More from that meeting, because it’s just too…

Pool report #4 ( with cabinet meeting ongoing):

The president said his job would be “a lot easier if I just relaxed
and enjoyed the presidency like a lot of other people have done”

More Trump: “We had a little glitch in
the stock market last month,” he said.

— Eli Stokols (@EliStokols) January 2, 2019

Jeff Mason is tweeting from the Cabinet meeting, and the president does not seem to be doing much saying of true things. https://t.co/sGHI475uM6

— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) January 2, 2019

Ten percent of the population, that would be. Suuuure there are.

Trump mocked Modi, I think, for reminding Trump that India built "a library" in Afghanistan:

More on Trump’s doolally meeting:

After twelve days of doing, according to his official schedule, absolutely nothing, Donald Trump assembled a photo-op-slash-cabinet-meeting today. Sort of. It was, as usual, heavily steeped in weird. There was a two-month-old meme poster of Trump’s face displayed prominently in the center of the table, for some reason.

Well let’s talk about that. Why was it there? To double the thrill? To double the sense of awe and mystery? To intimidate? Does he think he’s successful at any of those things? Maybe he thinks a big image of him is magic in some way? Maybe he thinks he looks good in it?

He blasted deceased Sen. John McCain by name for voting against an

Trump is holding a cabinet meeting right now. Shannon Pettypiece is collecting the bulletins.

https://twitter.com/spettypi/status/1080511779439034368

Good god. He is sitting right in front of a huge poster of himself.

https://twitter.com/spettypi/status/1080511938386370560

How would he know more about drones than anybody, I wonder? It’s a technical subject; he’s not a technical subject guy.

https://twitter.com/spettypi/status/1080515960765857792

https://twitter.com/justinsink/status/1080511741790957568

Heil? I guess?

Trump says he shouldn’t be popular in Europe, if he were, he wouldn’t be doing his job; I’m not elected by Europeans, he says.

— Jeff Mason (@jeffmason1) January 2, 2019

https://twitter.com/justinsink/status/1080525572038643713

https://twitter.com/spettypi/status/1080529889558712321

Nah, he quit.

https://twitter.com/spettypi/status/1080530212801167366

We do! We know!

Trump says if a wall is immoral, then you have to do something about the Vatican because it has a big wall.

—

The Times editorial board is disgusted with Trump and his shutdown. One, he’s messing up the lives of thousands of workers; two, he’s doing it not to Protect Our Security but to defend his ego; three, he’s an asshole.

With even a quick peek beyond his bubble, the president could learn much about the legions of government employees and contractors who spent the holiday season agonizing over how to cover their next mortgage payment or electric bill or trip to the grocery store if this political charade drags on much longer.

He could, but it wouldn’t make any difference if he did; he does not care.

If Mr. Trump would take the time to check in with what’s happening

Why did Cyrus Trump fling that tweet full of childish insults at McChrystal? Because McChrystal pointed out that Cyrus Trump doesn’t tell the truth.

“‘General’ McChrystal got fired like a dog by Obama,” Trump tweeted Tuesday morning. “Last assignment a total bust. Known for big, dumb mouth. Hillary lover!”

Trump was retweeting a post from Fox News’ Laura Ingraham sharing a story headlined “Media Didn’t Like McChrystal Until He Started Bashing Trump.”

The commander in chief’s name-calling comes after McChrystal said during an interview Sunday that Trump was dishonest and immoral.

“I don’t think he tells the truth,” McChrystal told ABC’s Martha Raddatz on “This Week.” When asked if he thought Trump was immoral, McChrystal responded: “I think he

Katherine Stewart points out that some militant Christians see Trump as a new King Cyrus.

Cyrus, in case you’ve forgotten, was born in the sixth century B.C.E. and became the first emperor of Persia. Isaiah 45 celebrates Cyrus for freeing a population of Jews who were held captive in Babylon. Cyrus is the model for a nonbeliever appointed by God as a vessel for the purposes of the faithful.

The point is, you see, that it doesn’t matter whether Cyrus is a good person or not, the point is what he does for The Believers, who are the only people who matter.

As the Trump presidency falls under siege on multiple fronts, it has become increasingly clear that the

25th Amendment time. Seriously.

…Remember this. Throughout the ages some things NEVER get better and NEVER change. You have Walls and you have Wheels. It was ALWAYS that way and it will ALWAYS be that way! Please explain to the Democrats that there can NEVER be a replacement for a good old fashioned WALL!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 1, 2019

HAPPY NEW YEAR TO EVERYONE, INCLUDING THE HATERS AND THE FAKE NEWS MEDIA! 2019 WILL BE A FANTASTIC YEAR FOR THOSE NOT SUFFERING FROM TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME. JUST CALM DOWN AND ENJOY THE RIDE, GREAT THINGS ARE HAPPENING FOR OUR COUNTRY!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 1, 2019

“General” McChrystal got fired like a dog by Obama.

Expect new Trump eruptions today: top military guy says Trump is crooked as a dog’s hind leg.

Retired four-star Gen. Stanley McChrystal did not mince words about President Donald Trump in a wide-ranging interview with ABC’s “This Week,” saying the president is dishonest and immoral and adding that he could not work for Trump.

“I don’t think he tells the truth,” McChrystal told ABC’s Martha Raddatz who questioned the general on whether he feels Trump is a liar.

When asked if Trump is immoral, McChrystal said: “I think he is.”

