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American politics
- Thread starter Danishfurniturelover
- Start date
milo
Jack L. Jones
If 10% of this is true, it is still insane
Rorschach
Sonny Walters
Well that is true and I honestly don't know what is worse. Pence is a Koch puppet and GHod knows (and apparently tells him) what he'll do. Rock and a hard place. At this stage my preference is whoever is least likely to kill me and my family.
Last edited:
Rock Strongo
dodgy Dave Goosegog
The title was how South Park portrayed Trump. Ran for fun, then tried his best to get out of it by acting like a complete asshole.
I'll read the article now.
milo
Jack L. Jones
It's long but worth it. There's loads of stuff that was widely speculated at the time but somehow even worse.
Rock Strongo
dodgy Dave Goosegog
Interesting article. Scary and funny.
Hoddle knows what to expect in the coming days, months, years? I get a feeling he'll quit before he loses the next election.
Glenda's Legs
Paul Walsh
He thought he was hiring competent liars?
braineclipse
Steve Sedgley
Loyalty has always seemed the number one qualification Trump looks for. Has been evident for some time why that's the case.
Not sure he would have thought that Bannon would be loyal, but he might have thought that Bannon would be in for a long time and benefit massively from that the point of loyalty being his only option. Once Bannon was out disloyalty can't be a surprise.
braineclipse
Steve Sedgley
Yes. What Trump does is mostly done with a plan and a strategy. He's not a bumbling idiot.
Rock Strongo
dodgy Dave Goosegog
I think he can be a bumbling idiot with a strategy.
braineclipse
Steve Sedgley
I think he's rather obviously not a particularly deep thinker. He's dishonest in the extreme and has a strange way of speaking filled with distractions and impulses by the looks of things. But too often the reaction to what he says, tweets or does is explained as if it's the actions of an idiot. The more sinister explanation often seems more accurate to me.
AuroRaman
Chris Armstrong
Edit - Apologies, just saw Jordinho had already posted the link
Double edit - And Milo!
Couldn't paste the whole article due to character restrictions, first part outlined below. Definitely worth a read:
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligence...?utm_campaign=nym&utm_source=tw&utm_medium=s1
On the afternoon of November 8, 2016, Kellyanne Conway settled into her glass office at Trump Tower. Right up until the last weeks of the race, the campaign headquarters had remained a listless place. All that seemed to distinguish it from a corporate back office were a few posters with right-wing slogans.
Conway, the campaign’s manager, was in a remarkably buoyant mood, considering she was about to experience a resounding, if not cataclysmic, defeat. Donald Trump would lose the election — of this she was sure — but he would quite possibly hold the defeat to under six points. That was a substantial victory. As for the looming defeat itself, she shrugged it off: It was Reince Priebus’s fault, not hers.
She had spent a good part of the day calling friends and allies in the political world and blaming Priebus, the chairman of the Republican National Committee. Now she briefed some of the television producers and anchors whom she had been carefully courting since joining the Trump campaign — and with whom she had been actively interviewing in the last few weeks, hoping to land a permanent on-air job after the election.
Even though the numbers in a few key states had appeared to be changing to Trump’s advantage, neither Conway nor Trump himself nor his son-in-law, Jared Kushner — the effective head of the campaign — wavered in their certainty: Their unexpected adventure would soon be over. Not only would Trump not be president, almost everyone in the campaign agreed, he should probably not be. Conveniently, the former conviction meant nobody had to deal with the latter issue.
As the campaign came to an end, Trump himself was sanguine. His ultimate goal, after all, had never been to win. “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.
“This is bigger than I ever dreamed of,” he told Ailes a week before the election. “I don’t think about losing, because it isn’t losing. We’ve totally won.”
From the start, the leitmotif for Trump about his own campaign was how crappy it was, and how everybody involved in it was a loser. In August, when he was trailing Hillary Clinton by more than 12 points, he couldn’t conjure even a far-fetched scenario for achieving an electoral victory. He was baffled when the right-wing billionaire Robert Mercer, a Ted Cruz backer whom Trump barely knew, offered him an infusion of $5 million. When Mercer and his daughter Rebekah presented their plan to take over the campaign and install their lieutenants, Steve Bannon and Conway, Trump didn’t resist. He only expressed vast incomprehension about why anyone would want to do that. “This thing,” he told the Mercers, “is so fudged up.”
