The ranting of the mentally challenged Man Child: The Wall Street Journal interviews the President.

The other day, President Donald Trump sat down for a long drawn out interview with the Wall Street Journal. It should have been an easy interview, after all the WSJ is owned by the same people who own FOX news, so its about as close to "friendly ground" as the President can find anywhere.

And it was probably good timing, given that a book just came out, basically accusing the President of having the intellect of a young child, possibly to the point of being so mentally incompetent as to force his removal from office . So a long deep interview on policy would be exactly what the President needed to shatter that image.

However, as it turns out....there was a bit of a problem or several.\

Quoting from the article:

first, for context, the original question:

"The Wall Street Journal: Yes, actually that seems as good a place as any to start, maybe, in Davos…"
"Mr. Trump: [...]And I just think I want to tell the story of what’s happening in the United States. A lot of tremendous things are happening in the United States, including the fact that you can now live without being strangled by regulation. You people actually wrote one of the best stories that I’ve ever seen on regulation; you said more than any president in history.
That was the full pager, that wasn’t…

WSJ: Yes.

Mr. Trump:…I mean I actually read it because I’ve never seen a full page—it’s actually a full page article."

First problem: this "You people actually wrote one of the best stories that I’ve ever seen on regulation; you said more than any president in history." is not a sentence.....what was the article about? according to the wording it appears at one point the WSJ itself was president....and had a lot to say about something or other.

But the larger, much more telling problem: It seems the President of the United States has NEVER seen a full page newspaper article.

Now, my entire adult life has been during a time in which the overwhelming majority of my generation gets its news from a digital format, a format is which "full page article" is a meaningless expression, as there is no long any such thing. 

However, even I have occasionally picked up an actual physical newspaper, and seen a few full page articles.

The President on the other hand, spent the majority of his life in a world in which you HAD to get your news from physical media...and still has apparently never been able to see a full page article.  In fact it was so unique that the President deigned himself to read......

That says alot about the mental abilities of the stable genius 

Moving on with the article:

"WSJ: Did you see the other economy news yesterday? The markets did dip a little bit after some news suggesting that you were going to maybe pull out of Nafta. I wonder where you’re at on Nafta and if you’re concerned about the impact pulling out and renegotiating could have on the market.

Mr. Trump: I’m not sure that markets would dip; I think that markets would—I can tell you I’m not sure about world markets, but I can tell you I think the American market would go up if I terminated Nafta and renegotiated a new deal.

We are—when I campaigned I said we’ll either renegotiate Nafta or I’ll terminate it.

And nothing’s changed, I have fulfilled many of my campaign promises. One of the promises that you know is being very seriously negotiated right now is the wall and the wall will happen. And if you look—point, after point, after point—now we’ve had some turns. You always have to have flexibility. As an example, we’ve been much tougher on China, but not nearly as tough as I would be, but they are helping us a lot with North Korea.

And you see in North Korea what’s happening with North Korea all of a sudden. China’s been helping us a lot, so you can veer a little bit differently, but for the most part everything I’ve said I’ve done."
So, a question about the NORTH AMERICAN free trade agreement apparently prompted the president to talk about china and North Korea. I believe it may actually be possible he has no idea where either of those countries are (which would explain the Navy Ships he ordered to the wrong place last year) More worrying is he seems to think both those countries are in North America. So Canada, you might want to prepare for an attack by american forces after Trump orders an atomic bomb dropped on Winnipeg "to teach Kim Jong Il an lesson"

And moving on:

"WSJ: And a question on China for you, just to follow up on Nafta, withdrawal is still on the table for you?

Mr. Trump: If we don’t make the right deal, I will terminate Nafta. OK?

Now, do I want to? No, I’d rather leave it, but I feel that if that if—you know, the United States has been treated very, very badly. That has been a terrible agreement for us, and if we don’t make a good deal for our country—we lose $71 billion in trade deficits with Mexico. We lose $17 billion with Canada. If we don’t make a fair deal for the United States and the United States taxpayer, then I will terminate it."

So to sum up, the President will totally terminate NAFTA, but he'd rather not, even though he thinks its been a shit deal for America.

Ok.....um Mr. President, why do you prefer to leave America in what you say is a shit deal? Is it possible you dont understand words?

And later on:

"WSJ: You think North Korea is trying to drive a wedge between the two countries, between you and President Moon?

Mr. Trump: I’ll let you know in—within the next 12 months, OK, Mike?

WSJ: Sure.

Mr. Trump: I will let you know. But if I were them I would try. But the difference is I’m president; other people aren’t. And I know more about wedges than any human being that’s ever lived, but I’ll let you know. But I’ll tell you, you know, when you talk about driving a wedge, we also have a thing called trade. And South Korea—brilliantly makes—we have a trade deficit with South Korea of $31 billion a year. That’s a pretty strong bargaining chip to me."

In fairness to President Trump it really would take him 12 months of dedicated research to understand the big words in that question (like "who is this President Moon guy, I though I was President?")

He also really does know more about wedges than anyone else....his golf resorts are full of sand wedges, lob wedges, gap wedges, pitching wedges, some of the members wives wear wedge shoes, his favorite star wars character is Wedge Antilles, and he knows where to get the best Potato Wedges...he's just not sure why the North Koreans putting them between him and the South Korean's is a bad thing....those suckers are delicious.

"WSJ: Just to be clear, you haven’t spoken to the North Korean leader, I mean when you say a relationship with Korea—

Mr. Trump: I don’t want to comment on it—I don’t want to comment, I’m not saying I have or I haven’t. But I just don’t—

WSJ: Some people would see your tweets, which are sometimes combative towards Kim Jong Un...

Mr. Trump: Sure, you see that a lot with me and then all of a sudden somebody’s my best friend. I could give you 20 examples. You give me 30. I’m a very flexible person."

I actually dont have anything funny here....just a question: What the fuck does" I could give you 20 examples. You give me 30." mean? How the fuck does that work? Is Trump assuming we know better than he does what he does? Cause otherwise I'm pretty fucking confused....

"WSJ: Do you have to have a completely funded wall or—would $1.6 billion be enough?

(CROSSTALK)

Mr. Trump: Let me, let me tell you something about the wall. So I’ve always said we have to have a wall. I’ve also said Mexico’s got to pay for it—sometimes you know on occasion, I’d add who’s going to pay for it? Mexico. Well they will pay for it, OK? There are many forms of payment. I could name 10 right now. There are many forms of payment, I didn’t say how."

Challenge accepted.  Let's see forms of payment 1) Cash 2) Check 3) Credit 4) Sexual favors 5) Drugs 6) Barter 7) fuck it....I got nothing. Your turn Mr. president....name the 10....|


"WSJ: Could you give us an example?

Mr. Trump: They can pay for it through, as an example, they can pay for it indirectly through Nafta. OK? You know, we make a good deal on Nafta, say I’m going to take a small percentage of that money and it’s going to go toward the wall. Guess what? Mexico’s paying. Now Mexico may not want to make the Nafta deal and which is OK, then I’ll terminate Nafta…which I think would be frankly a positive for our country. I don’t think it’s a positive for Mexico, I don’t think it’s a positive for the world. But it’s a positive for our country because I’d make a much better deal. There is no deal that I can make on Nafta that’s as good as if I terminate Nafta and make a new deal. OK? But I feel that we have a chance of making a reasonable deal, the way it is now."


Right...so if I'm following this correctly, we are going to take a small amount of the money that according to the President a few quotes ago, we arnt making....and use this invisible money to pay for the wall. And if Mexico doesnt go for this, we will stop giving them 71 Billion (according to the president) every year (to fund a wall that costs about 1.6 Billion) . But if Mexico will let us use invisible money we will totally get fucked over in a horrible deal (according to Trump)

Well......I guess "not understanding how math works and spewing words and numbers" was the correct answer for the 7th 8th 9th or 10th form of payment?

"Mr. Trump: The other thing…so the wall. The wall’s never meant to be 2,100 miles long. We have mountains that are far better than a wall, we have violent rivers that nobody goes near, we have areas...

But, you don’t need a wall where you have a natural barrier that’s far greater than any wall you could build, OK? Because somebody said oh, he’s going to make the wall smaller. I’m not going to make it smaller. The wall was always going to be a wall where we needed it. And there are some areas that are far greater than any wall we could build. So, maybe someday somebody could make that clear, Sarah, will you make that clear please?"

