangerous AF.*  But yeah, he’s that dumb.

    *My morning “Don’t get cocky, kid” reminder.

  48. 48.

    artem1s

    Woodward’s been trying to recapture his glories days and bring down another President no matter what it cost the country. Let’s not let this bastard forget that he’s been sitting on this info for months while Dump and his merry band of grifters let 180,000 die.  There was no need to wait for a book to reveal this if he had it on tape.  It should have come out as soon as Dump started pushing snake oil cures and undercutting Cuomo and the other governors who were trying to actually manage the spread.  I guess the Atlantic article stole some of Bob’s thunder now and he isn’t the first out with the unsurprising new that Dump mocked his military leaders. Too bad asshole.

  51. 51.

    Cermet

    @Betty Cracker: I get the feeling that he thought that releasing such information earlier wouldn’t matter as much for the election – the media would lose interest with the latest stupid thing done. So it wouldn’t do much then and worse, be mostly forgotten later. So releasing it slowly and close to the election will drag it out and maybe impact the election – that would/will save more lives – and really help Biden get elected.

  52. 52.

    scav

    I still somehow think it’s still his orangeness we’re dealing with.  Interview him after multiple last people in the room with him and you’ll get divergent quotes.  There is no way he cared if it was dangerous to people or not.  Interfering with his campaign sure, that would catch his attention.  But he’d still govern basically like a roomba, bouncing randomly off the last solid object he’d run into, surrounded by a nimbus of simultaneous boasts of perfection and warnings of what would happen without his magnificent self.

  53. 53.

    Brachiator

    @germy:

    Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and senior adviser, is quoted by Woodward as saying, “The most dangerous people around the president are overconfident idiots,”

    Young Jared always struck me as a man who is totally unaware of his own deficiencies. He is like a secondary villain in a Dickens novel. Clueless but unintentionally dangerous.

  55. 55.

    dmsilev

    Bob Woodward and tapes of the President saying the things he says. The only way this could be more Stupid Watergate is if the total tape duration ended up being 18 and a half hours instead of just 18.

  57. 57.

    different-church-lady

    I know I’m getting waaaaaaay ahead of things here, but a few moments ago I had to tamp down all the fantasies that were popping into my head about what kind of comeuppance is in store for Trump come 2021.

  59. 59.

    Jeffro

    I’m okay with the trumpistas rushing to their master’s defense here – “he HAD to lie to us so we wouldn’t panic!  11-dimensional-society-calming chess, libtard! – as long as they can tell me with a straight face that they’d have felt the same if HRC or Obama did it.

  60. 60.

    different-church-lady

    @lamh36: Look, you have to understand: Trump is not racist because Trump believes he is not racist. And what Trump believes is reality is in fact reality. For Trump.

  61. 61.

    dmsilev

    @germy:

    Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and senior adviser, is quoted by Woodward as saying, “The most dangerous people around the president are overconfident idiots,”

    That’s more introspective than I expected from Jared.

  62. 62.

    Another Scott

    @Brachiator: Yeah, BW no doubt intentionally wrote it that way, so that sensible people would say, “Really, Jared??!  You want to go THERE??!!”

    Doesn’t make me want to buy his book though.

    Grr…

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  63. 63.

    Jinchi

    Trump’s admissions are in stark contrast to his frequent public comments at the time…

    I don’t understand the purpose of those last 3 words.

    Journalists constantly write as though Trump is acting responsibly ‘now’, even when they admit he was acting irresponsibly earlier. Trump has never publicly acknowledged that coronavirus is a serious health threat and he’s worked constantly to undermine any attempts to get control of the pandemic.

  65. 65.

    Barbara

    JFC. So this is what the publishing and journalism glitterati have been waiting for, giving us at least one new bombshell book or article per week until the election.

    But I give props to Fauci: “attention span like a minus number” is like a direct hit.

  66. 66.

    catclub

    @Kay: I feel like audio matters.

     

    I feel like listening to 18 hours of Trump would be deadening. Hence bob Woodward

  67. 67.

    cckids

    @Cermet:So releasing it slowly and close to the election will drag it out and maybe impact the election – that would/will save more lives – and really help Biden get elected.

    I think you’re missing the motive here. Woodward wants history to say that his book impacted the election & once again, HE helped bring down a president. It’s all about him, I’m sure.

    No wonder Trump gave BW so much time – he saw a kindred soul.

  70. 70.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    Trump  “I still like playing it (the virus) down, because I don’t want to create a panic.”(the face of 600 years of history that missinformation breeds fear when it comes to disease)

    Coats felt, “How else to explain the president’s behavior? Coats could see no other explanation.”

    It’s easy, Trump is a damn fool.

  71. 71.

    Ruckus

    @Suzanne:

    Yes. Yes he absolutely is that fucking dumb, bought and paid what he’s worth. IOW pennies on the dollar for vlad and anyone else that figured they could use him as a stooge.

  72. 72.

    jonas

    @Brachiator: Again, this only makes Trump’s supporters love him more.

    On the other hand, Trump is openly telling Woodward he knows Covid is real and that it’s serious and that he’s choosing to downplay it for political reasons — that doesn’t jive with the current “thinking” among the Trumperati that the whole pandemic thing is a crock designed by liberal weenies to take away more of your freedumbs.

  73. 73.

    piratedan

    Poor Bob… he thinks that this will make a ripple  and get his books sold?”  Guess what Bob, it’s only Wednesday, get back to me if this is still front page revelatory shit by Friday.

  75. 75.

    mad citizen

    My favorite is Fauci’s “his attention span is like a minus number”.  When I was a kid and would hear that ominous electronic tone on the radio “This has been a test of the emergency broadcast system…If this had been an actual emergency…”  The last four years have been an actual emergency.  Hope the nation can right itself because we are stronger together and can build back better.

  76. 76.

    Barbara

    @Suzanne:

    FORDALUVVAPEET, why on Earth would he say these things to Woodward?! Does he not know that the dude writes books?!

    I don’t get it. Is he really THAT dumb?