Bannon, who became chief executive of Trump’s team in mid-August, called it “the broke-dingdong campaign.” Almost immediately, he saw that it was hampered by an even deeper structural flaw: The candidate who billed himself as a billionaire — ten times over — refused to invest his own money in it. Bannon told Kushner that, after the first debate in September, they would need another $50 million to cover them until Election Day.
“No way we’ll get 50 million unless we can guarantee him victory,” said a clear-eyed Kushner.
“Twenty-five million?” prodded Bannon.
“If we can say victory is more than likely.”
In the end, the best Trump would do is to loan the campaign $10 million, provided he got it back as soon as they could raise other money. Steve Mnuchin, the campaign’s finance chairman, came to collect the loan with the wire instructions ready to go so Trump couldn’t conveniently forget to send the money.
Most presidential candidates spend their entire careers, if not their lives from adolescence, preparing for the role. They rise up the ladder of elected offices, perfect a public face, and prepare themselves to win and to govern. The Trump calculation, quite a conscious one, was different. The candidate and his top lieutenants believed they could get all the benefits of almost becoming president without having to change their behavior or their worldview one whit. Almost everybody on the Trump team, in fact, came with the kind of messy conflicts bound to bite a president once he was in office. Michael Flynn, the retired general who served as Trump’s opening act at campaign rallies, had been told by his friends that it had not been a good idea to take $45,000 from the Russians for a speech. “Well, it would only be a problem if we won,” Flynn assured them.
Double edit - And Milo!
Couldn't paste the whole article due to character restrictions, first part outlined below. Definitely worth a read:
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligence...?utm_campaign=nym&utm_source=tw&utm_medium=s1
On the afternoon of November 8, 2016, Kellyanne Conway settled into her glass office at Trump Tower. Right up until the last weeks of the race, the campaign headquarters had remained a listless place. All that seemed to distinguish it from a corporate back office were a few posters with right-wing slogans.
Conway, the campaign’s manager, was in a remarkably buoyant mood, considering she was about to experience a resounding, if not cataclysmic, defeat. Donald Trump would lose the election — of this she was sure — but he would quite possibly hold the defeat to under six points. That was a substantial victory. As for the looming defeat itself, she shrugged it off: It was Reince Priebus’s fault, not hers.
She had spent a good part of the day calling friends and allies in the political world and blaming Priebus, the chairman of the Republican National Committee. Now she briefed some of the television producers and anchors whom she had been carefully courting since joining the Trump campaign — and with whom she had been actively interviewing in the last few weeks, hoping to land a permanent on-air job after the election.
Even though the numbers in a few key states had appeared to be changing to Trump’s advantage, neither Conway nor Trump himself nor his son-in-law, Jared Kushner — the effective head of the campaign — wavered in their certainty: Their unexpected adventure would soon be over. Not only would Trump not be president, almost everyone in the campaign agreed, he should probably not be. Conveniently, the former conviction meant nobody had to deal with the latter issue.
As the campaign came to an end, Trump himself was sanguine. His ultimate goal, after all, had never been to win. “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.
“This is bigger than I ever dreamed of,” he told Ailes a week before the election. “I don’t think about losing, because it isn’t losing. We’ve totally won.”
From the start, the leitmotif for Trump about his own campaign was how crappy it was, and how everybody involved in it was a loser. In August, when he was trailing Hillary Clinton by more than 12 points, he couldn’t conjure even a far-fetched scenario for achieving an electoral victory. He was baffled when the right-wing billionaire Robert Mercer, a Ted Cruz backer whom Trump barely knew, offered him an infusion of $5 million. When Mercer and his daughter Rebekah presented their plan to take over the campaign and install their lieutenants, Steve Bannon and Conway, Trump didn’t resist. He only expressed vast incomprehension about why anyone would want to do that. “This thing,” he told the Mercers, “is so fudged up.”
Bannon, who became chief executive of Trump’s team in mid-August, called it “the broke-dingdong campaign.” Almost immediately, he saw that it was hampered by an even deeper structural flaw: The candidate who billed himself as a billionaire — ten times over — refused to invest his own money in it. Bannon told Kushner that, after the first debate in September, they would need another $50 million to cover them until Election Day.
“No way we’ll get 50 million unless we can guarantee him victory,” said a clear-eyed Kushner.
“Twenty-five million?” prodded Bannon.