Areas where what? like to be clear....thats NOT me editing his comments. He literally just stopped in the middle of the sentence. I guess his brain ran out of gas?

Also, violent rivers? I could be wrong, but the major river on the border is the Rio Grande...and there is also a racist nickname for Mexicans dealing with the idea they swim across that river all the time....just saying.

Finally though, we get the smallest but funniest in my opinion error here. "The wall’s never meant to be 2,100 miles long"  This is actually something president Trump and I agree on. Because you see the southern border of this country is 1989 miles long. I wonder if the other 119 miles have something to do with those places "we have areas..."

"Mr. Trump: I saw on television, Donald Trump is going to make the wall smaller; no, the wall’s identical. The other thing about the wall is we’ve spent a great deal of time with the Border Patrol and with the ICE agents and they know this stuff better than anybody, they’re unbelievable.

They both endorsed me, the only time they’ve ever endorsed a presidential candidate, OK? And they endorsed us unanimously. I had meetings with them, they need see-through. So, we need a form of fence or window. I said why you need that—makes so much sense? They said because we have to see who’s on the other side.

If you have a wall this thick and it’s solid concrete from ground to 32 feet high which is a high wall, much higher than people planned. You go 32 feet up and you don’t know who’s over here. You’re here, you’ve got the wall and there’s some other people here.

WSJ: Yes.

Mr. Trump: If you don’t know who’s there, you’ve got a problem."

Hmm...a fence on the border....why does that sound so familiar. Oh wait, we already HAVE that. It appears the border patrol is telling the president we dont need a wall, we need what we already have.....its just Donnie Dumb Dumb doesnt realize that.....awkward. 

"WSJ: Well, the other day after your meeting when you talked about wanting to see a deal from Congress. In particular, I’m thinking of the tweets from Ann Coulter. You know, a straight—I mean, they want a wall. Do you feel that you have some room to negotiate here with your own base, when it comes to the wall?

Mr. Trump: I don’t have to because the wall is the same wall I’ve always talked about. I can understand why I have to have see-through.

WSJ: OK.

Mr. Trump: If I’m standing here, I want to be able to see 200 yards out. I want to be able to see, I don’t want to have a piece of concrete that I can’t see.

WSJ: Yes.

Mr. Trump: Now on the wall we have cameras and we have highly sophisticated equipment, but the wall—the Border Patrol tells me the other way’s more expensive. It’s not less expensive. We have to have vision through the wall.

WSJ: But…

Mr. Trump: This is going to be state of the art wall; this will be state of the art. But, I can fully understand why you’d have to have vision. I’d like to be able to see three or four hundred yards instead of we’re at a wall we have no idea who’s on the other side. Does this make sense or am I just wasting my time.

Hope Hicks: It’s what you’ve always talked; it’s consistent with what you’ve always said.

Mr. Trump: No, this is the same. I hope I don’t read tomorrow, Trump is going to make the wall, I always said, we need a wall.

WSJ: Yes.

Mr. Trump: I never said the wall’s going to be two thousand, but there are—there is a vast amount of territory where nobody comes through."

First, can we just take a moment to recognize that the WSJ interview appears to have literally just stopped trying to figure out what was being said here, and reverted to single words just to keep Trump talking?

Second "the Border Patrol tells me the other way’s more expensive. It’s not less expensive." That is generally how the concept of "more expensive" works...it is actually the opposite of "less expensive" saying as much is just redundant.

Third: "Does this make sense or am I just wasting my time." No it doesn't, and Yes you are.

 Forth: Hope Hicks: It’s what you’ve always talked; WHOA WHOA WHOA WHOA. If this was Trump speaking, I'd let this slide....after all the man's a moron and weve established complete sentences are beyond his ability.

But this is Hope Hicks,  the White House Director of Communications. Thats right the person at the White House who is literally in charge of communication is also apparently incapable of completing a sentence.

Is it actually possible that Donald Trump is actually SO stupid he's contagious? 

Fifth: "I hope I don’t read tomorrow, Trump is going to make the wall, I always said, we need a wall."No dummy, your actually in favor of the wall....so you actually DO want to read a headline saying you are going to make the wall (although the headline editor for that site or paper will be fired upon publishing it with that grammar).  You've just spend the better part of 10-12 paragraphs making that point.....

Ok so for this next bit, I have to give a previous question thats response on its own doesnt merit mention just to set up how badly bungled the response to the follow up is:

"WSJ: Is there a possibility that Donald Trump could sign a comprehensive immigration bill which would provide a path to legal status, citizenship for 11 million people who are here illegally?"

And now the follow up:

"WSJ: So when you say you have to have people, clearly there’s the 800,000 ‘Dreamers,’ but there’s also the larger group of people who are currently in the country…

Mr. Trump: That’s a different discussion.

WSJ: So, you said on Tuesday…

Mr. Trump: That’s comprehensive—well, if we could do that, that’s fine. I don’t know that that’s going to be possible.

There’s a lot of—there’s a lot of—there’s a big difference—first of all, there’s a big difference between DACA and Dreamers, OK?

Dreamers are different. And I want American kids to be Dreamers also, by the way. I want American kids to be Dreamers also.

But there’s a big difference between DACA and Dreamers. And a lot of times when I was with certain Democrats they kept using the word dreamer. I said, “Please, use the word DACA.” You know it’s a totally different word.

WSJ: Sure."

First: Hey look whos back to deciding its not worth trying to make sense out of this...the WSJ interviewer

Second: Dreamers are the people affected by DACA. This is a simple point to understand....apparently unless you are the president of the United States. 

Third: It appears the President doesnt actually know what the term Dreamer means...given that by its definition its kinda impossible for American kids to be Dreamers....as the very point of being a dreamer is that your a kid living here and not an American.

Forth: This is the best part of the entire article: "And a lot of times when I was with certain Democrats they kept using the word dreamer. I said, “Please, use the word DACA.” You know it’s a totally different word." because he probably DID say that to a lot of democrats....and he probably thought they were laughing WITH him too...

"Mr. Trump: OK, people think they’re interchangeable, but they’re not.

So—I—I think we have a very good chance of making a deal on DACA, I would like to be able to do it; I think that the people that are Trump supporters agree with me on it. I would never do it without a wall, the wall is the wall and it’s the same wall that we’re always talking about. It’s—you know, wherever we need, we don’t need it where you have mountains; you don’t need it where you have rivers and—you know, vicious rivers.

So—so we have sort of natural barriers.

WSJ: Barriers, yeah.

Mr. Trump: And, obviously, we never intended (inaudible)."

Oh shit....the presidents stuck on repeat...must be past his bedtime...you guys have to know by now you cant let him run for 30 minutes without a break...it taxes the poor dear. 

"WSJ: Just to be really clear, because I don’t want to have any misunderstanding.

Mr. Trump: Yeah, be really clear, I’d like to—because I love The Wall Street Journal. I hope that you guys are clear. OK.

WSJ: For sure.

When—on Tuesday you said that you supported the idea of signing comprehensive immigration reform…

Mr. Trump: No, no I support the idea of discussing it.

WSJ: OK."

I gotta tip my hat to the WSJ guy....he made one final attempt to have this make sense before finally throwing in the towel....

Though believe it or not...that wasnt the end of the interview...however the rest of it...well see for yourself (and for the record, this follows DIRECTLY from the previous quoted statement:

"Mr. Trump: And, maybe, it’s possible to get it. You know, that’s what I do, I make deals. Despite what you read with—by these people that don’t know me, that were never interviewed by—to me, you know.

White House official: But first we have to (inaudible).

(CROSSTALK)

Mr. Trump: The man with the three hour interview, he spent three hours—the man who said he spent three hours in the Oval Office who I never met once in the White House. OK, you know—despite all these characters that are—that’s something you can talk about, is the libel laws, because we’ve got to increase our libel laws so when people make misstatements, like yourselves, but when people make misstatements somebody has some, you know, recourse.

WSJ: Do you have a plan for that, Mr. President?
Mr. Trump: Yeah, I do, I would—I would say—I don’t know that I’ll be able to get it though—but I think that when somebody makes false statements and libelous statements, whether it’s in a book or a newspaper or anything else. When they have phony sources, when the sources don’t exist, yeah I think they should have a liability.