    He has a sense of invulnerability that is astonishing to normal human beings.  He is so used to everything turning out okay for him that he isn’t careful.  He just doesn’t expect consequences.

  77. 77.

    MisterForkbeard

    @Suzanne: He’s bragging to Woodward. That’s what it is.

    He’ll talk about how he got secret briefings (so special!) and then admit that he lied to the public and plans to do more of it and so on. Because he thinks it’s clever and powetful and he wants everyone to be impressed.

  78. 78.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @Suzanne:  Is he really THAT dumb?

    Remember Trump has a habit of calling up his political enemise at random like Bezos and boasting about his latest secreat scheme. Trump is that dumb.

  79. 79.

    Jinchi

    @different-church-lady: I had to tamp down all the fantasies that were popping into my head about what kind of comeuppance is in store for Trump come 2021.

    Sometimes it’s good for your mental health to let yourself indulge a bit.

  80. 80.

    Mike in NC

    I guess I’ll have to withhold judgement until Hugh Hewitt tells us how this is excellent news for Donald Trump.

    Marc Thiessen is enraged that Senaor Harris isn’t going to fall for the October Surprise of a fake vaccine jointly promoted by Putin and his puppet in the White House.

  82. 82.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @jackmac:

    Unfortunately, so far he continues to somehow skate past each.

    If you measure by elections, he’s sinking like the Titanic.  The hardcore racists and elected Republicans may be sticking their fingers in their ears and shouting, “LA LA LA I CAN’T HEAR ANYTHING NUH UH YOU,” but everyone else hates Trump with an unholy, raging, crawl-over-broken-glass-to-vote-him-out fury.

  83. 83.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @Ruckus: Yes. Yes he absolutely is that fucking dumb, bought and paid what he’s worth. IOW pennies on the dollar for vlad and anyone else that figured they could use him as a stooge.

    By that I assume nothing. My bet is Putin leads Trump along with some vague praise and Trump is both so dumb and needy Trump falls for it.

  84. 84.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Ruckus:

    The thing that always gets me is how could Putin have been sure Trump wouldn’t have triggered WW3? I don’t think Trump follows Putin’s orders or anything like that; he’s just a useful idiot. So really, it seems like Putin was gambling with all of our lives and playing God

  86. 86.

    ChrisS

    ~40% of Americans just don’t give a shit as long Trump continues to kick mud at the libs.

     

    The about face they’ll do in January 2021 provided Biden is inaugurated will be mind blowing.  I look forward to the Biden scandals like:  him taking the oath, making a speech, waving to the crowd, signing executive orders, signing laws, appointing cabinet officials, etc.

  87. 87.

    Jinchi

    @Cheryl Rofer: I haz my doubts about that “new nuclear weapons system.”

    It’s the latest in microwave oven spyware. Trump is going to “nuke” the Biden campaign offices in revenge for Obama’s campaign against him.

  88. 88.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    This. He and the GOP have steadily lost control over many local, state, and Congressional seats over the last 3 years

    Sometimes I think a lot of Dems and lefties focus way too much on how much Trump’s base sticks with him. It’s a trap imo. There are more of us then there of them and 2016 was a fluke. Doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try like hell to win

  89. 89.

    phein61

    @Brachiator:

    You are spot on.  Just dipped into the bucket of offal that is Free Republic, and that is exactly what they are saying:  He didn’t want to create a panic, now that’s leadership, libtards!

    Need to take go take a shower now.

  90. 90.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Suzanne:

    I don’t get it. Is he really THAT dumb?

    Woodward is famous, even movie-star approximate (‘was he Robert Redford, or the other one? still famous, but you know, Kellyanne, people always said I look like Robert Redford…’). trump wants his approval and friendship

  93. 93.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Brachiator:

    They see the government as satisfied to maintain the status quo and to protect their own comfortable jobs rather than to help the American people. This is just another confirmation that Trump is doing what he promised, “draining the swamp” and shaking up the establishment.

    Dude, you have got to meet more Trumpers.  The ‘swamp’ is the government helping the American people.  They have a whole mythology about the government being enslaved to ‘special interests’ that want to help lazy brown people get ahead of white people, and destroy Christianity.  They resent the Hell out of the federal government so often intervening to stop them from abusing minorities.  Yes, they wanted things shaken up, but you are totally backwards on why, and their reactions to all of Trump’s actions prove it.  They cheer him on every time he fucks over the weak and they throw shit fits when asked to do anything for the public good.

  94. 94.

    Roger Moore

    @Suzanne: 
    I don’t know how dumb this really is. None of the other books that have come out detailing just how messed up Trump and the Trump Administration are have had a lasting effect on public perceptions. This is the guy who said he could shoot someone on 5th Avenue and it wouldn’t affect how his supporters saw him. Being candid with Bob Woodward is just more of the same attitude.

  95. 95.

    Ned F.

    Forgive me for reaching a lower level of cynicism, but this is the 6th(?) book of WTF’s , OMG’s, to come out in the past 60 days, and within a week, no one cares.  And nothing will until the last weeks before the election, James Comey will pop out of his secret staircase and announce to the the nation that Joe Biden once told someone to fuck off, and the press will become very concerned about how he had us all fooled, and ashamed we all are.

  97. 97.

    The Thin Black Duke

    Odds are, over a quarter of a million people will be dead by November. Possibly more. I don’t think this is going to go away. Not this time.

  98. 98.

    The Moar You Know

    And of course these revelations raise the question of why all these people who think Trump is an idiot are so eager to work for him.

    @Brachiator: Frankly, I’d like an answer to this as well. It’s not like the guy was an unknown quantity even at the start of his horrific administration.

  100. 100.

    Jeffro

    When he says he “didn’t want to start a panic”, trumpov means, “I didn’t want to spook the stock markets” (and endanger his re-election).  He’s said as much.  He was more than willing to not just risk but essentially GUARANTEE tens of thousands of additional American deaths in order to improve his chances of winning re-election/staying out of jail.