Trump slaps his immorality out there on Twitter every day. A moral person doesn’t talk to and about people the way Trump does, especially from a position of power.… Read the rest

John Kelly on his way out says hey Trump never ordered him to do anything illegal.

White House chief of staff John Kelly, who will depart President Donald Trump’s administration on Wednesday, told The Los Angeles Times in an extensive interview published Sunday that the president never ordered him to do anything illegal and added that the proposed border wall at the center of the government shutdown fight is not as it has been portrayed.

Listen, he also never sliced people’s arms off with a sword, so good news, right?

Kelly, set to be replaced by Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney, who will serve as acting chief of staff, said he made sure the president

Linda Qiu takes a look at The Year in Trump Lies.

Here at The New York Times, we have also fact-checked countless campaign rallies, news conferences, interviews and Twitter posts. After nearly two years of assessing the accuracy of Mr. Trump’s statements, we can draw some conclusions not just about the scale of the president’s mendacity, but also about how he uses inaccurate claims to advance his agenda, criticize the news media and celebrate his achievements.

One, he repeats his lies instead of admitting they are lies.

Examples abound. He has falsely characterized the December 2017 tax cuts as the “largest” or the “biggest” in American history over 100 times (several others were larger). He has misleadingly

Of course he did.

President Donald Trump issued an executive order Friday freezing federal workers’ pay for 2019, following through on a proposal he announced earlier in the year.

The move, which nixes a 2.1% across-the-board pay raise that was set to take effect in January, comes as hundreds of thousands of federal employees are expecting to begin the new year furloughed or working without pay because of a partial government shutdown.

Trump told lawmakers he planned to scrap the 2019 pay bump for federal workers in August, saying the federal budget couldn’t support it. In addition to the 2.1% pay increase, the executive order also cancels a yearly adjustment of paychecks based on the region of the country

Well that’s one way to put it.

In his first two years in office, President Donald Trump has rewritten the rules of the presidency and the norms of the nation’s capital, casting aside codes of conduct and traditions that have held for generations.

In Trump’s Washington, facts are less relevant. Insults and highly personal attacks are increasingly employed by members of both parties. The White House press briefing is all but gone, international summits are optional, the arts are an afterthought and everything — including inherently nonpartisan institutions and investigations — is suddenly political.

The thing is, though, Trump hasn’t actually rewritten any rules; he hasn’t done anything that thoughtful, and he couldn’t if he wanted to, because … Read the rest

Matthew Miller and Mimi Rocah explain why Trump’s deployment of Whitaker is his worst breach of the wall between president and Justice Department yet.

The SDNY’s case has already netted one guilty plea for a felony crime of violating campaign finance laws. In his guilty plea and sentencing allocution, Mr. Cohen stated that he worked “in coordination with and at the direction of Individual-1,” who is widely understood to be the president. In addition, it is clear from the charging documents against Mr. Cohen that the Trump Organization, which was owned and controlled by Mr. Trump and his children at the time of the conduct, is likely implicated in this criminal scheme as well.

Taken together, these facts make clear

Like Basil Fawlty, Trump just can’t get anything right, can he.

President Trump has an uncanny knack for making a mess of simple, traditional functions every other president has managed to carry out with ease. Talk to a child about Christmas? Yikes — a “marginal” disaster. Go to Europe to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I? He skips one event rather than wilt in the rain and sulks through another. The worst anti-Semitic massacre in U.S. history? He whines about getting his hair wet and keeps campaigning. Visit the troops (finally) in Iraq? Oh boy.

What, just because he compromised their security? Picky picky.

So on his belated, first visit

Newsweek reports that “oops he revealed the location of a SEAL team on Twitter” item:

President Donald Trump and the White House communications team revealed that a U.S. Navy SEAL team was deployed to Iraq after the president secretly traveled to the region to meet with American forces serving in a combat zone for the first time since being elected to office.

While the commander-in-chief can declassify information, usually the presence of a special operations unit, to include, showing their faces would not be revealed to the American public, especially while the U.S. service members were still deployed. Current and former Defense Department officials told Newsweek that the information is almost always classified and is a violation of operational security.

Robert Reich (an economist) on Trump and the stock market dive:

Let’s get this straight:

(1) Trump doesn’t want the public to think the stock market has tanked because of his government shutdown, his trade wars, and the $1.9 trillion increase in the nation’s debt caused by his tax cut for corporations and the wealthy. (Actually, these are major reasons for the market’s drop.)

(2) So he’s blaming the Fed and its chair, Jerome Powell, for raising interest rates. And he’s ordered his staff to find a legal rationale for removing Powell. (Trump has no legal authority to do so.)

(3) Which is spooking investors even more, because they worry Trump will try to infringe on the independence

The new improved Christmas Carol:

The Christmas Eve grievances billowing from the White House on Monday formed a heavy cloud of Yuletide gloom.

In his third straight day holed up inside the White House during the partial federal government shutdown that he initiated over his demand to construct a border wall, President Trump barked out his frustrations on Twitter: Democrats are hypocrites! The media makes up stories! Senators are wrong on foreign policy — and so is Defense Secretary Jim Mattis!

Wah! Wah! Wah wah wah!

Trump said war-ravaged Syria would be rebuilt not by the United States but by Saudi Arabia. “Thanks to Saudi A!” he tweeted, two weeks after the Senate unanimously rebukedthe kingdom’s crown prince