WSJ: Do you think Congress needs to make new libel laws?

Mr. Trump: I don’t know if Congress has the guts to do that.

WSJ: But do you want them to?

Mr. Trump: I would like to see that. Yeah, I’d like to be able to—look, nobody gets more false press than I do. Nobody—nobody gets—nobody comes close. In history—in the history of this country nobody’s gotten more false press and you guys all know it.

WSJ: Why—why do you think that is?

Mr. Trump: They dislike me, the liberal media dislikes me. I mean I watch people—I was always the best at what I did, I was the—I was, you know, I went to the—I went to the Wharton School of Finance, did well. I went out, I—I started in Brooklyn, in a Brooklyn office with my father, I became one of the most successful real-estate developers, one of the most successful business people. I created maybe the greatest brand.

I then go into, in addition to that, part-time, like five percent a week, I open up a television show. As you know, the Apprentice on many evenings was the number one show on all of television, a tremendous success. It went on for 12 years, a tremendous success. They wanted to sign me for another three years and I said, no, I can’t do that.

That’s one of the reasons NBC hates me so much. NBC hates me so much they wanted—they were desperate to sign me for—for three more years.

WSJ: Mr. President, you made reference to the book. Steve Bannon …

Mr. Trump: Just—and so—so I was successful, successful, successful. I was always the best athlete, people don’t know that. But I was successful at everything I ever did and then I run for president, first time—first time, not three times, not six times. I ran for president first time and lo and behold, I win. And then people say oh, is he a smart person? I’m smarter than all of them put together, but they can’t admit it. They had a bad year."

Any body else thing that book got under his skin just a LITTLE BIT? thats a solid 2 minutes of "Im the best at everything" 5 year old temper tantrum there too. And honestly the remaining bit of the article (which works out to about 2 1/2 pages when copied to word) is all they same style of Trump just ranting and the interviewer occasionally interjecting...but that rant does have a few interesting points (im jumping around a bit)

"Mr. Trump: I hope so. Hey, look, I got elected president. I won easily, 306 or 304, depending on your definition, to 223. I won a race that should never be won by a Republican because it’s so stacked in the Democrats’ favor. I mean, if you figure California, New York, and Illinois, you start off with losing that—you have to run the entire East Coast and every— and the entire Midwest.

I won an election that should never be won, because the Electoral College is far harder to win than the popular vote. The popular vote, for me, would have been much easier.

WSJ: But just to be clear, you’re not asking for them to shut those congressional investigations down?

Mr. Trump: No, I just want them to be tough, be strong. I also think that primary collusion, because there was no collusion on our side, the collusion was on the Democrat side with the Russians. And what went on with the FBI, where a man is tweeting to his lover that if she loses, we’ll essentially go back to the—we’ll go to the insurance policy, which is—if they lose, we’ll go to phase 2, and we’ll get this guy out of office.

I mean, this is the FBI we’re talking about. I think that is—that is treason. See, that’s treason right there.

WSJ: Does any of that make you less...

Mr. Trump: By the way, that’s a treasonous act. What he tweeted to his lover is a treasonous act."

The key bit here is right at the beginning before another decent into rambling madness.
"Hey, look, I got elected president. I won easily, 306 or 304, depending on your definition, to 223."

Your definition?  the votes were made over a year ago. And for the record, there is no dispute, the result was 304 to 227. Its odd that for something he apparently still sees as relevant, he cant remember the damn numbers....but telling to, that even though he won, he has to lie about how well the other person did by dropping a few votes and crediting himself a few extra.

"WSJ: Does any of that make you less likely or less inclined to testify before Mueller, or talk to Mueller’s people?

Mr. Trump: Look, there has never been in the history of this country an administration that, number one, did nothing wrong, and number two, was more open with a special counsel. We have—my lawyers are very good people. We made a decision right at the beginning. And it wasn’t their original idea. They figured, like, well, we’ll fight this (inaudible).

After they looked at all the letters, all the facts, every email, they saw nothing. They said, “We should be open.” There has never been a more— they said, “You never did anything wrong.” To be honest, they probably were surprised, OK? As most lawyers would be. They said, “You never did anything wrong.”

And they said, and I agree with them, “We should be upfront, give them a”—we gave them everything.

WSJ: So if asked if...

Mr. Trump: There has never been, in the history—in the history of an administration anybody that was more open than we were. You understand that?

WSJ: Yes."

You can tell Trump's getting cranky....note he basically scolds the reporter for Trump believing the reporter didnt believe his lie about being transparent.

Though, one interesting tidbit...Trump claims he gave Muller everything, which presumably includes his taxes....so I guess we will finally get to see those (hey what about the endless audit he used to pretend meant he couldnt do that?)

But this cant possibly end without one last major example of how little Donald Trump understands the world around him:

"WSJ: So you’re saying there was no obstruction, if Mueller asks you to come in and talk about it, would you—

(CROSSTALK)

Mr. Trump: Of course there was no obstruction—excuse me. Of course there was no obstruction. But there was no crime. So now they’re saying, could there be—now, I haven’t even heard that they’re looking at obstruct—I don’t know that they’re looking at obstruction."

See to the rest of the world, the reason Robert Mueller was appointed special prosecutor in the first place was to see if Donald Trump committed obstruction of justice or coordinated with Russia during the campaign. That is the very reason this investigation exists, no matter if Trump is guilty or innocent.

But Donald Trump is apparently too stupid to understand this, nor it seems can his lawyers get it through his skull.

Which to be fair, in the long run is great...it drastically increases the changes he bungles himself into an impeachment....unless his staff does the humane thing and uses the 25th amendment to out him fist....and after this interview...its getting harder and harder to not take that option.

Donald Trump starts to crack under pressure?

It appears the pressure might be getting to the president Donald Trump took to twitter today...and had a bit of a meltdown:


"Now that Russian collusion, after one year of intense study, has proven to be a total hoax on the American public, the Democrats and their lapdogs, the Fake News Mainstream Media, are taking out the old Ronald Reagan playbook and screaming mental stability and intelligence.........Actually, throughout my life, my two greatest assets have been mental stability and being, like, really smart. Crooked Hillary Clinton also played these cards very hard and, as everyone knows, went down in flames. I went from VERY successful businessman, to top T.V. Star.........to President of the United States (on my first try). I think that would qualify as not smart, but genius....and a very stable genius at that!"

Please note the "...." were put in by POTUS at the areas between tweets. However even granting him that, the amount of flat out self delusion and derangement here is shocking.  Also lets not lose sight of the fact that this is more or less part of Trump's war with Steve Bannon, and is basically Trump trying to prove how not hurt he is by crying like a little bitch. 

Lets just go point by point



1)"Russian collusion, [...] total hoax on the American public."
See what the mentally deranged and detached president means by "total hoax" is 

4 aids, two senior level, indicted for crimes related to the Russian investigation

2 aids, one senior level, pleading guilty to said crimes.

1 USDA nomination rescinded due to the Russian investigation.

1 Ambassadorship dropped due to the Russian investigation.

1 Judaical Nominee removed due to connections to the Russian investigation

1 recusal by the Attorney General of the United States, due to being linked to the Russian investigation.

2 most likely individuals to face legal issues next, the Presidents son, and son in law.

And thats JUST looking at the legal aspects...not allegations made by former members of the Trump team (Steve Bannon, Mike Flynn) that would link both the President and the Vice President to part of the cover up.  

2) "the Democrats [...] are taking out the old Ronald Reagan playbook and screaming mental stability and intelligence"

Yeah, heres the thing about that particular playbook.....the Democrats were right. Reagan had Alzheimer's.  Probably not the president you want to compare yourself too to prove how mentally stable you are....oh wait, maybe this was a secret cry for help?

Also, based on the timing, this tweet appears to be in response to the new tell-all book that was published based on interviews with members of Trump's administration...not democrats. But hey when you cant understand reality, concepts like "friend and foe" are a bit too complex. 

3)"Actually, throughout my life, my two greatest assets have been mental stability and being, like, really smart."

You know who, like, is, like, really really, like smart?