    So, decide accordingly, American voters.

  101. 101.

    Jinchi

    “I’m a lifelong Democrat but I put my country first, always. That’s why I’m supporting Susan Collins for Senate,” Lieberman, a Democrat turned independent, said in the ad, which is paid for by the Republican Jewish Coalition.

    There are at least two lies in that first quote.

  103. 103.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @The Moar You Know: reading some of the quotes attributed to St Mattis is especially nauseating. He gave trump pre-election cover on sending troops to the border four months before his Very Noble and Principled Resignation over Syria. I’ll accept whatever damaging leaks he wants to commit in the next six or seven weeks, but what an overrated fraud.

  104. 104.

    KayInMd (formerly Kay(not the front-pager))

    Ole’ Bob is really stepping on the release of Michael Cohen’s book, and Woodward’s book doesn’t even come out for another 2 weeks. Somehow I don’t think that’s a coincidence. I suspect ole’ Bob wrinkled his aristocratic nose at Cohen’s book and decided it was his duty to change the subject to something more respectable. Something like, for instance, his book.

    Still and all, it will be fun and rewarding to listen to the tapes and see them made into Biden ads.

  105. 105.

    Barbara

    @Ned F.: It’s the drip drip drip of one disclosure after another, reinforcing, amplifying the truth of those that have come before.  I don’t predict anything, but even if the cumulative effect is simply to keep some people who otherwise were prepared to hold their nose and vote for Trump from voting at all, that’s probably worthwhile.

  106. 106.

    Jeffro

    @MattF:she did not disparage the vaccine. She disparaged Trump, who has proved his dishonesty, if not self-delusion, time and time again. So why do right-wing pols and pundits say such things? Defending Trump is impossible, so they resort to slamming the opposition even if they have to make up stuff.

    Ouch!  Good shot, Ms. Rubin!

  109. 109.

    JPL

    @Mike in NC: I almost wrote back that she’ll fall for it, when the president tells everyone to wear a mask.    I didn’t because earlier when I saw it, the original comment had colorful language, so I didn’t send it.

  110. 110.

    Jinchi

    @Brachiator: And of course these revelations raise the question of why all these people who think Trump is an idiot are so eager to work for him.

    I’d differentiate the people who specifically came to work in the Trump administration from the people who were working in government already and got sucked into Trump’s orbit.

  111. 111.

    Brachiator

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):

    Trump’s supporters aren’t likely going to read this book anyway

    Nobody reads books anymore. But they will get Twitter and Facebook snippets like everybody else. Hell, I’m not going to read the Woodward book.

  112. 112.

    Jeffro

    McEany up now, straight-up lying (again, as always) to the American people: “trumpov wanted to keep America calm”

    Oh sure thing, ma’am.  He does that all the time, right?  Saying thoughtful things, reinforcing a sense of calm in the country…that’s practically all the man does, right?  LOLOLOL

  113. 113.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Barbara:

    What do you make of Brachiator’s opinion above about these revelations reinforcing Trump’s supporters’ positive opinions about Trump?

  114. 114.

    nasruddin

    @Kay: Wait wait wait … he has no problem with panic.  This is a tell!   He’s been trying to create panic all summer with his Law and Order / cities in flame campaign.

    He wants panic he can control.  His neo-Nazi provocateurs are dead useless to him the day after the election.

  116. 116.

    mad citizen

    @Jinchi: If there is some fund whereby someone tells Joe Lieberman to fuck off in person, I will gladly contribute.  I saw his visage pop up on foxnews at a gym a couple weeks ago.  Fortunately the sound was off.

  117. 117.

    Suzanne

    @Roger Moore:

    None of the other books that have come out detailing just how messed up Trump and the Trump Administration are have had a lasting effect on public perceptions. 

    Because none of our politics is really about Trump, as much air as he sucks up. It’s all about how much we as Americans hate one another. Even Trump’s Trumpiest of fans don’t give a shit about him other than that he triggerz the people who make more money than they do.

  119. 119.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Brachiator:

    I doubt this will matter either way, then, if that’s the case. It will be a wash. It unfortunately won’t take Trump completely down, but it won’t likely boost him or hurt Biden either. Is that your take?

  120. 120.

    sdhays

    @Cermet: I get the feeling that he thought that releasing such information earlier wouldn’t matter as much for the election – the media would lose interest with the latest stupid thing done. So it wouldn’t do much then and worse, be mostly forgotten later.

    I don’t think there’s any need to be generous towards Bob Woodward. He released this now because that’s when it would generate the most buzz and thus the most revenue for Bob Woodward from people rushing to buy his latest expose.

    We’re just fortunate, this time, that it probably is better that it’s released now since I don’t believe it would have substantially changed anything months ago.

  121. 121.

    Elizabelle

    TaMara’s put up a thread for Biden’s appearance in Michigan, where he’s expected to start off with remarks re Woodward disclosures.

    Still in the lengthy intros phase.  Gretchen Witmer’s in the house; also Debbie Stabenow.  Yea!

  122. 122.

    Brachiator

    @jonas:

    On the other hand, Trump is openly telling Woodward he knows Covid is real and that it’s serious and that he’s choosing to downplay it for political reasons — that doesn’t jive with the current “thinking” among the Trumperati that the whole pandemic thing is a crock designed by liberal weenies to take away more of your freedumbs.

    Trump supporters are simpletons. They believe whatever they need to in order to rationalize their love and devotion to their dear leader. They don’t trouble themselves with facts, logic or consistency.

  123. 123.

    James E Powell

    @piratedan:

    Poor Bob… he thinks that this will make a ripple  and get his books sold?”  Guess what Bob, it’s only Wednesday, get back to me if this is still front page revelatory shit by Friday.

    I share your cynicism. As I expected, the “insulting our troops” story lasted 72 hours. Hope I’m wrong.

  124. 124.

    Elizabelle

    Funny that even worse (or equally bad) disclosures by Woodward stomp on Michael Cohen’s book launch yesterday.

