Trump reports he has a very high level of intelligence
The Post had a conversation with Trump today; it went as well as you’d expect.
In a wide-ranging and sometimes discordant 20-minute interview with The Washington Post, Trump complained at length about Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome H. “Jay” Powell, whom he nominated earlier this year. When asked about declines on Wall Street and GM’s announcement that it was laying off 15 percent of its workforce, Trump responded by criticizing higher interest rates and other Fed policies, though he insisted that he is not worried about a recession.
“I’m doing deals, and I’m not being accommodated by the Fed,” Trump said. “They’re making a mistake because I have a gut, and my gut tells me more sometimes than anybody else’s brain can ever tell me.”
Classic. One, he thinks he has great instincts (wrong), and two, he thinks he knows more than anyone else (so very wrong).
He added: “So far, I’m not even a little bit happy with my selection of Jay. Not even a little bit. And I’m not blaming anybody, but I’m just telling you I think that the Fed is way off-base with what they’re doing.”
Classic. He tells us how bad Jay is, then he says he’s not blaming anybody.
Trump also dismissed the federal government’s landmark report released last week finding that damages from global warming are intensifying around the country. The president said that “I don’t see” climate change as man-made and that he does not believe the scientific consensus.
“One of the problems that a lot of people like myself, we have very high levels of intelligence but we’re not necessarily such believers,” Trump said. “You look at our air and our water, and it’s right now at a record clean.”
The president added of climate change, “As to whether or not it’s man-made and whether or not the effects that you’re talking about are there, I don’t see it.”
Says the imbecile who knows nothing at all about it except that he doesn’t like it. “Very high levels of intelligence” in a pig’s eye.
Trump again questioned the CIA’s assessment that Saudi Arabia’s crown prince ordered the assassination of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, a contributor to The Post, and said he has considered Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s repeated denials in his decision to maintain a close alliance with the oil-rich desert kingdom.
“Maybe he did and maybe he didn’t,” Trump said. “But he denies it. And people around him deny it. And the CIA did not say affirmatively he did it, either, by the way. I’m not saying that they’re saying he didn’t do it, but they didn’t say it affirmatively.”
He’s just repeating the same twenty stupid words he said about it last week. With all his high levels of intelligence, he doesn’t have enough nous to avoid constantly repeating the same stale formulas over and over and OVER again. That is not a sign of someone with an adept mind. Plus he’s so fucking thick that he thinks the normal explanation of what we can know and what we can’t equals “but they didn’t say it affirmatively.”
The CIA has assessed that Mohammed ordered Khashoggi’s killing and has shared its findings with lawmakers and the White House, according to people familiar with the matter. Intelligence assessments are rarely, if ever, ironclad…
What I’m saying! They’re not going to send him a note saying “We know for positive he did it, Sir!” That’s not what they do. Trump thinks every opinion he has is the certain truth, and people with functioning brains know they never know the certain truth.
So Trump has a great gut and the best intelligence ever, but somehow keeps fucking up selecting disappointing people to surround himself with, from campaign chairmen, to Fed Chair, to SoS, to….
And yet it’s Democrats who are accused of being elitists who think they’re smarter than everyone else. Good thing the country replaced that arrogant — sorry, “uppity” — Obama with a humble man of the people.
Trump definitely has a gut. The fact that he listens to it explains a lot about his policies—nothing but rumblings and farts.
If Trump was a toddler in a day nursery he would probably get stood in the Naughty Corner, facing into it, at least once a day. Maybe once an hour.
But as he is manifestly an overgrown toddler… Well, even a toddler could work out the rest.
He’d already told us he was a stable genius. Who could doubt it? Would a stable genius lie?
We’re screwed, aren’t we?
He has such a disordered mind. It’s right now at a record clean. I mean, I know what he’s saying. But does he actually believe he’s a clear thinker?