Thats why the Valley Girl sterotype has always and forever will denote high levels of intelligence. (Pssts, if Trump is capable of reading this, even after the big words are explained, you think he understands its sarcasm?)

3)"Crooked Hillary Clinton also played these cards very hard and, as everyone knows, went down in flames." 

Down in flames in this case means "Won the popular vote, causing me, President Donald, Like Smart, Trump to form a voter fraud commission to investigate why people dont like me, which I just had to disband yesterday after every single state in the country wouldnt comply with its illegal demands. 

And now for the rapid fire round of bullshit|
4) "I went from VERY successful businessman"

Went bankrupt 6 times, to the point that American Banks refuse to loan him money....though thats fine because according to son Eric Trump in 2104 "Well, we don’t rely on American banks. We have all the funding we need out of Russia.'"

5) "to a top T.V. Star"

By which he means 67th in the ratings for his final season, and his show lost 20% of its viewership after season 1,

6)"to President of the United States (on my first try)"

Incorrect. This was actually Trump's second official attempt to become president. He ran in 2000 as well, and won the reform party primaries in California and Michigan before dropping out.

7) "I think that would qualify as not smart, but genius....and a very stable genius at that!"

My rebut to this point? See 1-6. 

Will the weight of George Papadopoulos' sins bring Impeachment down on the President?

George Papadopoulos. Not a name anyone in the world knew 2 weeks ago. Now the guy who might bring down the presidency of Donald Trump.

Now before we get started lets explain one thing about Impeachment: Namely that it doesnt actually require a crime (despite what you will hear people on both sides claim). Articles of Impeachment were drawn up against Richard Nixon, who resigned before they could be voted on.....but to this day Nixon has yet to be proven to have committed a crime. Weve also has successful impeachments and removals of federal officials for Drunkenness, and Political Bias.  And weve declared behaviors abouse of power or corruption simply because they defied any other label.

So while crimes are helpful, they arnt really necessary for impeachment, it a political maneuver.

Which is the biggest problem for Trump and the reason Papadopoulos might be the one to lead to his downfall, even if no direct chain from Papadopoulos to Trump ever surfaces. Because at the end of the day, Impeachment is a political, not legal device. So like Nixon before him....Trump could go down from the sheer weight of the corruption around him. And well Papadopoulos delivered a ton of that.

Ok so, for those unfamiliar Papadopoulos was a mid level Trump staffer, who got an offer from what he believed to be the Russian government who wanted a meeting with Trump in exchange for dirt on Hillary....and Papadopoulos tried to take them up on it.  This is of course illegal, but on its own, just one corrupt staffer.

Except that Papadopoulos went up the chain and pitched the idea to a LOT of people. One of whom was Paul Manafort, who was just indicted.

Ironically though, it wasnt Papadopoulos that brought down Manafort. In fact it may be the other way around.

On July 26th Manafort's home was raided by the FBI and documents pertaining to the campaign were taken.

On July 27th Papadopoulos was arrested for having previously lied to to FBI in his initial interviews in January.

Now to be clear, I have no idea how the FBI discovered her was lying, but just based on those dates, it seems highly likely they found Paul Manafort's end of the emails between the two of them....and could use those to force the truth out of Papadopoulos.

But this isnt the end of the story. First Papadopoulos did what anyone trying to save their ass might do when caught in a lie that would put them in jail.....he flipped. And the thing is, no one knew about it for months, even his arrest wasnt known.

So for 3 months, he filtered in and out of Trump world (presumably with a wire), and took everything he found to the Special Prosecutor.  And as of now, we have no idea what he found and who its going to lead too.

Though its clear given his arrest was made public that Mueller is done with him, and got as much as he thinks he can out of him. One of those things appears to have been Sam Clovis, who until earlier this week (when the Papadopoulos arrest was made public) was Donald Trump's nominee to be the Chief Scientist at the USDA (despite not in any respect being a scientist).

The reason of course he's no longer the nominee is he was one of those guys Papadopoulos emailed about the meeting, and his reaction was to encourage Papadopoulos to take it.

But it doesnt end there for Clovis or Trump. See unbeknownst to the very White House that was nominating him for a position in their government, Clovis had testified in front of Mueller Grand Jury at some point in the last few months, and like Papadopoulos' appears to have flipped and is now a cooperating witness for the Senate and Mueller's investigations.

And like Papadopoulos' we dont know much Clovis has given those investigations, or long he's been giving them information, or where it will lead.

But Clovis isnt the only person who we've already been able to connect back to Papadopoulos, and the next one is YUGE.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions is apparently another higher up messaged by Papadopoulos about the meeting. Now to Sessions credit by all accounts he shut the idea down and refused to go along with it in any way. Which normally would be a great thing......except for this:

SEN. AL FRANKEN: "If there was any evidence that anyone affiliated with the Trump campaign communicated with the Russian government in the course of this (2016) campaign, what would you do?,"

SESSIONS: "I'm not aware of any of those activities. I have been called a surrogate at a time or two in that campaign and I did not have communications with the Russians."


Thats a transcript of Jeff Sessions confirmation hearings when he was being nominated to be the attorney general. And well, he clearly clearly clearly clearly lied, as he knew about Papadopoulos.

Actually to be honest, thats not the only trouble that exchange has made for Sessions. The reason he was forced to recuse himself from the russian investigation is because he had had several meetings himself with Russian Officials, that obviously dont match up with his claim in that statement, and he was forced to amend the statement later, but still neglected to mention Papadopoulos

So this is now the second time he got caught lying under oath about connections to Russia.

And by second, I mean 3rd. Remember the name Carter Page? He was a mid level Trump staffer that got a ton of attention early on in the investigation because Russia attempted to recruit him as a spy?

Turns out he also is claiming he notified Jeff Sessions about his plans to travel to Russia and give a speech during the campaign.  Furthermore, like Sessions and Clovis, he's also claiming to have been on the Papadopoulos  email list about the Russian meeting.  (and he's claiming he has names of others who were as well, but wont make them public, but is cooperating with Mueller)

Basically, between the previous lies, Page and Papadopoulos, Sessions appears to be in deep deep shit (as in could be forced to resign) here, as its undisputed at this point he lied left right and center about his knowledge of campaign officials communications with Russia. 

Which is odd, since he appears to have done nothing wrong as far as actually handling those communications and dismissing and discouraging them.  So the only real justification that makes sense as to why he lied was to protect his boss, Donald Trump, and he knew any communications legal or otherwise would be super scrutinized.

Speaking of Trump though, the major question is did he know about any of this?

And according to Papadopoulos, the answer is yes.....sorta.

Papadopoulos' claims he directly pitched the idea of a Trump/Russia meeting to Trump, however didnt mention the quid pro quo of the damaging Hillary info.


Now in and of itself, Trump deciding to meet with a foreign leader as candidate isnt illegal. So in theory if he didnt know about the Quid Pro Quo he's fine legally.

But maybe not politically. After all enough Nixon advisers went down over Watergate that no one believes its possible Nixon didnt know about it, despite no evidence to support that.

Trump's ex campaign manager is already indicted (Manafort), as was his Lieutenant Rick Gates (who was still working on behalf of Trump Adviser Tom Barrack, as part of the White House staff as late as June (possibly unbeknownst to Trump)). Carter Page, part of Trump's foreign policy team now seems deeply connected to this, as does [obviously] George Papadopoulos, another member of the foreign policy team who already has a guilty plea on the record. Trump's also already lost one nominee, Sam Clovis to previously unknown russian connections, and its not unreasonable anymore to say he might even lose his Attorney General, Jeff Sessions as well.

That's a lot of people, and there will be more, for any president to lose for a single scandal.

And keep in mind, this is only one "branch" of this particular scandal.

We also, have the Mike Flynn side of this, after Flynn was forced out as National Security Adviser over  Russian Connections,

And we have the Trump Jr/ Kushner/ Manafort meeting with a Russian Lawyer in Trump tower.
 
And the Nexus point of all of this, Donald Trump's decision to fire James Comey.

For those who forgot, Comey was investigating Mike Flynn at the time Donald Trump fired him. Trump claims he fired him on the advice of Jeff Sessions (who as we just found out has been lying about his own Russian connections and knowledge of it) and Jared Kushner (who connects into the Russian Lawyer side of this, as does the indicted Manafort) possibly as a way to stop the Russian investigation (that again everyone who advised him is now directly caught up in)

And if it turns out everyone else involved in the decision to fire Comey was corrupt, will anyone believe that Trump wasnt? I dont think so.