    Bring it on!  I think it’s going to be body blow upon body blow from now through the election.  The “Deep State” and press know what a clear and present danger Trump is.

    Springsteen song at the Michigan event ….

  126. 126.

    Barbara

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): His supporters are his supporters. Nothing any of us say matters.  But they aren’t enough to reelect him.  He needs the people who were willing to vote for him in spite of their dislike — and moving from dislike to loathing does not help him.  Also, remember, we focus on the information in terms of what his supporters think.  But what is the impact of this information on those who already hate him?  It doesn’t make them less determined to get rid of him.

  127. 127.

    Elizabelle

    @James E Powell:   You’re wrong.  That one has staying power.  People have not forgotten the disparaging of the troops, alive and dead.

    Living in TrumpWorld is a firehose of shit.

  128. 128.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @Suzanne: He’s not young. He’s almost my age and I just turned forty. He should fucking know better.
    *spit

    Ah, but have you failed to accomlish as much as Jared has failed to? I think not. Why there are people twice Jared’s age who aren’t even as half as medicore as his.

  129. 129.

    Barbara

    @Elizabelle: I haven’t made up my mind, but I would rather read Cohen’s book.  He was a true insider.   Woodward does not know Trump the same way.

  130. 130.

    scav

    @nasruddin: They were just can-kicking, buying time as nobody could figure out how best to turn the event to their advantage.  Once they figured out they could use its cover to suspend all sorts of safety regulations, well, that was handy.

  132. 132.

    The Moar You Know

    The thing that always gets me is how could Putin have been sure Trump wouldn’t have triggered WW3?

    Putin is an extremely intelligent guy whose whole life has been spent in intelligence and working with human assets. And Donald Trump is so simple to manipulate that a ten-year old child could rook him into doing anything. Trump wasn’t going to start WWIII. He’d be exposed for what he is, and to a guy with Trump’s particular brand of emotional vulnerabilities that is a fate far worse than death.

    I don’t think Trump follows Putin’s orders or anything like that; he’s just a useful idiot.

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): You are just dead wrong about that. He is absolutely following very specific orders.

  133. 133.

    Sab

    @lamh36: Agreed. Back in February and March I was arguing with my Republican co-workers about whether this virus was dangerous. I do tax prep, and our clients were coming back from all over the world, and wandering through our office, and we were taking no precautions at all until DeWine shut things down late March.

  135. 135.

    James E Powell

    One thing that jumped out at me from that brief interview excerpt that is all over the internet. Three plus years into the Trump administration and Woodward is still ready to declare THE PIVOT! I don’t care if his book damages Trump. I still want him and the whole Village to be destroyed.

  136. 136.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Barbara:  Fuck Cohen with a rusty chainsaw. He can take his mea culpas and wash them down with a bag of salted dicks. He helped give us Trump, so as far as I’m concerned, he can clean out bedpans for the rest of his miserable life.

  138. 138.

    Emma from FL

    Honestly, I think I’m going to stay away from this place for a while. If I read one more “but his true believers won’t chaaaaange” I will become the first psychic electronic murderer of record. No, folk, Trump’s followers won’t change. They got what they wanted from Trump: the freedom to go virulently public with their racism, misogyny and every other rancid, putrid -ism festering in their minds. The ones we want to get through are those who sit out elections, aren’t really interested in politics, who measure their degree of involvement by how crap affects them directly. We get enough of those and wrestle down the ratfuckery, and job done.

  139. 139.

    Brachiator

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    They cheer him on every time he fucks over the weak and they throw shit fits when asked to do anything for the public good.

    We agree more than we disagree.

    Trump supporters don’t believe in the public good.

    It’s clear that Trump supporters expect Trump to hurt the right people. This was clear from the very beginning.

  140. 140.

    jonas

    @lamh36: I forget whether it was in The Atlantic or The New Yorker, but a big piece a few months ago on Jared Kushner and his half-assed attempt to coordinate a national testing/tracking system reported that the fact that communities of color, immigrants, etc. were being hardest hit by Covid in places like NYC is *exactly* why Trump purposely downplayed the epidemic and slowalked any federal response. The WH position was that thousands of brown people dying was kind of a silver lining in all of this, and that they could then blame blue state governors like Andrew Cuomo for their response was just gravy. It will be interesting to see if Trump lets his sheet slip on that in any of the Woodward tapes.

  141. 141.

    Dan B

    @phein61: A twitter comment is that by “I don’t want to cause a panic.” Trump means a panic on Wall Street.

    He is not interested in the average American.  He’s not interested in his base unless they are cheering for him.

  142. 142.

    Elizabelle

    @Gin & Tonic: 

    So, no difference between Michael Cohen and Steve Bannon? And the Mercers? And Sarah Sanders and all the lying mouthpieces?

    They all deserve salted dicks, but one of this group is telling the truth now, and not embellishing. Cohen does not need to embellish.

    He’s also been asking that others from the Trump Org step forward and talk. The accountant, Wei…. whatever.

  143. 143.

    bluefoot

    @lamh36:

    Yep.  F*cking Woodward.  He could have reported this is real-time. which could have pushed the government to respond to the virus before we had more than a handful of cases here in the US.  Instead he hung onto the tapes, etc and KEPT HANGING ONTO THEM EVEN AS TENS OF THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE DIED because he had a book to sell.  But as long as he can sit on his pile of money and pleasure himself over his “access”, he doesn’t care how many people die or if our democracy burns.

  144. 144.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @The Moar You Know:

    Putin is an extremely intelligent guy whose whole life has been spent in intelligence and working with human assets.

    If he’s so intelligent then why is he causing chaos in a moment of history when humanity can least afford it re: climate change? He’s an evil monster who is foolishly (potentially) dooming humanity. He has family for god’s sake. He could at least stop and consider the world he’s leaving for them. All of the rubles in the world aren’t going to mean anything when much of the world is rendered uninhabitable in a few decades if nothing is done to stop carbon emissions

    He may be intelligent when it comes to spycraft and manipulating people, but he sucks at having any kind of vision for his nation or the rest of the world

  145. 145.

