TRUMP Thread

IKR! That statement by the orange one was one of his funniest yet. We're to believe for a second that Bone Spurs (times 5) would've run into a building with the sounds of blood curdling screams, and gunshots?

 

Behold: a stable genius in all his glory!

 

Trump: I have a 'much bigger' button than Kim Jong Un

President Trump on Tuesday said that the nuclear launch button on his desk is "much bigger" and "more powerful" than that of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un – and that his button actually "works."

"North Korean Leader Kim Jong Un just stated that the 'Nuclear Button is on his desk at all times,'" Trump tweeted. "Will someone from his depleted and food starved regime please inform him that I too have a Nuclear Button, but it is a much bigger & more powerful one than his, and my Button works!"

Trump's comments came after Kim said in a New Year's Day speech that he had a nuclear launch button at his desk, and that the international community would have to accept North Korea's status as a nuclear-armed nation as a "reality."

http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/367149-trump-i-have-a-much-bigger-button-than-kim-jong-un

 

Wolff's forthcoming book makes many claims, including that:

• The Trump team was shocked and horrified by his election win
• His wife, Melania, was in tears of sadness on election night
• Mr Trump was angry that A-list stars had snubbed his inauguration
• The new president "found the White House to be vexing and even a little scary"
• His daughter, Ivanka, had a plan with her husband, Jared Kushner, that she would be "the first woman president"
• Ivanka Trump mocked her dad's "comb-over" hairstyle and "often described the mechanics behind it to friends"

The book is reportedly based on more than 200 interviews but some of the book's excerpts have already been criticised and questioned.
Still, even if only half of what the book contains is true, it paints a damning portrait of a paranoid president and a chaotic White House, BBC North America editor Jon Sopel says.

 

Donald Trump Didn’t Want to Be President

"Trump was planning on failing, and walking away with the fame and the money."

"A campaign staff was sent to explain The Constitution to the candidate."

"Shortly after 8 p.m. on Election Night, when the unexpected trend — Trump might actually win — seemed confirmed, Don Jr. told a friend that his father, or DJT, as he calls him, looked as if he had seen a ghost. Melania was in tears — and not of joy."



“ 'I can be the most famous man in the world,' he had told his aide Sam Nunberg at the outset of the race. His longtime friend Roger Ailes, the former head of Fox News, liked to say that if you want a career in television, first run for president.

Now Trump, encouraged by Ailes, was floating rumors about a Trump network. It was a great future. He would come out of this campaign, Trump assured Ailes, with a far more powerful brand and untold opportunities."

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/01/michael-wolff-fire-and-fury-book-donald-trump.html

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Yale psychiatrist briefed members of Congress on Trump's mental fitness

By Sunlen Serfaty and Ryan Nobles, CNN
Updated 10:39 AM EST, Fri January 05, 2018

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn...ump/index.html

A dozen lawmakers from the House and Senate received a briefing from Yale psychiatrist Dr. Bandy X. Lee on Capitol Hill in early December about President Donald Trump's fitness to be president -- and Lee has been asked to speak with additional lawmakers, worried about the President's mental state, later this month.

“Lawmakers were saying they have been very concerned about this, the President's dangerousness, the dangers that his mental instability poses on the nation," Lee told CNN in a phone interview Thursday, "They know the concern is universal among Democrats, but it really depends on Republicans, they said. Some knew of Republicans that were concerned, maybe equally concerned, but whether they would act on those concerns was their worry."

The briefing was previously reported by Politico. Lee, confirming the December 5 and 6 meeting to CNN, said that the group was evenly mixed -- with House and Senate lawmakers. And included at least one Republican -- a senator, whom she would not name.

Lee's public comments are highly unusual given protocols from medical professional organizations -- including the 37,000-member American Psychiatric Association -- banning psychiatrists from diagnosing patients without a formal examination. Under recent guidance from the APA, it is "fine for a psychiatrist to share their expertise about psychiatric issues in general," but "member psychiatrists should not give professional opinions about the mental state of someone they have not personally evaluated," according to an APA blog post. When asked by CNN about Lee's comments, the APA referred them to this guidance.

Yale declined to weigh in on Lee's remarks when reached by CNN for comment.

“Yale University does not take positions or issue statements regarding the health or medical condition of public officials. However, the University will not interfere with the free expression or academic freedom of faculty members who wish to express their opinions in their areas of expertise or otherwise," Yale spokeswoman Karen Peart said in a statement.

Lee made it clear that she is not in a position to diagnose the President, or any public figure, from afar. But she said that it is incumbent on medical professionals to intervene in instances where there is a danger to an individual or the public. She argues that signs the President has exhibited have risen to that level of danger.