And one last point.....we could see the walls start to close in much much faster very soon, as by all accounts Mueller has enough evidence to indict Mike Flynn and his son (likely over the things I detailed in a blog post a few months ago, read it here)

So in the next few days we are going to see more and more and more and more connections between Trump officials and Russia coming up as a second branch of this investigation comes to light, and this branch could lead to the Vice President (as Trump Transition team members apparently sent warning about Flynn to Trump and the team was headed by Pence....making it unlikely he didnt know)

So  we are left with a question.....how many people close to Trump can fall before it becomes politically unlikely he didnt know about at least some if not all of it?  And I think we are soon to cross that line....and it will be because of what started with Papadopoulos.

How John McCain tried to undo the greatest political mistake of recent history

So by now, you've probably heard the GOP fight to repeal Obamacare is dead....for like the 5th time. And while some GOP members want to keep fighting, this time around most of them are pretty much resigned to the fact the fights over they failed.

Thats right, the GOP has failed at the thing they ran on for the last 4 elections. They failed at the one and only consistent promise they made in election after election after election. They failed at something they managed to do successfully, only to find it vetoed when Obama was president.

How did this happen?

Its simple......it was never supposed to work. This entire quest was never EVER supposed to be about repealing and replacing healthcare coverage for millions of Americans. No this entire thing was about repealing and replacing the greatest political mistake made in the last century....Obamacare.

Confused? let me explain. The current american healthcare system ISNT Obamacare. its actually officially named the ACA, the Affordable Care Act, and would likely be offically known as "Affordable Care"   "Affordcare" or just straight up "Healthcare" if it wasnt for the Republicans creating and getting the public to use the name "Obamacare"

And thats a problem for 2 reasons
1) At its heart Obamacare is actually a Republican idea. Its based on "RomneyCare" in Massachusetts which itself was based on the Republican healthcare plan put forth by Republicans during the Clinton Administration to oppose HillaryCare, and was spawned inside the Heritage Foundation, one of the major groups behind the Tea Party movement.

In short, if think the current healthcare system is better than the one before the passing of the ACA, its the GOP who should get a lot of the credit....but they dont because they named it "Obamacare" and then lied about their participation (for example the imfamous part of the bill that was slandered and intentionally misinterpreted to lie about death panels was written by a Republican), so no one realizes they should get some credit.

2) Speaking of credit....which president passed Medicare into law? Medicaid? Social Security? I dont really think that many people know...especially among those who were born after the programs were implemented.

Its going to be much much easier in the future for people to remember which president passed "Obamacare" because its named after the guy. And generally speaking Americans think highly of presidents that they can associate with positive things IE FDR and the "new deal" Lincoln and the Civil War, Reagan and the Berlin Wall collapse,  Jefferson and the Constitution, Wilson and winning World War 1

Now this is true even when the presidents record has some major problems. As example: FDR made it harder for Jews to come here when the Holocaust started, Lincoln believed blacks were inherently inferior to whites and would have kept slavery to stop the civil war in a heartbeat,  Reagan sold weapons to terrorists and paid to train what became Al-Qadea, Jefferson owned slaves, one of which hes famous for repeatedly raping from the time she was like 15, and Wilson was a raging racist who re-segregated the federal government, and loved the Pro KKK birth of a nation film.

My point is, if Obamacare is seen as good, and its associated with Obama, in the minds of all future Americans, well Obama was an amazing president, no matter the rest of his record. Which is kinda a bad thing if your entire purpose as a party was "We hate that guy".

Now to be fair (sort of) to Republicans, the name "Obamacare" predates the passage of the ACA....they named it that during the legislation stage because the reverse is also true, a president who is associated with a bad thing is seen as a disaster in the future no matter their record.

So they created the Obamacare name because they were hoping the ACA would fail (this is why none of the them voted for it) and then presumably they could come in a few years later after winning an election and pass their own version of a healthcare bill likely more or less identical to the ACA.

Granted the cynicism of that strategy.....that people will basically hate this idea that we actually secretly like, so we get the credit later for passing it and can use it to forever ruin the other guys reputation, is one of the major reasons the GOP wound up in this mess.

If you think some republicans would realize the inherent cynicism there, and start prepping to move before anyone else noticed, youd be right.

The biggest break the GOP caught was that the ACA's implementation was going to be delayed several years. If they made up things, like say death panels, to turn people against the law before it actually happened...and therefore could repeal it and eventually present their own plan.

Dont believe me that republicans realized literally from day one how badly they miscalulated and immediately tried to get out of the hole they dig themselves into?

The ACA was signed into law on March 23th 2010. That same day, Senator Jim DeMitt (who would leave congress to go run the heritage foundation, the group that created what eventually became the ACA in the first place)  and Rep's Michelle Bachmann and Steve King introduced bills into congress to repeal the ACA. 14 Republican State Attorney Generals also filed suit that same day.

Keep in mind as this point the ink wasnt even dry on this thing. So yea, the GOP realized pretty fast how badly they fucked that up.

And by this point they had already set the ground work for the identical replacement idea, with then Minority Whip Eric Cantor saying in an interview published in January of 2010 that if the ACA passed Republicans would want to repeal alot of it...but not all of it, since it had some good parts and the GOP would NOT campaign for full repeal.  For the record, Cantors comments would be echoed by other republicans (including Senators Corker and Burr) in the up coming months.

But then the Tea Party happened....and everything started to go to shit. The Tea Party which was born a libertarian movement go co-oped by FOX news and the republican right wing fringe,   and they HATED Obama and Government so they damn sure hated a government program created by Obama and they wanted it out instantly. Steve King, an early adherent to the Tea Party spoke out against Cantor's faction saying “if we leave any component of it in there, it has, it’s just become a malignant tumor that’s attacking our liberty and our freedom and it’s diminishing our aspirations and it saps our overall productivity as a nation,”

Trying to reach a compromise between these two sides is what lead to the idea of "repeal and replace" in may of 2010.

Basically they could repeal the ACA, and then pass another more or less identical bill instead and claim they saved us from Obama and they fixed the healthcare system.

The first attempt at this was in May 2010 with a 9 page bill.....that like all future GOP plans until about 2017, looked pretty much like a lose framework of the ACA.  Hell they took the idea of "pass something that looks basically like the ACA" so far that in 2012 the ran Mitt Romney, the guy who successfully implemented the first real version of the ACA as their candidate because his healthcare program was better than the ACA.

This weird dichotomy of we hate it/we love it would continue though 2010, Republicans like then Tea Party backed Senate Candidate Marco Rubio would sign a pledge to repeal ALL of the ACA, and also to keep the preexisting condition coverage and keeping kids on parents insurance until 26 parts of the bill.

Now in fairness to the Republicans, they did pretty well in 2010. As the ACA wasnt anything more than a piece of paper at the time, they could and did freely demonize the bill without that many people noticing they wanted to keep so much of it it couldnt possibly be as bad as they said.

Fast Forward to 2011 where the newly GOP controlled House would pass the first of 50 different bills to repeal the ACA...and in every single case by a much much much large margin than the attempt that eventually passed in 2017.

Notice of course I say "repeal" the ACA, not "repeal and replace". While the GOP did have the occasionally replacement plan (most of which got instantly shelved the minute the media noticed it was pretty much the ACA under a different name), they didnt really need to vote on those. See all the experienced politicians knew all the votes they took were never going to become law, and therefore never actually had to worry about any impact from them.

The mistake the Republicans made here, which bit them in the ass 6 years later, is that it seems many of the newly elected Republicans didnt get that part. They didnt seem to realize the votes to repeal the ACA were totally for show and were done specifically because they wouldnt pass and it would allow the GOP to play off the anger they had made up with their supporters to win the next few elections.

Now I know what your thinking, what I'm saying sound good/sounds like a steaming pile of shit (depending on your inherit bias coming up) and either way all I've shown you is like my opinion man.

So you want some support for what I'm saying....fair enough.

