Trump isn’t happy.

President Trump said Tuesday he’s not happy with a bipartisan border deal in Congress aimed at averting another government shutdown, but he suggested he could add to it to build his U.S.-Mexico border wall and predicted there will not be another lapse in government funding.

“Am I happy at first glance? The answer is no, I’m not, I’m not happy,” Trump told reporters at the White House as he met with Cabinet members.

“It’s not going to do the trick, but I’m adding things to it and when you add whatever I have to add, it’s all going to happen where we’re going to build a beautiful big strong wall,” Trump said.

See Don’s wall. Don’s … Read the rest

Yesterday at Trump’s “rally” in El Paso:

A BBC cameraman was violently shoved and abused during a Donald Trump rally in El Paso, Texas, on Monday night, in an incident the corporation described as “unacceptable”.

The BBC’s Washington correspondent Gary O’Donoghue said his colleague Ron Skeans was “fine” despite the “incredibly violent attack”.

Footage from Skeans’ camera, tweeted by O’Donoghue, suggested he and his equipment were knocked off balance for around 10 seconds, as he was filming Trump’s speech. Skeans recovered to film a man in a red Make America Great Again cap being restrained and shouting: “Fuck the media.”

As he was led away some in the crowd at the rally could be heard chanting: “Let him

1993. This is 1993, 26 years ago. This is Donald Trump.

https://twitter.com/AntonioArellano/status/1094794911910633472… Read the rest

Where do they find these talking doll doctors??

WH Physician: Trump “in very good health… will remain so for the duration of his Presidency, and beyond.” pic.twitter.com/iudGrh8LdF

— Jim Acosta (@Acosta) February 8, 2019

What kind of medical doctor says “I anticipate he will remain [in very good health] for the next two years and beyond”? What kind of human says that? How can anybody “anticipate” any such thing? Does Trump make these people out of papier maché and peanut butter, or what? Where does he find them and what does he do to them to convince them to make ridiculous reckless predictions of that kind?

Of course it’s all the more reckless and idiotic when the subject is Trump, … Read the rest

Apparently the thing on the teleprompter for Donnie’s talk this evening will have words about being nice and bipartisan and yadda yadda, but Donnie had some people over for lunch today and was his usual malevolent mouthy self.

Mr. Trump dismissed former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. as “dumb,” called Senator Chuck Schumer of New York a “nasty son of a bitch” and mocked Gov. Ralph Northam of Virginia for “choking like a dog” at a news conference where he tried to explain a racist yearbook photo, according to multiple people in the room.

He doesn’t half project, does he. He’s a hell of a lot more dumb than Biden, and vastly more of a nasty sonofabitch … Read the rest

The New York feds are looking into Trump’s inauguration scams.

Federal prosecutors in New York on Monday delivered a sweeping request for documents related to donations and spending by President Trump’s inaugural committee, a sign of a deepening criminal investigation into activities related to the nonprofit organization.

A wide-ranging subpoena served on the inaugural committee Monday seeks an array of documents, including all information related to inaugural donors, vendors, contractors, bank accounts of the inaugural committee and any information related to foreign contributors to the committee, according to a copy reviewed by The Washington Post.

…

Trump’s inaugural committee raised a record $107 million to fund events and parties surrounding his assumption of office in January 2017, more than

Trump spends most of his time watching tv.

A White House source has leaked President Trump’s private schedules for nearly every working day since the midterms, showing that Trump has spent around 60% of the last three months in “Executive Time.”

They share a doc that shows the details. The first day that shows is all “executive time” apart from one meeting at 11.

They compare this leisure-filled “schedule” to those of his predecessors.

Trump has the least in common with George W. Bush.

• Bush’s calendar was tightly scheduled and booked out months ahead.
• Bush would wake around 5:15 a.m.; have coffee with his wife, Laura; read the newspapers; and get to the Oval Office by

Sigh. This is so infuriating.

In the wake of President Donald Trump’s renewed attacks on the U.S. intelligence community this week, senior intelligence briefers are breaking two years of silence to warn that the President is endangering American security with what they say is a stubborn disregard for their assessments.

Citing multiple in-person episodes, these intelligence officials say Trump displays what one called “willful ignorance” when presented with analyses generated by America’s $81 billion-a-year intelligence services. The officials, who include analysts who prepare Trump’s briefs and the briefers themselves, describe futile attempts to keep his attention by using visual aids, confining some briefing points to two or three sentences, and repeating his name and title as frequently as possible.

It’s just…it’s so…I can never…

The things Trump reveals about himself whenever he speaks.

President Trump regularly expresses pique over scathing kiss-and-tell books written by former aides and advisers. But he had no beef with “Let Me Finish” by Chris Christie, the former New Jersey governor and his onetime transition director.

“Well, honestly,” Mr. Trump said in an interview in the Oval Office this week, “he was very nice to me.”

But not nice to his family, it was pointed out, most notably Jared Kushner, his son-in-law and senior adviser, who was eviscerated in the book. “No,” Mr. Trump conceded, “but he was unbelievably nice to me, actually.”

One: and that’s all that counts. Two: and of … Read the rest

Hmmm I don’t see that happening.