    Tazj

    @MaryLou: That’s what their defense of Trump is now, the panic would have been worse.  “Was he suppose to go out there and scream, we are all going to die?” This quote courtesy of Lindsey Graham. Trump could’ve informed the public, and taken steps to lessen the loss of life and economic costs to the people of this country but he didn’t, because he feared the economic impact to “his “ great economy. So he lied about everything and pushed responsibility onto the governors while making their jobs more difficult.

    Other Republicans(Ron Johnson) are claiming that he knew the virus was bad but didn’t want to panic people and that’s why he shut things down. He didn’t shut anything down except  some airline travel.

  146. 146.

    Elizabelle

    @Emma from FL:   Agreed.

    Why not whine about gravity?  Forget about the Trump deadenders. Fuck ’em.  They’re lost.

    Lots of better voters to go after and encourage.  That’s the GOTV game. It’s turning out YOUR side.  It’s not persuading the unpersuadable.  Forget ’em.

    The whining about the deadenders is a waste of typing and demoralizing.

    I wish we could aim that Eeyore cupcake at some of them.

  147. 147.

    piratedan

    @Elizabelle:  I don’t think WE’RE saying that the disparaging remarks about Vets won’t matter (because they DO), what we’re observing is the penchant for THIS Administration to have set world records in criminality in that there’s little depth in the reporting other than to finally exhaust the surface before a brand new crisis on a completely different front manifests itself and sucks the attention away to the next new shiny.

    Trump is a news organizations dream, fresh new scandals every week, surface analysis and then just in time to pivot to the next fucking outrage that he’s performed.

    It’s what made the reporting on Clinton so incredibly fucking tedious, there was never any NEW outrage to get stoked over, so we got into the “nuance” and “interpretation” of the non existant scandal while people, who had no fucking clue on how documentation or cause and effect work, got to ply us with endless hours of how scandalous it all was, in someone’s opinion… never mind the ax-grinding going on in the background…
    Trump is easy, something evil and outrageous, timed perfectly between each new revelation…

  148. 148.

    zhena gogolia

    @Tazj:

    I repeat. they were telling people not to wear masks.

    Testing, tracing, PPE, a plan. None of that would have caused a panic.

    But why am I even entertaining this explanation for a nanosecond.

  149. 149.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Emma from FL:

    Don’t blame you honestly. All of the cynicism and focusing on how Trump’s supporters are going to react to a particular scandal gets tiring sometimes

  150. 150.

    Brachiator

    @Suzanne:

    Young Jared 

    He’s not young. He’s almost my age and I just turned forty. He should fucking know better.

    This is my nod to Dickens, where you have a character called Aged P.

    It’s not so much a reference to his age, but that he is put into play so often, but is entirely out of his depth, and yet pretends to maturity.

    I could call him Jejune Jared, but the alliteration is too jarring.

  151. 151.

    The Thin Black Duke

    @Emma from FL: Thank you. Bottom line, if Trump gets reelected, this country will never be rid of COVID-19, and the people who aren’t hateful, brain-dead zombies are painfully aware of that. A Biden administration means that adults are in charge of the government again and Americans will be damned grateful for that.

  155. 155.

    Captain C

    @Jinchi: Lieberman was definitely Al Gore’s primary mistake.  A sanctimonious prick who hides his assholery behind his religion.  There’s a book in my library by him called “The Gift of Rest.”  I wish he’d have taken full advantage of said gift back in ’06 after he lost the Democratic primary but still ran as an “Independent” (effectively a Republican).

  158. 158.

    different-church-lady

    IT’S FINE IF TEN OF MY FAMILY DIE OF COVID-19 AS LONG AS TWELVE OF THE BLACK FAMILY IN THE NEXT CARDBOARD BOX OVER WITH NO CURTAIN ROD OR SPARROW DIE OF COVID-19!!! MAGA!!1!!

  161. 161.

    scott (the other one)

    @jackmac: It would be ideal if these revelations, atop the military slander, would lose every single supporter. Obviously, that’s not going to happen. But each of these scandals lose him at least a few. Will it be enough? Well, he won the electoral college last time by a total of 80,000 votes in three states. He’s had at least a few scandals a week since then. If each of those scandals quietely loses him a few hundred votes…

    Again, in a just world this race would be the greatest blowout ever. (Actually, in a just world he would have gone to prison decades ago.) But right now, I like chances. The more the number of his supporters sink, the louder the remaining ones howl.

  163. 163.

    Roger Moore

    @Jinchi:

    I think there were also some people early in the Trump Administration who believed Trump was inexperienced and needed experienced hands around him to have a chance of doing a good job.  I’m inclined to cut them a little bit of slack, because I think it would be easy for someone to believe that.  Not too much slack, though, since they all got played, and most of them were too blinded by their own egos to understand how badly.

  164. 164.

    Brachiator

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):

    I doubt this will matter either way, then, if that’s the case. It will be a wash. It unfortunately won’t take Trump completely down, but it won’t likely boost him or hurt Biden either. Is that your take?

    This will probably not have much effect on Trump supporters. They really have always known what a piece of crap he is. They still believe that he cares about them.

    But this may help the Democrats get out the vote. We need a strong turnout to make sure there is no doubt that Trump has been totally rejected.

    I would say let’s look at the polls in early October and October 15. By then, most people’s views will have hardened, and anyone saying that they are undecided will be lying.

  167. 167.

    Captain C

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):

    If he’s so intelligent then why is he causing chaos in a moment of history when humanity can least afford it re: climate change?

    Putin is a good example of tactically (even operationally) smart, but strategically stupid.  His prime goals are his own power and enrichment, the same for his supporters (oligarchs, mobsters, former KGB), and revenge for the Cold War.  He doesn’t seem to see much of anything else.