Quoting an interview from the Washingtonian from last week with former Majority Leader Eric Cantor (who was Majority leader during much of the Repeal/Replace push)

"Asked if he feels partly responsible for [Republicans] current predicament, Cantor is unequivocal. “Oh,” he says, “100 percent.”

He goes further: “To give the impression that if Republicans were in control of the House and Senate, that we could do that when Obama was still in office . . . .” His voice trails off and he shakes his head. “I never believed it.”

He says he wasn’t the only one aware of the charade: “We sort of all got what was going on, that there was this disconnect in terms of communication, because no one wanted to take the time out in the general public to even think about ‘Wait a minute—that can’t happen.’ ” But, he adds, “if you’ve got that anger working for you, you’re gonna let it be.”

It’s a stunning admission from a former member of the party leadership—that the linchpin of GOP electoral strategy for the better part of a decade was a fantasy, a flame continually fanned solely because, when it came to midterm elections, it worked. (Barring, of course, his own.)"

There you have it folks....the guy responsible for all the Repeal votes saying even he didnt believe they could actually do this and only did it to capitalize off angry voters for electoral success.

In fact, as early as 2012, it should have become clear to the GOP they were in deep deep trouble as far as people/new members of congress actually having drunk enough of the repeal/replace kool-aid to no longer realize what the real goal was.

Coming into the 2012 election then Senate Minority Leader McConnell said he didnt really want to vote on repeal again...at least not until after the election maybe. McConnell was forced to change his mind after several conservative groups threatened to throw a shit ton of money into having him removed from office in his reelection...if they couldnt force him to resign first. For what its worth, in his reelection campaign in 2014, McConnell was forced into the position of running against the ACA and for its full repeal, while also promising not to repeal Kynect, the state exchange set up by Kentucky as part of the ACA.  Because as it turns out, now that its going into affect, people really like "Obamacare"....though republican demonization has successfully soured them on the name.

This of course creates a bigger problem for the GOP. Among the half who remember this is a scam to change the name and not much else, they have to start putting out alternatives even closer and keeping more of the ACA.....which the half of the party too damn stupid to realize the scam hate.

Keep in mind, in 2013, as the "WE LOVE OUR STATE HEALTHCARE/OBAMACARE SUCKS ASS"  division was starting up, the half of the GOP not in on the scam shut down the government over the funding of Obamacare. They lost so badly in the bill to reopen the government they had to agree to accelerate parts of the ACA's implementation. So its not like they didnt have fair warning that even among people who hated Obamacare, they may not have hated it as much as congress thought, given again, they had to back down and reopen the government after everyone blamed them for all the other services they lost. 

Now given that the ACA didnt even start to go into affect until 2012, and not full effect until 2014, you can see how fast the public turned around on the idea....within a year the GOP was already being forced to defend it and just obscure what they were defending. Hell by 2015 the GOP was writing legislation to save the ACA from earlier actions taken by the GOP.  In fact by that point they'd basically given up on the repeal idea all together, and instead the idea had been to tweak the ACA and take credit for the tweaks to claim it was a new program. Even Candidate Donald Trump had been onboard with the scam as a candidate....his website claimed he had 10 different proposals to repeal Obamacare...of course you dont need 10 proposals to repeal the ACA, that only takes 1. You need 10, if and only if, the plan is to tweak the ACA and then claim its a different program.

And given they never wanted to repeal the program at all, and enough republicans are around who remember this is a scam, its not surprising they cant seem to get it done now in 2017, even though they were very unexpectedly handed the chance thanks to Trumps surprise victory in the 2016 elections.

And thats something else to remember too.....the GOP never expected to win the white house in 2016. If youve been reading my blog for a while, especially in 2015 and 2016 I pointed out repeatedly the number of times were saying things suggesting they had already given up the 2016 election and preparing to battle with President Hillary Clinton to get her out of office in 2020.  This likely would have given them a better exit strategy....they would have had 4-8 more years to slowly wind down the assault on the ACA (recognizing that it was here to stay) and move on from what would have been a decade+ long war to something else without it being as obvious.

But then Trump won....and shit looks like they are going to have to carry through on this campaign promise they didnt really want to do anyways.  And since they never wanted to do it, theyd never given any actual though to it.....hence why the GOP was so so fractured over what exactly to replace Obamacare with.

Its why they failed on the first attempt in the House.....in 7 years theyd never needed to plan that part out. Yet they had promised their voters it was a thing they would do on day 1. So they were never able to plan anything out. Yes they got something out of the House, but it was already known when that happened it would never pass the senate.

And the senate, its worth noting, has a much slower turn over rate due to those longer terms, so the senate also has a higher concentration of Republicans who are senior enough to remember the entire replace idea was a scam.

Which is why after 4 months of work and multiple attempts that all got pissed down the tube and the final repeal bill (Skinny repeal) went down in defeat. But not without making Obamacare the most popular its ever been as people realized all the benefits it gave them that the GOP wanted to take away.

Now of course publicly, John McCain is getting all the credit....and some people are trying to argue Collins and Murkowski should get some too as they were consistent no votes.

But trust me when I tell you, they are far far far from the only people in the senate who actually oppose the bill. Remember up until a few hours before the final vote, something like 10-12 republicans, including McCain were on the fence.

Of course we found out later McCain had made up his mind before.....early enough to tell Democratic Senate Minority Leader Schumer which way he voting. In fact Schumer and former VP Biden had been reaching out to McCain for days, an its highly unlikely he was the only one they reached out too.  The big shock is that apparently none of this was known to Mitch McConnell at a minimum. 

So why did McCain play the part of undecided in the run up to the vote? political cover for his colleagues

Many republican senators found themselves in a tight spot on the last vote....the bill was so precision focused it went only for the mandates the GOP had raised the most hell about for years.  So for most of them there was no good excuse not to vote for it.

Murkowski and Collins had an excuse....the same one they had always had, they come from the states most likely to be crushed by the effects of repeal that they are safe if not even helped (in collins case) by voting against the bill.

Other senators didnt have that luxury....their voters had drunk so much of the GOP bullshit kool-aid, they couldnt not vote for the bill without losing their seats. At the same time, they couldnt possibly allow the bill to pass and not risk losing their seats when their voters realized exactly how much bullshit they had been tricked into swallowing when repeal went into effect.

And the precision focus of the bill meant people like Shelly Moore Capito, Lindsey Graham and Dean Heller (among others) who had managed to create excuses for previous no votes on technicalities and issues with the bills, had by doing so created a situation where they had to vote for this as it had none of those problems. If they didnt, theyd be voted in in primaries.

 Now to be clear, I'm not excusing their votes. The fact they voted for the "skinny repeal" bill even though they all thought and said it would be a disaster if it became law is definitely something they should be held to account for, and likely should all lose their seats, and they are just praying you forget about it in 1,3 or 5, years when they are up for reelection. Im just explaining why they bothered with the maneuver at all.

So how does McCain factor into this?

Simple: He's not running in another election ever again.

Now he hasnt publicly said as much yet, and no one else will either because its incredibly brash, rude 

and morbid as can be to bring it up, but the fact of the matter is, John McCain's form of brain cancer has a 4% survival rate  over 5 years for people in their 40's and 50's. The older you are from that, the lesser the chance of survival. And McCain is about to turn 81.

Now I dont wish death on ANYONE, so I personally hope John McCain is alive and well in 2022 when he would be up for reelection, but the only way he even has a chance is to devote all of his time and effort to beating cancer. And he cant do that and be a senator at the same time.  Now he may choose to try (id be surprised) but he has to know even if he does he wont be able be an absentee senator and win in 2022.

So in essence John McCain is immune to any political fallout or consequences from the Right wing over his vote. There is nothing they can do to him.