CNN has reached out to the White House for comment on Lee's remarks on Trump's mental health. During the White House briefing Thursday, press secretary Sarah Sanders called questions about the President's state of mind "disgraceful."

“If he was unfit, he probably wouldn't be sitting there, wouldn't have defeated the most qualified group of candidates the Republican Party has ever seen," Sanders said, before praising Trump as an "incredibly strong" leader.

The meeting between Lee and members of Congress was set up through a former US Attorney with ties to Capitol Hill who approached Lee at the request of a "number of lawmakers," she said. Lee provided them a briefing based on her book on the subject. Dr. James Gilligan -- another psychiatrist -- an expert on studying and predicting violence, also made a presentation.

“Mr. Trump is showing signs of impairment that the average person could not see," Lee said. "He is becoming very unstable very quickly. There is a need for neuropsychiatric evaluation that would demonstrate his capacity to serve."

Lee is scheduled to hold another briefing at the home of Democratic Rep. Rosa DeLauro later this month with lawmakers on the same topic and is also scheduled to speak at Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin's town hall in Maryland this month as well. Raskin has introduced a bill called the "Oversight Commission on Presidential Capacity Act," which would use the 25th Amendment of the Constitution to create a "body" to determine whether the President is unable to execute the powers and duties of his office.

Raskin, who attended Lee's presentation, told CNN's Jake Tapper on Thursday that Trump's behavior is "increasingly delusional" and there should be an independent body to evaluate his fitness.

Of course we got big public policy crises going on right now," Raskin said on CNN's "The Lead with Jake Tapper." "We've got a gun violence crisis, we've got the tax bill -- which was bought and paid for by the Koch brothers and the Mercers -- so we got some serious stuff to deal with and instead we're caught up every day in what looks like the country debating the mental health of the president, so it's a very dangerous and unstable situation as a number of Republican senators have themselves observed."

No Republican has called publicly for an evaluation of the President's mental fitness.

Lee cited Trump's repeated referencing of conspiracy theories in his public statements as a troubling sign.

"As he is unraveling he seems to be losing his grip on reality and reverting to conspiracy theories," she said. "There are signs that he is going into attack mode when he is under stress. That means he has the potential to become impulsive and very volatile."

Specifically, Lee pointed to Trump's verbal aggressiveness and his boasting about sexual assault on the Access Hollywood tape that was revealed during the campaign. She accused the President of inciting violence at his rallies, and having an "attraction" to powerful weapons. Lee said his threats to ramp up military action and the taunting an unstable leader in North Korean Leader Kim Jung Un are all signs of the President being on the verge of a psychotic breakdown.

In Wednesday's White House press briefing, Sanders also dismissed a question about the President's mental health.

"I think the President and the people of this country should be concerned about the mental fitness of the leader of North Korea," she said.

Lee rejected claims that her research is any way politically motivated.

"I am uninterested in partisan politics, I have never registered for a political party," she said. "Ideology doesn't interest me."

 

Sessions tries to impress Trump with moves at Justice. It hasn’t worked.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions is trying to find his way back into President Trump’s good graces. For months, Sessions has asked senior White House aides to make sure the president knows what he is doing at the Justice Department, two White House advisers said, and has told allies he hopes policy decisions that garner news coverage will please Trump. Sessions’s team at Justice has crafted a public campaign to highlight the work it is doing to advance the president’s agenda. The department has also begun looking into matters that Trump has publicly complained are not being pursued.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/polit...=.25c4681e9d76

 

Trump attacks protections for immigrants from ‘shithole’ countries in Oval Office meeting

President Trump grew frustrated with lawmakers Thursday in the Oval Office when they floated restoring protections for immigrants from Haiti, El Salvador and African countries as part of a bipartisan immigration deal, according to two people briefed on the meeting.

“Why are we having all these people from shithole countries come here?” Trump said, according to these people, referring to African countries and Haiti. He then suggested that the United States should instead bring more people from countries like Norway, whose prime minister he met yesterday.

The comments left lawmakers taken aback, according to people familiar with their reactions. Sens. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) and Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) proposed cutting the visa lottery program by 50 percent and then prioritizing countries already in the system, a White House official said.

A White House spokesman declined to offer an immediate comment on Trump’s remarks.

Outlining a potential bipartisan deal, the lawmakers discussed restoring protections for countries that have been removed from the temporary protected status program while adding $1.5 billion for a border wall and making changes to the visa lottery system.

The administration announced earlier this week that it was removing the protection for El Salvador.

Trump had seemed amenable to a deal earlier in the day during phone calls, aides said, but shifted his position in the meeting and did not seem interested.