Well, you have to remember he’s a narcissist, so yes, he probably does.
https://www.facebook.com/144310995587370/photos/a.271728576178944/2189754047709711/?type=3&theater
iknklast @#5:
From my perspective here in Australia, I see Trump as the monster the US Founding Fathers saw coming. To thwart him and his ilk, 240 years or so ahead of his actual arrival, those Founders built every check and balance they could think of into the Constitution, which for a long tie was the envy and model for the rest of the world. One of those inspired by it was a man called Ho Chi Minh, who was the very opposite of Trump, in that he headed up a project to make America ‘ungreat again’, and largely succeeded in it.
Trump is still an elected 18th C monarch, with much the same powers: critically, the power as both Head of State and Commander (read Toddler) in Chief of the armed forces to take the country to war. But though as Toddler-in-Chief he could be bloody dangerous in a Cuban Missile Crisis-type situation, I think that his narcissism would most likely push him the other way, and with a vengeance. His readiness to go down with his ship would I guess, add up to a big fat zero. And his readiness to push others into self-sacrificial situations would almost certainly be tempered by concern that things could spiral out of his control, and rapidly turn around and bite him.
Oliver Cromwell in the 1640s led the forces that made England’s attempt at liberal-democratic revolution, which was the first stage of a largely failing process and project that got taken much further by the American revolutionaries of 1776, and the later constitution-framers of Canada, Australia, New Zealand and other parts of the evolving British Empire. After the loss of her American colonies, Britain went into a ‘constitutional crisis’ of her own, even though she has no written constitution: just a set of conventions. But the US Constitution was the model for our Australian one in many important ways; and for many others.
The Americans were also an inspiration for the French in 1789, and hereditary privilege went thereafter into a more-or-less permanent state of crisis, popular derision and decline ; though I maintain it to be still the political- economic state that human affairs gravitate to worldwide.
Trump would proclaim himself Lord-Protector at the first opportunity that came his way; of that I have not the slightest doubt. But I am pretty sure that democratic America would stop him.
Having said that, I also suggest that the next round of amendments to the US Constitution take note of the Australian one, under which the only real power of the Head of State (ie in practice, the Governor-General) is to over-rule the Federal Parliament and call a fresh nationwide election.
The people remain sovereign.
The one concession I will allow to Trump is that IMHO he has a most impressive golf swing on his tee shot. He would do us all a favour if he were to spend the rest of his life perfecting it, to the exclusion of all else.
Trump is a liar who thinks people will believe him if he repeats the lie often and loudly enough. It really wouldn’t do for him to start conceding that people who do bad things deny doing bad things, because where would that leave him?
Oh who am I kidding, I know he can’t reason that far.
I think you’re giving him too much credit. This sort of restraint tends to require a theory of mind, and it’s obvious Trump is not a strategic thinker. He thinks he can solve things by yelling at them and calling them names. He doesn’t recognize the consequences of any of his actions, often even after the consequences fall on his head.
(Paraphrased)
‘Dr. Sagan, do you think there is life elsewhere in the Universe?’
‘I’d need more evidence than we currently have to answer that question.’
‘But what’s your gut feeling?.
‘Oh, but I don’t think with my gut.’
Smart man, Sagan; Trump could learn a lot from him.
But then again, thinking with the gut, from the gut, through the gut etc, etc, etc does have advantages. It can give you whatever you want in the way of belief. Anything at all.
A pantheon of bananas in pyjamas if you’d like.
I don’t know how you can reach this conclusion, his current actions indicate to me at least that there is no such consideration.
He doesn’t have the sense to know that things might get out of his control. He’s supremely confident that he’s smarter than anyone and everyone on topics of which he has no understanding beyond what his gut tells him, but he’s actually too stupid to see how stupid he is. As for anything turning around and biting him, he would never acknowledge being wrong (or having been bitten) even while passing through the anus of the shark what did the biting. Nothing he does is wrong or illegal. He never makes mistakes. He never takes responsibility. He can’t/won’t/doesn’t want to/ keep his lies straight, consistant or even believable.No self awareness and no awareness of the thoughts, feelings or perceptions of others. The combination of his narcissism and whatever cognitive degradation he seems to be exhibiting isn’t going to improve his performance as a rational actor. He isn’t going to be tempered by anything because he’s BETTER THAN EVERYBODY!