Furthermore to be honest, they cant even really attack him that much.......because if they try to they public is going to think they look like dicks for attacking a guy with brain cancer. So they basically have to let the matter drop. (this by the way is also why Murkowski and Collins arnt exactly rushing for their share of the credit)

Which is perfect for the Republican party as a whole...if you cant talk about the repeal bills failure, you cant really talk about repeal. Which gets them out of the circular firing squad they found themselves in, where not repealing Obamacare would get them killed in primaries from the right, and repealing obamacare would get them killed in the general election

Admittedly some major damage was already done. The GOP has already started workings with democrats to find ways to improve the hated "Obamacare"...and the Democrats took the lead on that the minute the last repeal bill went down. So the democrats are likely to get at least half the credit for any improvements to the thing they already get the credit for creating. The GOP therefore gets left with the scraps on the credit....but they will take it as it will help to convinced the voters who turned on them over their repeal crusade, that they actually dont just want to harm or kill them to give the rich a tax cut.  It wont be enough, many of them are going to lose their seats in the next election...but at least they have an a route to rebuilding....not to mention changing the subject

Plus as another hit they are going to take, thanks to the "word  association" of Obamacare Barack Obama will be seen by the people of the future as a great president...meaning the republicans completely failed at their objective. But I think the GOP decided they would rather live with that than live with the backlash of what would have happened if they had passed the skinny repeal bill and got left holding the bag.

Or at least that was the plan. It appears Donald Trump, desperate to do something ANYTHING at all on any issue at all, forgot the whole thing was a scam (despite being in on it before), and sent his team out on TV today to basically demand the Senate keep fighting and losing on this issue. Office of Budget and Management Director Mulvaney says its official white house policy the senate keeps working to repeal Obamacare. President Trump believes if the senate doesnt keep fighting this dead issue they are all quiters and Kellyanne Conway is promising that Donald Trump will decide if hes going to implode Obamacare this week.....presumably with the intention of forcing the senate to do this again.

So at the end of the day, it appears John McCain may have been too little too late. He tried to reverse the biggest political mistake of  recent memory, and get the GOP out of this mess....but the presidents a kool aid drinker and now the GOP may wind up shooting themselves in the face a few more times as their party continues to crumble and look incompetence and unable to govern over the miscalculation of being against "Obamacare" but for most of their own idea, the ACA and the fallout from it, and lying to their voters about it.

Mar-a-lago Nights: The Ballard of Donnie Dumb-Dumb

So earlier this week, Donald Trump had a sit down interview with the New York Times. And it went about as well as all of his interviews do.....though admittedly this time he didnt go on TV and admit to obstruction of justice, so I suppose it could have gone worse.

Seriously though, I surprised Trump hasnt fired whoever it is in the white house who keeps scheduling these because they NEVER go well.  Instead of a sit down interview with the President of the United States, and all that title is supposed to suggest about the capabilities of the person holding it, it instead winds up being a 1-on-1 with Trump's true self Donnie Dumb-Dumb. (yes I know the nickname is childish....thats kinda the point, it fits well with Lyin Ted, Crooked Hillary, ect I wanted to give him a nickname in his own language)

Donnie Dumb-Dumb is the Donald Trump that he tries hard to hide from the world when he tries to convince them hes a success at anything, Donnie Dumb-Dumb is the result of a life time of never bothering to learn anything because no matter how bad you fucked up, you had money.  Donnie Dumb-Dumb is what happens when you use that money to hire people to tell you only the things you want to hear, and never tell you bad news or even intellectually challenge you or ask you to learn anything.

And if you want to know why Donald Trump's presidency is failing, or why the entire republican agenda writ large seems to be in trouble, its usually due to the existence of Donnie Dumb Dumb.

Now unfortunately the NYT has not released the entire conversation they had with Trump, but have put out a ton of excerpts. What that means though is that instead of going in order like I usually do, this one if going to be a bit random in order.

Anyways,
Donnie Dumb-Dumb moment #1: Why the Republicans cant pass Trumpcare.

"So pre-existing conditions are a tough deal. Because you are basically saying from the moment the insurance, you’re 21 years old, you start working and you’re paying $12 a year for insurance, and by the time you’re 70, you get a nice plan. Here’s something where you walk up and say, “I want my insurance.” It’s a very tough deal, but it is something that we’re doing a good job of."


$12 a year for insurance? Seriously? SERIOUSLY? Dumb-Dumb thinks insurance costs a dollar a month.

Well that actually explains a lot....such as why Trump seems to think he can cover everyone with great health insurance and do it so cheaply......he apparently doesnt know how much it costs.  Or how it works.

You dont start paying into healthcare at 21 so that you can go somewhere in 50 years and be like "Hey I'd like my money now". In fact, as far as I know, thats not how any kind of insurance works. That is how social security works I guess....though again its no where near $12 a year.

But as I said, it does explain quite a bit. President Trump cant come up with a healthcare repeal plan, because Donnie Dumb Dumb thought it was social security. So of course no one is listening to him, and republicans arnt getting any leadership from him.

Donnie Dumb-Dumb moment #2: Some kinda dumb and creepy shit about the french  
   
"After that, it was fairly surprising. He [President Emmanuel Macron of France] called me and said, “I’d love to have you there and honor you in France,” having to do with Bastille Day. Plus, it’s the 100th year of the First World War. That’s big. And I said yes. I mean, I have a great relationship with him. He’s a great guy."

No, its not the 100th year of the first World War Dumb-Dumb. That war ended 99 years ago. Its not still going on.

Nor does Bastille Day  have anything to do with World War I. Its the anniversary of the storming of the Bastille during the French Revolution in 1789.

TRUMP: [Macron] a great guy. Smart. Strong. Loves holding my hand.

INTERVIEWER: I’ve noticed.

TRUMP: People don’t realize he loves holding my hand. And that’s good, as far as that goes.

TRUMP: I mean, really. He’s a very good person. And a tough guy, but look, he has to be. I think he is going to be a terrific president of France. But he does love holding my hand.

If there is one thing Donald Trump is not obsessed about its his hands. No not obsessed at all....just mentioned it 3 times in 3 sentences.....kinda creepy....but not overly sensitive about them, no sir.  
 
Donnie Dumb Dumb moment #3: Russian Winter

TRUMP: Well, Napoleon finished a little bit bad. But I asked that. So I asked the president, so what about Napoleon? He said: “No, no, no. What he did was incredible. He designed Paris.” [garbled] The street grid, the way they work, you know, the spokes. He did so many things even beyond. And his one problem is he didn’t go to Russia that night because he had extracurricular activities, and they froze to death. How many times has Russia been saved by the weather? [garbled]

[crosstalk/unintelligible]

TRUMP: Same thing happened to Hitler. Not for that reason, though. Hitler wanted to consolidate. He was all set to walk in. But he wanted to consolidate, and it went and dropped to 35 degrees below zero, and that was the end of that army.

We found out not to long ago that Dumb-Dumb thinks Kim Il Sung, Kim Jong Il, and Kim Jong Un, are all the same "gentleman" in North Korea. So I guess we shouldnt be too surprised that he doesnt know there were multiple french rulers named Napoleon, and the one who commissioned the redesign of paris was nephew of the one who invaded Russia.

Also apparently Dumb-Dumb thinks Russia was invaded in a single day? Or if Napoleon had left a few hours earlier he would have succeeded, but his homework was due or something. Honestly I'm not entirely sure what the fuck Dumb Dumb is babbling about with nights and extracurricular activities.

The one thing I know for sure is Napoleon's men didnt exactly freeze to death. Napoleon was actually fully prepared for Russian winters....the problem was, Russia had the warmest winter in a century the year he invaded, and therefore the rivers actually didnt freeze so he couldnt supply his men.  Though shockingly Dumb Dumb is almost right about Hitler, he wasnt consolidating his forces, but he did expect that he would face the 1 in 100 years warm winter and didnt prepare.  

Donnie Dumb Dumb moment #4. No English

TRUMP So, I was seated next to the wife of Prime Minister Abe [Shinzo Abe of Japan], who I think is a terrific guy, and she’s a terrific woman, but doesn’t speak English.

INTERVIEWR: Like, nothing, right? Like zero?

TRUMP: Like, not “hello.”

Yea about that: This is a speech given by PM Abe's wife:

So yea, she definitely speaks some English, dont know if shes fluent, but she can damn well say hello.

So either, Trump is lying here, because thats what he does for fun, or Mrs. Abe spent a few hours pretending not to know english so as to not talk to Trump and he totally bought it....which is hilarious if true.