Graham and Durbin thought they would be meeting with Trump alone and were surprised to find immigration hard-liners such as Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) and Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), at the meeting. The meeting was impromptu and came after phone calls this morning, Capitol Hill aides said.

After the meeting, Marc Short, Trump’s legislative aide, said the White House was nowhere near a bipartisan deal on immigration.

“We still think we can get there,” White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said at the White House press briefing.

 

On Tuesday Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), the ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, released the transcript of Fusion GPS co-founder Glenn Simpson's testimony, despite Republican objections. Fusion GPS is famously behind a controversial dossier that alleges Russia possesses compromising information about President Trump. It was compiled by British spy Christopher Steele, who Simpson hired.
The committee's chairman, Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), had previously told The New York Times that Simpson was "uncooperative" during his interview. Republicans have additionally raised concerns that Steele "lied to federal authorities about his contacts with journalists," the Times notes.

Rest of the article here:
https://theweek.com/speedreads/74762...-trump-dossier

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4 scary numbers for Republicans in 2018

Analysis by Chris Cillizza, CNN Editor-at-large
Updated 2:11 PM EST, Tue January 09, 2018

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn...ons/index.html

Over the weekend at Camp David, Republican congressional leaders huddled with President Donald Trump to talk about, among other things, the 2018 election.

It was a "constructive" discussion that was "grounded in reality," according to a source familiar with the talks, report my colleagues Phil Mattingly, Jeff Zeleny and David Wright.

The reality -- and I'm not sure how much of this was accurately conveyed to Trump -- is that every leading indicator points to a wave headed Republicans' way that could well deliver control of the House to Democrats in 2019.

Here are four numbers that tell the story (with a special thank you to super-lobbyist Bruce Mehlman's always terrific quarterly PowerPoint):

40: That's the average -- AVERAGE -- seat loss for the president's party in midterm election since 1962 when the president's approval rating is under 50%. Trump's approval rating in the Gallup weekly tracking poll released Monday afternoon? 37%.

12: That's the average Democratic lead in the generic congressional ballot as of late December. ("If the election were today, would you vote for a Republican or a Democrat to represent you?") That's worrisome when you compare it to where the generic stood in other major wave elections. At this time in the 2014 election, a very good election for Republicans, Democrats had a nearly 2 point edge on the generic ballot. In 2006, the midterm election where Democrats won back control of Congress, the party's generic ballot edge was only 10 points.

3: There have only been three midterm elections -- 1934, 1998 and 2002 -- in the last century where the president's party didn't lose House seats. In all three of those elections there were major extenuating circumstances -- Great Depression, Clinton impeachment and September 11 terrorist attacks -- that upset the historical trend. Short of that sort of cataclysm, however, the president's party usually gets walloped.

0: Exactly none of the past five presidents have seen their job approval numbers go up in the year before their first midterm election. (Shout out to Republican pollster Lance Tarrance for this data point!). President Obama went from +13 in approval in 2009 to +1 in 2010. Ronald Reagan went from +18 in 1981 to -3 in 1982. You get the idea. Barring a massive unforeseen event, it's very unlikely Trump's approval rating gets much better between now and November.

The Point: Yes, there are exceptions to every political rule. And Trump proved he could buck conventional wisdom by winning in 2016.

But Trump's current approval numbers and the massive weight of electoral history suggest that Republicans are in very deep trouble heading into the 2018 midterm. Very deep trouble.

 

Ryan Candidly Reflects On Defeat: ‘We Were a 10-Year Opposition Party…Being Against Things Was Easy’

JOE DEPAOLO MAR 24, 2017 5:22 PM

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.med...-was-easy/amp/

At a Friday press conference after the indefinite postponement of the House vote on the GOP’s health care plan, the American Health Care Act, House Speaker Paul Ryan candidly reflected on the process, and admitted that things are much more difficult now that his party is in charge.

“We were a 10-year opposition party, where being against things was easy to do,” Ryan said. “You just had to be against it. Now, in three months’ time, we tried to go to a governing party where we actually had to get 216 people to agree with each other on how we do things.”

Calling it “the growing pains of government,” Ryan insisted that even though the House was unable to pass the bill, other parts of their legislative agenda — namely tax reform — would not be stalled as a result of this defeat.

“We weren’t just quite there today,” Ryan said. “We will get there, but we weren’t there today.”

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/25/u...el-russia.html

Trump Ordered Mueller Fired, but Backed Off When White House Counsel Threatened to Quit

WASHINGTON — President Trump ordered the firing last June of Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel overseeing the Russia investigation, according to four people told of the matter, but ultimately backed down after the White House counsel threatened to resign rather than carry out the directive.