    He’s an evil monster who is foolishly (potentially) dooming humanity. He has family for god’s sake. He could at least stop and consider the world he’s leaving for them. All of the rubles in the world aren’t going to mean anything when much of the world is rendered uninhabitable in a few decades if nothing is done to stop carbon emissions

    I don’t think Putin gives a fuck about what happens after he’s dead, and I think he figures he will be when the bad things happen.  That’s assuming he hasn’t deluded himself into thinking that an Arctic with no icecap and a warm Siberia will make Russia the richest, greatest power in the world (and if so, that, say, two or three billion resulting climate refugees from China, India, and the rest of Asia could be kept out of the large, underpopulated areas of Siberia).

    He may be intelligent when it comes to spycraft and manipulating people, but he sucks at having any kind of vision for his nation or the rest of the world

    Exactly.  Tactically smart, strategically dumb.

  168. 168.

    Gravenstone

    @germy: 

    “The most dangerous people around the president are overconfident idiots,”

    No doubt said as he gazed lovingly into a mirror and nodded sagely to himself.

  169. 169.

    Obvious Russian Troll

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): While Putin is clearly quite good at getting and maintaining power, Putin is not some kind of strategic genius. One of his goals is to get the sanctions lifted, yet by interfering so ham-handedly in our and other elections he’s risking getting them extended.

  171. 171.

    Roger Moore

    @Tazj:

    Trump could’ve informed the public, and taken steps to lessen the loss of life and economic costs to the people of this country

    This.  If you can’t tell the public about a looming disaster without causing panic, you don’t deserve to be near a public office that may occasionally require telling the public about a looming disaster.  The idea that the public needs to be lied to to prevent panic is the worst kind of elitism.  The key thing to understand is that panic isn’t caused purely by fear; it’s caused by a combination of fear and uncertainty about what to do.  If you tell people there’s a looming disaster and stop at that, you’ll cause panic.  If you tell people there’s a looming disaster and explain what we’re doing about it and how they can help, people will step up and do their part.  It’s called leadership, and Trump doesn’t have it.

  173. 173.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):

    Sometimes I think a lot of Dems and lefties focus way too much on how much Trump’s base sticks with him. It’s a trap imo. There are more of us then there of them and 2016 was a fluke. Doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try like hell to win

    It isn’t a trap. The US does not have a majoritarian electoral system. It has a countermajoritarian one for both the election of the president and the election of senators. And thanks to partisan gerrymandering by the GOP after the 2010 census, most of it also explicitly and blatantly racist, elections for both US representatives and for state legislators are also countermajoritarian in far too many states. And, given how the Senate’s internal rules are set up, interpreted, and used, the Senate functions as a countermajoritarian institution in addition to its members being elected in a countermajoritarian manner.

    Get back to me when we establish simple majority electoral systems for electing our representatives at the state and Federal level and when the Senate establishes a majority rule system. Until then, we should deal with the reality we are in.

  175. 175.

    PaulWartenberg

    @Suzanne:

    FORDALUVVAPEET, why on Earth would he say these things to Woodward?! Does he not know that the dude writes books?!

    I don’t get it. Is he really THAT dumb?

    Woodward has become a master of “gaining access” to Presidential administrations, essentially becoming the official historian to them. More than likely trump figured he could gaslight Woodward while Woodward flattered him enough to get him to talk. And trump, once he gets going, does not know when and where to shut up.

    The fact that Woodward was able to get away with recording the conversations meant someone somewhere – trump himself, at least his handlers – dropped the ball or believed Woodward wouldn’t go fully public with this stuff until after November 2020.

  176. 176.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Captain C: Exactly. Putin’s policy, for lack of a better term, on climate change is to keep plugging the hoax disinformation into the US and our EU and other partners like Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Israel, Britain now that it is Brexiting, and Ireland. The reason is that he is gambling that one of two things, or both of them, will happen as a result. The first is that a warming world will allow Russia to much more easily access its fossil fuel resources that are currently buried under the permafrost. The second is that as the vast amounts of frozen land in Russia thaws, it will be agriculturally viable and that the climatic changes will shift the optimal zone for agriculture north allowing Russia to finally become agriculturally self sufficient and, perhaps, a major exporter to places harmed by climate change like the US.

    The reality that is actually playing out is that the thawing permafrost is causing his existing petroleum infrastructure to be destroyed as it was sited for frozen ground, not non-frozen ground and at the same time, the thawing ground is not really amenable to expanding agricultural production. But this is the objective he’s working towards.

  177. 177.

    catclub

    @Dan B: There is also a difference between downplaying and lying.

    Trump was just lying and now calling it downplaying. Woodward helps him do that.

  179. 179.

    gvg

    I can’t read the thread because work, so someone else may have already said this. Woodward always has tapes. that’s why he doesn’t get sued into oblivion. I sort of feel he should have revealed this before a book, but on the other hand, lots of things like this hadn’t finished Trump that logically should have. Maybe waiting till just before the election is the right choice. I guess we’ll see.

    I don’t think he makes stuff up. He is annoying.

    He had tapes on Bush too. Bush didn’t saying anything like this though.

  180. 180.

    J R in WV

    @Suzanne:

    @SiubhanDuinne: I thought he was at least shrewd enough to be self-interested. But he’s so fucking dumb. Like step-on-a-rake dumb.

    Actually, he’s step on the rake the second and third time dumb.

    Anyone can do it once in thick grass!

  182. 182.

    James E Powell

    @piratedan:

    @Elizabelle:  I don’t think WE’RE saying that the disparaging remarks about Vets won’t matter (because they DO),

    What I was referring to with the 72-hour story remark was that the press/media gave it the usual “OMG! Did you hear what Trump said?” treatment for three days then let it go.

    Since he came down the escalator, it’s what Trump said, what people said about it, and what Trump said about those people. Then they move on as if it never happened.

  183. 183.

    Elie

    @lamh36:

     

    I hear you about holding on to the information.  Thousands have died due to this man. But this is obviously a necessary political hit and he waited for the time of maximum impact.  It was on the President to do the right thing — and he couldnt or wouldn’t .  Thats on him forever and the gods will not forget this blood. I want this THING removed from office.  The long knives are out in force and they are doing what they know they need to do…  Let us hope it works

  184. 184.