President Trump intends to offer an “aspirational” and “visionary” path for the nation at the State of the Union on Tuesday, White House aides said, even as his relations with lawmakers have soured over his threats to use executive power to bypass them.

Come on. The guy is about as visionary as a bucket of mud. “Aspirational” toward what? More money? More gold paint on everything? More piles of burgers in styrofoam boxes?

Trump can’t believably offer an “aspirational” and “visionary” path to anywhere when he doesn’t know what the words mean, and has no thoughts on the subject, and wouldn’t be able to express the thoughts if he did have them.

“Together

I thought the Times interview displayed Trump in all his shameful vanity and idiocy, but I guess I took the bait, because wise observers say they simply normalized him.

Just listened to this whole thing. https://t.co/2nVp0E2WzQ To me it was fascinating. But not in the way the participants find it so. From my POV it's… Normalization: live! From theirs: a very serious interview with the President of the United States.

— Jay Rosen (@jayrosen_nyu) February 1, 2019

I agree, this interview should not have been normalized at all. If anything, Trump offered a view of the role of the press that is at best unhinged and at worst alarming: https://t.co/Jd3OzDAgCy https://t.co/f5oH8Y4oGi

— Greg Sargent (@GregTSargent) February 1, 2019

Eric Boehlert … Read the rest

Trump talked to his unrequited love object the New York Times again yesterday, in another desperate attempt to get them to see him as he sees himself.

In lengthy and at times contradictory remarks on Thursday about the news media — which he deemed “important” and “beautiful,” but also “so bad” and “unfair” — Mr. Trump called himself “a victim” of unfair coverage and declined to accept responsibility for a rise in threats against journalists since he took office.

“I do notice that people are declaring more and more fake news, where they go, ‘Fake news!’” the president said during an Oval Office interview with The New York Times. “I even see it in other countries. I don’t necessarily attribute

Trump had a meeting with them and they all said oh no that’s not what they said, they said the exact opposite, it’s the media who got it all mixed up, the media who saw the same live video everyone else saw. They weren’t playing him like a violin when they said that, no no,  they were telling him the absolute god’s truth. They all agree with Trump about everything, of course they do, how could they not?

Just concluded a great meeting with my Intel team in the Oval Office who told me that what they said on Tuesday at the Senate Hearing was mischaracterized by the media – and we are very much in agreement on Iran,

This morning Trump is telling us he knows better than the intelligence people. I have to wonder how that could possibly be the case, when he doesn’t read his own intelligence briefings and he knows nothing about anything in general and he can barely read.

The Intelligence people seem to be extremely passive and naive when it comes to the dangers of Iran. They are wrong! When I became President Iran was making trouble all over the Middle East, and beyond. Since ending the terrible Iran Nuclear Deal, they are MUCH different, but….

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 30, 2019

….a source of potential danger and conflict. They are testing Rockets (last week) and more, and are coming very

Roger Stone’s turn:

The special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, revealed on Friday the most direct link yet between the Trump campaign’s and WikiLeaks’ parallel efforts to use Democratic Party material stolen by Russians to damage the campaign of Hillary R. Clinton.

In an indictment unsealed on Friday, the special counsel disclosed evidence that a top campaign official in 2016 dispatched Roger J. Stone, a longtime adviser to President Trump, to get information from WikiLeaks about the thousands of hacked Democratic emails. The effort began well after it was widely reported that Russian intelligence operatives were behind the theft, which was part of Moscow’s broad campaign to sabotage the 2016 president election.

The indictment makes no mention of whether

Trump is dreaming about the declaration of emergency again. His people are preparing a draft declaration.

“The massive amount of aliens who unlawfully enter the United States each day is a direct threat to the safety and security of our nation and constitutes a national emergency,” a draft of a presidential proclamation reads.

“Now, therefore, I, Donald J. Trump, by the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, including the National Emergencies Act (50 U.S.C 1601, et seq.), hereby declare that a national emergency exists at the southern border of the United States,” the draft adds.

“The massive amount of aliens” – whoever wrote the draft doesn’t rite so good.… Read the rest

Trump is a role model for bad heads of state.

Viktor Orban, Hungary’s increasingly autocratic leader, said Trump represents “permission” from “the highest position in the world.”

To Jair Bolsonaro, the new president of Brazil, the U.S. president is a barrier-breaker — proof that incendiary comments about women or minorities and a history of trafficking in conspiracy theories don’t need to stand in the way of taking power.

When the Nigerian army opened fire on rock-throwing demonstrators last fall, killing as many as 40 people, it defended itself by citing Trump’s threats to do the same at the Mexican border.

When the U.S. Embassy in Cambodia criticized ruler Hun Sen for cracking down on the opposition and

Wut?

The reason Sarah Sanders does not go to the “podium” much anymore is that the press covers her so rudely & inaccurately, in particular certain members of the press. I told her not to bother, the word gets out anyway! Most will never cover us fairly & hence, the term, Fake News!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 22, 2019

Why “podium” of all things?

Is it because he’s never typed the word before and had to ask someone how to spell it?

Is it because he thinks it’s a silly word?

Because he’s dimly aware that “going to the podium” is shorthand for answering press questions, and thinks that kind of shorthand has to be signaled with scare … Read the rest