“If we can say victory is more than likely.”
In the end, the best Trump would do is to loan the campaign $10 million, provided he got it back as soon as they could raise other money. Steve Mnuchin, the campaign’s finance chairman, came to collect the loan with the wire instructions ready to go so Trump couldn’t conveniently forget to send the money.
Most presidential candidates spend their entire careers, if not their lives from adolescence, preparing for the role. They rise up the ladder of elected offices, perfect a public face, and prepare themselves to win and to govern. The Trump calculation, quite a conscious one, was different. The candidate and his top lieutenants believed they could get all the benefits of almost becoming president without having to change their behavior or their worldview one whit. Almost everybody on the Trump team, in fact, came with the kind of messy conflicts bound to bite a president once he was in office. Michael Flynn, the retired general who served as Trump’s opening act at campaign rallies, had been told by his friends that it had not been a good idea to take $45,000 from the Russians for a speech. “Well, it would only be a problem if we won,” Flynn assured them.
nayimfromthehalfwayline
Andy Thompson
Trump Bannon row: Lawyers seek to halt book's release
21 minutes ago
Lawyers for US President Donald Trump are seeking to stop the release of a book containing explosive insights into his presidency, US media report.
Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House is due for release on Tuesday.
It cites former top aide Steve Bannon as describing a meeting with a group of Russians as "treasonous".
It also questions Mr Trump's fitness for office, says Ivanka Trump has presidential ambitions, and claims that his wife was crying on election night.
The White House has disputed the book's accuracy. Mr Trump earlier said Mr Bannon - who was sacked in August - had "lost his mind" after losing his White House position.
Among a number of explosive statements, Mr Bannon reportedly said, referring to a Trump Tower meeting between top campaign officials and Russia: "They're going to crack Don Junior like an egg on national TV."
The meeting, which involved Mr Trump's eldest child Donald Trump Jr, is being investigated by Special Counsel Robert Mueller as part of his inquiry into possible collusion between Trump campaign officials and Russia.
On his Breitbart radio show on Wednesday, Mr Bannon responded to the president's criticism by saying he was a "great man" and that he supported him "day in and day out".
What did the lawyers say?
The legal notice demands that author Michael Wolff and the book's publisher "immediately cease and desist from any further publication, release or dissemination of the book".
It says Mr Trump's lawyers are considering pursuing libel charges, the Washington Post reports.
According to ABC News, it also says that the book "appears to cite no sources for many of its most damaging statements about Mr. Trump" and that many claims are made without citing sources.
Neither Wolff nor the publisher, Henry Holt and Co Inc, have yet responded.
What's in the book?
Wolff's forthcoming book makes many startling claims, including that:
21 minutes ago
Lawyers for US President Donald Trump are seeking to stop the release of a book containing explosive insights into his presidency, US media report.
Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House is due for release on Tuesday.
It cites former top aide Steve Bannon as describing a meeting with a group of Russians as "treasonous".
It also questions Mr Trump's fitness for office, says Ivanka Trump has presidential ambitions, and claims that his wife was crying on election night.
The White House has disputed the book's accuracy. Mr Trump earlier said Mr Bannon - who was sacked in August - had "lost his mind" after losing his White House position.
Among a number of explosive statements, Mr Bannon reportedly said, referring to a Trump Tower meeting between top campaign officials and Russia: "They're going to crack Don Junior like an egg on national TV."
The meeting, which involved Mr Trump's eldest child Donald Trump Jr, is being investigated by Special Counsel Robert Mueller as part of his inquiry into possible collusion between Trump campaign officials and Russia.
On his Breitbart radio show on Wednesday, Mr Bannon responded to the president's criticism by saying he was a "great man" and that he supported him "day in and day out".
What did the lawyers say?
The legal notice demands that author Michael Wolff and the book's publisher "immediately cease and desist from any further publication, release or dissemination of the book".
It says Mr Trump's lawyers are considering pursuing libel charges, the Washington Post reports.
According to ABC News, it also says that the book "appears to cite no sources for many of its most damaging statements about Mr. Trump" and that many claims are made without citing sources.
Neither Wolff nor the publisher, Henry Holt and Co Inc, have yet responded.
What's in the book?
Wolff's forthcoming book makes many startling claims, including that:
- The Trump team was shocked and horrified by his election win
- His wife, Melania, was in tears 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"