    JoyceH

    @PaulWartenberg: I saw an article somewhere today (can’t remember where) that said that Trump was furious that with his last book, Woodward interviewed tons of people in the White House and didn’t interview Trump. I think the handlers around him at the time shielded him from realizing that Woodward would talk to him, and he wasn’t given the option. Now those handlers are gone, and Trump was sure that so long as HE got to talk to Woodward and explain himself and everything he was doing, Woodward and the rest of us would agree that he was doing all the right things, the best things, the greatest things.

  185. 185.

    Ohio Mom

    Goku: this is really quite silly, but every time I see Putin’s name, a tape plays in my mind’s ear: “…The same thing we do every night, Pinky. Try to take over the world.”

  186. 186.

    Bill Arnold

    Trump needs to be separated from the levers of power, ASAP.

    @Cheryl Rofer:
    There are boring speculations that I’m sure you’ve seen that the new nuclear weapon that DJT bragged about was a deployment of the low yield trident missile warhead,
    A Low-Yield, Submarine-LaunchedNuclear Warhead:Overview of the Expert Debate (January 10, 2020)
    It’s probably that, since he’s already hinted (sort of) about such a thing during in one of the recent Iran crises IIRC.

    For amusement purposes, I prefer to suspect that it is a next-generation Casaba-Howitzer[2], an enormous high-speed plasma bolt generated by a nuclear shaped charge. To fight aliens[1], because the Space Force needs something reliable to fight aliens. In a pinch they could uhm … ??? use HAARP to adjust Earth’s magnetic fields to steer the plasma bolt? (maybe too slow.)

    [2] Casaba-Howitzer.
    [1] Who do people think the 2019/2020 scriptwriters are?

  187. 187.

    LuciaMia

    I don’t get it. Is he really THAT dumb?

    When has he ever cared about consequences? Its never mattered before. And he probably hopes he’ll weather/lie thru this latest bombshell.

  188. 188.

    Kay

    @Roger Moore:

    Half the governors in the country told the truth about the risk without inciting panic. The low quality hires couldn’t pull it off when 25 governors managed it?

    Bottom o the barrel.

  189. 189.

    Elie

     

    There should be calls for Trump to resign based on this information.  He.Must.be.Removed from the levers of power — This is going to get much much worse and he is a very unstable person surrounded by ass kissing sycophants who won’t stop him.

  190. 190.

    Elie

    @Kay:

    Kay, these “people” who work for him are more like the worker and soldier ants… they don’t have individual identities per se — just one identity that they all share — that of the “Queen” of the ants — or bees — same thing.  They have one identity and mission and that is to protect the interests of the Queen – which is also their interest.  You have to remove the queen from the hive as well as the other embryos that could become queens.

  191. 191.

    Roger Moore

    @Kay: 
    The biggest thing to me is what it say about their attitudes toward us. They think they need to lie to us to protect us from panicking in the face of a scary truth. Apart from being total bullshit, it’s incredibly elitist and condescending.

  192. 192.

    LuciaMia

     “trumpov wanted to keep America calm”

    Soooo, give people a false sense of security till cases start to explode. Then declare a state of emergency with no coherent national plan. Only a few weeks later say itll be gone with the warmer weather and we can all go to church by. Easter.

    When were we supposed to feel calm?

  194. 194.

    Brachiator

    @Emma from FL:

    No, folk, Trump’s followers won’t change.

    The point is that there are people who always believe that “this is the revelation that will magically take Trump down” when this stuff is released. It’s fair to debate the point.

    The ones we want to get through are those who sit out elections, aren’t really interested in politics, who measure their degree of involvement by how crap affects them directly.

    Fair point. This is why I said I want to see how Biden uses this stuff as part of his “get out the vote” strategy.

    And even here, 2016 polling indicates that practical problems kept a lot of people from voting, not political considerations. Common obstacles cited were “inconvenient polling place” or “transportation problems,” especially for non-white citizens. Get out the vote and voter access may be critically important in some places.

  195. 195.

    Elie

     

    Whether or not it is acted upon, key leaders should call on Trump to resign.  This is unlikely to happen, but there isn’t too much more he could do to warrant resignation.  Through his mismanagement and lies, he has caused the deaths of thousands, perhaps ultimately hundreds of thousands Americans.  There is no denying this anymore.  He had the information and willfully misused it to the detriment of innocent Americans.  Someone in power/leadership must note the significance of this and present at least an argument of why he should resign — not just assume he won’t so why bother mentioning it.

  196. 196.

    Brachiator

    @James E Powell:

    I don’t think WE’RE saying that the disparaging remarks about Vets won’t matter (because they DO),

    What I was referring to with the 72-hour story remark was that the press/media gave it the usual “OMG! Did you hear what Trump said?” treatment for three days then let it go.

    How the media treats this is not as important as it once was. Even though a lot of social media is poisonous crap, it is an alternate communication channel.

    A lot of people are not letting stuff like this go. It still seethes and percolates in the public consciousness.

    And this is not good for Trump.

  199. 199.

    Ruckus

    @JoyceH:

    This is an important point.

    shitforbrains has done misdirection every time he opens his mouth. He “knows” he has to hide what he does, his problem is that he “thinks” he’s still able to stay far enough ahead to make it work. And the only people he’s ahead of are the ones more delusional than him.

  202. 202.

    Bill Arnold

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):

    it seems like Putin was gambling with all of our lives and playing God.

    Putin is a lot smarter than DJT, but he is arrogant[1], and perhaps a bit insane with the quiet insanity often caused by extreme power and time. IMO. Also he enjoys seeing U.S. failures. He should be focusing a lot more on internal Russian affairs, and he should not be assuming that global heating will be a net win relative for Russia relative to the rest of the world.
    [1] Arrogance is a serious weakness.

  203. 203.