Donnie Dumb Dumb moment #5: When he threw his son under a bus, and backed it up over him

TRUMP: [Putin and I] talked about Russian adoption. Yeah. I always found that interesting. Because, you know, he ended that years ago. And I actually talked about Russian adoption with him, which is interesting because it was a part of the conversation that Don [Jr., Mr. Trump’s son] had in that meeting. As I’ve said — most other people, you know, when they call up and say, “By the way, we have information on your opponent,” I think most politicians — I was just with a lot of people, they said [inaudible], “Who wouldn’t have taken a meeting like that?” They just said——

INTERVIEWER: The senators downstairs?

TRUMP: A lot of them. They said, “Who wouldn’t have taken a meeting like that?”

INTERVIEWER: You asked them about it at lunch?

TRUMP: Nah, a couple of them. They — now, that was before Russia was hot, don’t forget. You know, Russia wasn’t hot then. That was almost a year and a half ago. It wasn’t like it is, like it is radioactive, then. Russia was Russia.

First: Putin didnt end the anti american adoption thing years ago.

Second: the reason that policy exists is because of american sanctions put on Russia. Russia will remove the policy when we remove the sanctions. Which means you talked sanctions with Putin...which to be fair, on its own is perfectly fine

Third: According to your son Dumb Dumb Jr, the lady he met with wasnt a Representative of the Russian government. However according to you its interesting they would talk to you after talking to Jr. So it seems like your admitting the lady your son talked too was believed by your side to be part of the Russian government. Incidentally if this is true, this is literally the same thing Mike Flynn originally got in trouble for, and carries a possible 5 year jail sentence. Something tells me your not getting a fathers day gift from Jr any time soon.

Forth: "Part of the conversation"? Whats the rest of it? because according to Jr, the ENTIRE thing was about adoption. So yea, whats the rest of it? what else did you guys not tell the public yet

Fifth: Unrelated to all the above, the fuck happened at the end there? Notice how fast "a lot of them" went down to "a couple of them"? right about the time it was suggested the "lot " of them could be tracked down and asked if they would have been as stupid as Dumb Dumb Jr.

Donnie Dumb Dumb moment #6: It turns out I'm not the only person in the world and whats a lie?

TRUMP: Yeah, I think so. In retrospect. In retrospect. You know, when he wrote me the letter, he said, “You have every right to fire me,” blah blah blah. Right? He said, “You have every right to fire me.” I said, that’s a very strange — you know, over the years, I’ve hired a lot of people, I’ve fired a lot of people. Nobody has ever written me a letter back that you have every right to fire me.

[crosstalk]

BAKER: Do you think in hindsight, because of what’s happened since then

TRUMP: Comey wrote a letter.

HABERMAN: Which letter?

SCHMIDT: To you? To the F.B.I. staff or to you?

TRUMP: I thought it was to me, right?

BAKER: I think he wrote it to the staff, saying——

TRUMP: It might have been——

BAKER: That “the president has every right to fire me.”

TRUMP: It might have been. It was just a very strange letter to say that.

BAKER: But do you think in hindsight, given that——

TRUMP: What was the purpose in repeating that?

BAKER: Do you think what’s given that——

TRUMP: Do you understand what I mean? Why would somebody say, “He has every right to fire me,” bah bah bah. Why wouldn’t you just say, “Hey, I’ve retired …”
So apparently Dumb Dumb has trouble figuring out that a letter released to the FBI wasnt actually for him.....its almost like he doesnt realize the FBI exists. Also I love the suprise when the interviewers suggest that. He's like "oh...well yea, I guess that makes sense, I had never considered it might not have been for me despite not being given to me"

Also notice Donnie just a bit confused why Comey said the president had the right to fire him, when a lie (he was retiring) would have been simpler. And Republican wonder why they cant seem to get anything done with Dumb Dumb in the white house......


Donnie Dumb Dumb Moment #7: Hope theres some room left under that bus.....


TRUMP: Look, Sessions gets the job. Right after he gets the job, he recuses himself.

BAKER: Was that a mistake?

TRUMP: Well, Sessions should have never recused himself, and if he was going to recuse himself, he should have told me before he took the job, and I would have picked somebody else.

HABERMAN: He gave you no heads up at all, in any sense?

TRUMP: Zero. So Jeff Sessions takes the job, gets into the job, recuses himself. I then have — which, frankly, I think is very unfair to the president. How do you take a job and then recuse yourself? If he would have recused himself before the job, I would have said, “Thanks, Jeff, but I can’t, you know, I’m not going to take you.” It’s extremely unfair, and that’s a mild word, to the president. So he recuses himself. I then end up with a second man, who’s a deputy.

HABERMAN: Rosenstein.

TRUMP: Who is he? And Jeff hardly knew. He’s from Baltimore.

TRUMP: Yeah, what Jeff Sessions did was he recused himself right after, right after he became attorney general. And I said, “Why didn’t you tell me this before?” I would have — then I said, “Who’s your deputy?” So his deputy he hardly knew, and that’s Rosenstein, Rod Rosenstein, who is from Baltimore. There are very few Republicans in Baltimore, if any.
First: Of course Jeff Sessions recused himself. This is something everyone should have agreed was a good idea. Ok so pretend your a Trump supporter and you think Trump's totally innocent, which would you prefer? Jeff Sessions investigating a campaign he worked on, and claiming they didnt do anything wrong...and you should totally trust him on that, because its not like he could possibly be covering his own ass, or would you prefer someone with no connection to the campaign clear you so there is no question that it really IS nothing to see here and not an ass covering?

Yea well see Dumb Dumb may not understand that. 

Second: OK I suppose its possible Trump does actually understand that....but the problem is, Trump is actually guilty of something. Now it makes sense, of course youd want your hand picked guy in charge of the investigation because you're expecting him to cover for you.  Now it makes perfect sense why youd be mad he recused himself and didnt tell you before hand. And why it would be extremly unfair that your about to get caught for your own crimes.

Granted, even if that was the case, I wouldnt say anything implying that to the news, but then again Im not a Dumb Dumb.

Third: Ok so if being from Baltimore is a problem, if Jeff Sessions allegedly not knowing who the guy is is a problem,  and if you dont know who Rosenstein is....WHY DID YOU APPOINT HIM?

Wait....you do know YOU appointed him right?......Oh No....Dumb Dumb, did you sign the nomination paper without reading it first?  Did Bannon make you do it? Was Preibus bullying you?  Did Kushner say you could borrow his toy? Damn it Dumb Dumb....

Donnie Dumb Dumb Moment #8 Wait why'd I fire Comey?
TRUMP: Look, there are so many conflicts that everybody has. Then Rosenstein becomes extremely angry because of Comey’s Wednesday press conference, where he said that he would do the same thing he did a year ago with Hillary Clinton, and Rosenstein became extremely angry at that because, as a prosecutor, he knows that Comey did the wrong thing. Totally wrong thing. And he gives me a letter, O.K., he gives me a letter about Comey. And by the way, that was a tough letter, O.K. Now, perhaps I would have fired Comey anyway, and it certainly didn’t hurt to have the letter,

So Donnie was going to fire Comey on the word of a guy he just said was totally unknown and trustworthy...except not cause he might have done it anyways...Looks like Dumb Dumb forgot which excuse hes supposed to be going with to stay out of legal trouble here. He also just implied the letter was good cover for firing Comey if he was going to do it anyways. Someone please read Dumb Dumb the 5th amendment.....slowly, and use small words.

Donnie Dumb-Dumb Moment #9: He aint no Nostradamus
SCHMIDT: Last thing, if Mueller was looking at your finances and your family finances, unrelated to Russia — is that a red line?

HABERMAN: Would that be a breach of what his actual charge is?

TRUMP: I would say yeah. I would say yes.[...]

HABERMAN: Would you fire Mueller if he went outside of certain parameters of what his charge is? [crosstalk]

SCHMIDT: What would you do?

[crosstalk]

TRUMP: I can’t, I can’t answer that question because I don’t think it’s going to happen.

This morning it was announced that Bob Muller crossed the red line....he's looking at Trump's personal, family and business fiances.  But hey, generally thats why you dont tell someone investigating you "Dont you dare look here" because thats exactly where they are going to look.....

Anyways, that wraps up the 8 biggest times (cause the last one doesnt really count) that Donnie Dumb Dumb took front and center stage in the most recent interview with President Trump. And I got to say, as someone who assumes Trump will be impeached or resigned, I for one am grateful that Donnie Dumb Dumb exists, cause hes a huge help in accomplishing that goal.