The West Wing confrontation marks the first time Mr. Trump is known to have tried to fire the special counsel. Mr. Mueller learned about the episode in recent months as his investigators interviewed current and former senior White House officials in his inquiry into whether the president obstructed justice.

Amid the first wave of news media reports that Mr. Mueller was examining a possible obstruction case, the president began to argue that Mr. Mueller had three conflicts of interest that disqualified him from overseeing the investigation, two of the people said.

First, he claimed that a dispute years ago over fees at Trump National Golf Club in Sterling, Va., had prompted Mr. Mueller, the F.B.I. director at the time, to resign his membership. The president also said Mr. Mueller could not be impartial because he had most recently worked for the law firm that previously represented the president’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner. Finally, the president said, Mr. Mueller had been interviewed to return as the F.B.I. director the day before he was appointed special counsel in May.

After receiving the president’s order to fire Mr. Mueller, the White House counsel, Donald F. McGahn II, refused to ask the Justice Department to dismiss the special counsel, saying he would quit instead, the people said. They spoke on the condition of anonymity because they did not want to be identified discussing a continuing investigation.


Mr. McGahn disagreed with the president’s case and told senior White House officials that firing Mr. Mueller would have a catastrophic effect on Mr. Trump’s presidency. Mr. McGahn also told White House officials that Mr. Trump would not follow through on the dismissal on his own. The president then backed off.

 

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At Davos, Trump Hobnobbed With His Dubai Business Partner

Billionaire Hussain Sajwani also met with Wilbur Ross.

Donald Trump has pledged to keep his distance from his businesses and vowed that his company would not enter into any new foreign deals during his presidency. But during the recent World Economic Forum in Davos, Trump hobnobbed with at least one of his foreign business partners, Dubai billionaire Hussain Sajwani, once again highlighting the blurry lines between his corporate empire and his presidency.
Before taking office last year, Trump and his lawyer held a press conference to explain the steps he was taking to insulate himself from conflicts. During the event, Trump brought up Sajwani, who heads the real estate company DAMAC, to illustrate why the American people need not worry that he would put his own interests ahead of the country’s.
In 2014, Trump had licensed his name for a luxury golf development that Sajwani’s company was constructing outside Dubai. Since then, he has reported earning between $2 million and $10 million on the deal. And at the press conference, he maintained that Sajwani had recently approached him with a more lucrative venture. “Over the weekend I was offered $2 billion to do a deal in Dubai with a very, very, very amazing man, a great great developer from the Middle East,” Trump said. “Hussein, DAMAC, a friend of mine, a great guy. I was offered $2 billion to do a deal in Dubai, a number of deals, and I turned it down.”


https://www.motherjones.com/politics...iness-partner/

 

Trump tells Pentagon to plan a military parade


By Eli Watkins and Ryan Browne, CNN
Updated 9:57 PM EST, Tue February 06, 2018

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn...ump/index.html

President Donald Trump has asked for a military parade and the Pentagon is reviewing potential dates, Pentagon spokesman Charlie Summers said Tuesday.

The spokesman described the planning process as being in its "infancy."

In response to the news, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said in a statement that Trump had asked the Defense Department to "explore" the idea.

“President Trump is incredibly supportive of America's great servicemembers who risk their lives every day to keep our country safe. He has asked the Department of Defense to explore a celebration at which all Americans can show their appreciation," Sanders said.

The Washington Post first reported Trump told top Pentagon brass last month he wants a military parade.

The marching orders were: I want a parade like the one in France," a military official told the paper. "This is being worked at the highest levels of the military."

Trump's meeting with senior military leaders last month included Vice President Mike Pence, White House chief of staff John Kelly, Defense Secretary James Mattis and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Joseph Dunford.

Trump was French President Emmanuel Macron's guest on Bastille Day last year, and later called the French military parade he witnessed "one of the greatest parades" he had ever seen.

He said last September in a conversation with Macron that when he came back from France he wanted a military parade on the Fourth of July in Washington.

Trump's call for a military parade might be hitting a few snags. The Post said shipping tanks and military hardware into Washington could cost millions of dollars, and that military officials said they were unsure how to pay for it.

After the Gulf War in 1991, the US put on a victory celebration replete with servicemembers and military gear.

The news of Trump's call for a military parade in the US comes as North Korea plans to show off dozens of long-range missiles during a February 8 parade, sources with deep knowledge of North Korea's intentions told CNN last week.

The parade is expected to include dozens of intercontinental-range Hwasong-15 missiles, which the North Koreans test-fired for the first time in late November, the sources said.

The display of "hundreds" of missiles and rockets would be an attempt "to scare the hell out of the Americans," one of the sources said.

 

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The Netherlands and the rest of Europe are TROLLING our President!​