    Miss Bianca

    @Adam L Silverman:

    The reality that is actually playing out is that the thawing permafrost is causing his existing petroleum infrastructure to be destroyed as it was sited for frozen ground, not non-frozen ground and at the same time, the thawing ground is not really amenable to expanding agricultural production. But this is the objective he’s working towards.

    Ah, the new Lysenkoism! What was that bromide about history not repeating itself so much as rhyming…?

  205. 205.

    Chief Oshkosh

    For where we are now, the most worrying excerpt I’ve seen so far is that Russia did in fact have malware installed in at least two Florida counties in the 2016 election, that the same vendor has voting machines in many other states, and that nothing has been done about this.

  208. 208.

    Chief Oshkosh

    @Adam L Silverman: From the excerpt, the NSA and another alphabet group that I can’t recall. I’m working late so can’t dig it up, but I’m pretty sure it’s in the CNN piece.

  209. 209.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Adam L Silverman:

    Again, 2016 was a black-swan event that Trump only managed to win by the thinnest of margins. It won’t take much to peel some off of that.

    I’m tired of focusing on all the ways we’re going to lose. I want to focus on how we’re going to win while still acknowledging the system we have to deal with

  210. 210.

    ballerat

    @Suzanne:  I don’t think it’s about income, it’s about being against liberals in general, democrats in particular, and most specifically about disliking or hating non-whites (extra especially so for immigrants or Blacks) and being resentful that Those People are getting something for nothing off of the bigot’s taxes.

    I know three trumpers whose household incomes are at least 6 figures. Two have college degrees, live in gated communities and are at VP level in large companies. The third works at a power plant, never went to college but is union (votes R, of course) and with union time-and-a-half or double-time, he too makes at least 6 figures.

    It’s a white bigot/white privilege thing, and it does tend correlate with WWC and non-college education level, but it is most certainly not restricted by income level.

    That said, yes trumpers are resentful of the people they hate making more than they do. But they were going to resent and hate anyway, the money angle just gives them an extra helping of white grievance.

  211. 211.

    Searcher

    @Adam L Silverman: I feel like a lot of people just take “global warming” -> “we’ll have farms further north” as an axiom of faith.

    Completely, you know, neglecting that — besides the fact that northern latitudes have extreme oscillations in the amount of daylight over the year — you also need a good climate (the right amount of rain at the right time) and good soil (which can’t always be cultivated artificially) and there is NO reason to think that as we lose farmland to drought and heatwaves (photosynthesis doesn’t work well above 105F) we’re going to coincidentally gain an equal amount of equally good farmland in the frozen north.

    For all the fun we make of Trump for being the idiot uncle who believes (and repeats) everything his drinking buddies at the bar says, if Putin is believing that global warming is going to turn Russia into the breadbasket of Eurasia, he is every bit the gullible idiot Trump is.

  212. 212.

    ballerat

    @Adam L Silverman:

    as the vast amounts of frozen land in Russia thaws, it will be agriculturally viable

    I had no idea Russia was still struggling to be self-sufficient in agricultural products. It’s a basic vulnerability. Hmm. And a big chunk of their earnings from energy shrank as oil and gas prices fell.

    A thought occurred to me, I wonder if any sanctions played any role in Russia’s decision to attack the US by interfering in the 2016 election.

    IIRC sanctions against Japan in 1940 played a part in shaping their decision to attack the US as the first step in securing resources they were cut off from.

    Drat. Commenter name linky thing isn’t working.

  213. 213.

    sgrAstar

    @Brachiator: BS. People certainly do read books these days. The book biz is actually flourishing, across all media. As a lifelong bibliophile, I am delighted that book reading is such a robust, easily acquired habit.

  214. 214.

    YY_Sima Qian

    I have learned to have zero expectations for Trump, never had much to begin with, with these revelations prove that he is more evil than I expected.

    There are glaring weaknesses in the American political system if such a compounding travesty can only be removed in a quadrennial national election, and even then it is not a sure thing (when it should be a foregone conclusion). All the checks and balances we have taken for granted are much more frail and have deteriorated much more quickly than I thought, and I thought I have been on the pessimistic side, though there have been signs going back at least two decades.

  216. 216.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Again, other than actual swans with black feathers, there is no such thing as a black swan. Just several people that everyone else ignored and a whole bunch of information and evidence that was ignored, explained away, and wished away, which allowed the event that was predicted and predictable to occur.

  217. 217.

    Adam L Silverman

    @ballerat: Putin’s anger over what he perceived not just as US official statements over the irregularities in his 2011 elections, but as active attempts specifically taken by HRC when Secretary of State to prevent his reelection is what drove the attack. Or, rather, it provided Putin with the excuse to do what he’d long wanted to do: attempt to level the US to Russia’s level.

  218. 218.

    Adam L Silverman

    @YY_Sima Qian: A lot of things that people assumed happened because it was the law, have learned it happened because people were willing to follow norms and traditions. And what many of us have long stated that the Constitution is, itself, ultimately, just a piece of old paper and adherence to it is also a norm and a tradition and that there are those, usually the ones screaming the loudest about their love and fealty to the Constitution, who could care less about actually following it.

  219. 219.

    Tehanu

    @dww44: You beat me to it. (And in real life I have the same initials as your moniker.  Great minds, etc.)

    @Bill Arnold: [1] Who do people think the 2019/2020 scriptwriters are?

    Isn’t it obvious? Ed Wood.

  220. 220.

    YY_Sima Qian

    @Adam L Silverman:&nbsp

    Oh, you are right, of course. The biggest weakness in the American political system, as with any political system, is the human beings that make up the system (from politicians to the electorate). After all, a lot of systems work great on paper.

    Perhaps the fundamental sign of deterioration is not the inability to substantially rein in Trump, that was already baked in with his election. The signs were the inability to course correct against the cynical intransigence and fevered delusions of Republican politicians at all levels, as well as the Republican leaning 40+% of the electorate. Election of President Obama and Democratic control of Congress in 2008 was not quite the correction I expected or hoped for. The reactionary forces are much stronger in the US than I expected.

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