The New York Times took the rare step, today, of publishing an anonymous Op-Ed essay. The author, an unnamed, senior White House official, delivers an astonishingly honest account of how other senior officials are “working diligently from within to frustrate parts of Trump’s agenda and his worst inclinations.” Coming just one day after we began hearing excerpts from Bob Woodward’s new book about the Trump administration, the op-ed offers a timely confirmation of Woodward’s accounts.

Of course, it would be more satisfying–and morally much more courageous–if  the senior official had the temerity to come out of the closet. But, given his/her contention that the only way to save the presidency [and, perhaps, America] from the autocratic demagoguery of Donald Trump is to work from within, the anonymity is understandable.

It’s a sure bet that Trump is going to go ballistic over this, and launch his own internal “witch hunt” aimed at purging whoever wrote this. Undoubtedly, too, everyone who might be suspected of authoring this op-ed will deny that he/she wrote it–just as virtually everyone quoted by Woodward has already issued a denial [possibly a scenario they pre-arranged with Woodward as a condition of speaking to him on tape.]

Obviously, there’s going to be a big media kerfuffle over the author’s identity–trying to match the style of writing, the use of language, etc., to people closely associated with Trump. Eventually, we may learn his/her identity–everybody leaks everything in D.C.– and  he/she could be deemed a “hero” [whatever that means].  But the issues raised by this White House insider are more important than media speculation as to his/her identity. Kudos to the Times for recognizing the value of publishing this op-ed, and to the author for speaking out [ish]. That’s worth something.

Here is the full text of the op-ed:

The New York Times today is taking the rare step of publishing an anonymous Op-Ed essay. We have done so at the request of the author, a senior official in the Trump administration whose identity is known to us and whose job would be jeopardized by its disclosure. We believe publishing this essay anonymously is the only way to deliver an important perspective to our readers. We invite you to submit a question about the essay or our vetting process here.

President Trump is facing a test to his presidency unlike any faced by a modern American leader.

It’s not just that the special counsel looms large. Or that the country is bitterly divided over Mr. Trump’s leadership. Or even that his party might well lose the House to an opposition hellbent on his downfall.

The dilemma — which he does not fully grasp — is that many of the senior officials in his own administration are working diligently from within to frustrate parts of his agenda and his worst inclinations.

I would know. I am one of them.

To be clear, ours is not the popular “resistance” of the left. We want the administration to succeed and think that many of its policies have already made America safer and more prosperous.

But we believe our first duty is to this country, and the president continues to act in a manner that is detrimental to the health of our republic.

That is why many Trump appointees have vowed to do what we can to preserve our democratic institutions while thwarting Mr. Trump’s more misguided impulses until he is out of office.

The root of the problem is the president’s amorality. Anyone who works with him knows he is not moored to any discernible first principles that guide his decision making.

Although he was elected as a Republican, the president shows little affinity for ideals long espoused by conservatives: free minds, free markets and free people. At best, he has invoked these ideals in scripted settings. At worst, he has attacked them outright.

In addition to his mass-marketing of the notion that the press is the “enemy of the people,” President Trump’s impulses are generally anti-trade and anti-democratic.

Don’t get me wrong. There are bright spots that the near-ceaseless negative coverage of the administration fails to capture: effective deregulation, historic tax reform, a more robust military and more.

But these successes have come despite — not because of — the president’s leadership style, which is impetuous, adversarial, petty and ineffective.

From the White House to executive branch departments and agencies, senior officials will privately admit their daily disbelief at the commander in chief’s comments and actions. Most are working to insulate their operations from his whims.

Meetings with him veer off topic and off the rails, he engages in repetitive rants, and his impulsiveness results in half-baked, ill-informed and occasionally reckless decisions that have to be walked back.

“There is literally no telling whether he might change his mind from one minute to the next,” a top official complained to me recently, exasperated by an Oval Office meeting at which the president flip-flopped on a major policy decision he’d made only a week earlier.

The erratic behavior would be more concerning if it weren’t for unsung heroes in and around the White House. Some of his aides have been cast as villains by the media. But in private, they have gone to great lengths to keep bad decisions contained to the West Wing, though they are clearly not always successful.

It may be cold comfort in this chaotic era, but Americans should know that there are adults in the room. We fully recognize what is happening. And we are trying to do what’s right even when Donald Trump won’t.

The result is a two-track presidency.

Take foreign policy: In public and in private, President Trump shows a preference for autocrats and dictators, such as President Vladimir Putin of Russia and North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un, and displays little genuine appreciation for the ties that bind us to allied, like-minded nations.

Astute observers have noted, though, that the rest of the administration is operating on another track, one where countries like Russia are called out for meddling and punished accordingly, and where allies around the world are engaged as peers rather than ridiculed as rivals.

On Russia, for instance, the president was reluctant to expel so many of Mr. Putin’s spies as punishment for the poisoning of a former Russian spy in Britain. He complained for weeks about senior staff members letting him get boxed into further confrontation with Russia, and he expressed frustration that the United States continued to impose sanctions on the country for its malign behavior. But his national security team knew better — such actions had to be taken, to hold Moscow accountable.

This isn’t the work of the so-called deep state. It’s the work of the steady state.

Given the instability many witnessed, there were early whispers within the cabinet of invoking the 25th Amendment, which would start a complex process for removing the president. But no one wanted to precipitate a constitutional crisis. So we will do what we can to steer the administration in the right direction until — one way or another — it’s over.

The bigger concern is not what Mr. Trump has done to the presidency but rather what we as a nation have allowed him to do to us. We have sunk low with him and allowed our discourse to be stripped of civility.

Senator John McCain put it best in his farewell letter. All Americans should heed his words and break free of the tribalism trap, with the high aim of uniting through our shared values and love of this great nation.

We may no longer have Senator McCain. But we will always have his example — a lodestar for restoring honor to public life and our national dialogue. Mr. Trump may fear such honorable men, but we should revere them.

There is a quiet resistance within the administration of people choosing to put country first. But the real difference will be made by everyday citizens rising above politics, reaching across the aisle and resolving to shed the labels in favor of a single one: Americans.

The writer is a senior official in the Trump administration.

Let the wild rumpus of “who said it” begin.

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Mick Mulvaney, Donald Trump’s appointee to head up [translation:destroy] the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau comes in for devastating criticism in a letter of resignation submitted by Seth Frotman, a seven-year veteran of the Bureau who served as its Student Loan Ombudsman.

In his letter, as published by NPR, Frotman describes the ways in which Mulvaney has undermined and essentially reversed the original mission of the CFPB in general, and the office of the student loan ombudsman in particular.

“…After 10 months under your leadership, it has become clear that consumers no longer have a strong, independent Consumer Bureau on their side,” writes Frotman…” Unfortunately, under your leadership, the Bureau has abandoned the very consumers it is tasked by Congress with protecting. Instead, you have used the Bureau to serve the wishes of the most powerful financial companies in America.”

From his letter, you can tell that Frotman liked his job and was passionate about helping student-loan borrowers get fair treatment from lenders. When Mulvaney took over as interim director, he quickly began turning the CFPB on its head, Frotman implies. Frotman charges Mulvaney with undermining the bureau’s mission, undercutting enforcement, and switching the focus from protecting consumers to “going above and beyond” to protect lenders’ interests.

Frotman cites several instances that demonstrate Mulvaney’s intent to wreck the CFPB from within—something that Republicans have wanted to do since Day 1 of the bureau conceived and promoted by Senator Elizabeth Warren [D-MA].

“For example” writes Frotman, “Late last year [2017], when new evidence came to light showing that the nation’s largest banks were ripping off students on campuses across the country by saddling them with legally dubious account fees, Bureau leadership suppressed the publication of a report prepared by Bureau staff. When pressed by Congress about this, you chose to leave students vulnerable to predatory practices and deny any responsibility to bring this information to light.”

Frotman also calls some actions by the bureau, under Mulvaney’s leadership, as “unprecedented,” “illegal,” and designed to “shield the biggest financial institutions from accountability.”

“The current leadership of the Bureau has made its priorities clear—it will protect the misguided goals of the Trump Administration to the detriment of student loan borrowers,” writes Frotman. “…American families need an independent Consumer Bureau to look out for them when lenders push products they know cannot be repaid, when banks and debt collectors conspire to abuse the courts and force families out of their homes, and when student loan companies are allowed to drive millions of Americans to financial ruin with impunity.”

Frotman cannot be accused of making this stuff up. For a bit of context, it should be noted that when Mulvaney was in Congress, he sponsored legislation to abolish the CFPB. In June 2018, after being appointed acting director of the bureau by Trump, Mulvaney fired the agency’s consumer advisory council, which according to NPR,” is designed to help consumer groups work with the CFPB to identify problems facing Americans who are treated unfairly by financial firms.”

Frotman’s decision to resign with a bang echoes that of an ever-growing cadre of career government employees—dedicated to and passionate about the good things that good government can do—who have quit the Trump Administration on principle. His experience with Mulvaney also parallels what well-intentioned federal employees have encountered in other Trump-run agencies, such as the Environmental Protection Agency.

You have to wonder how many others, perhaps not as articulate as Frotman, in agencies whose missions are similarly threatened under Trump, are suffering in silence, keeping their heads down, trying to continue the mission they thought they were supporting, hoping that this is just an Orwellian nightmare from which America will wake up before it’s too late.

Here’s the full text of Frotman’s resignation letter, as published by NPR.

August 27, 2018

…

Acting Director Mulvaney:

It is with great regret that I tender my resignation as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s Student Loan Ombudsman. It has been the honor of a lifetime to spend the past seven years working to protect American consumers; first under Holly Petraeus as the Bureau defended America’s military families from predatory lenders, for-profit colleges, and other unscrupulous businesses; and most recently leading the Bureau’s work on behalf of the 44 million Americans struggling with student loan debt. However, after 10 months under your leadership, it has become clear that consumers no longer have a strong, independent Consumer Bureau on their side.

Each year, tens of millions of student loan borrowers struggle to stay afloat. For many, the CFPB has served as a lifeline—cutting through red tape, demanding systematic reforms when borrowers are harmed, and serving as the primary financial regulator tasked with holding student loan companies accountable when they break the law.

The hard work and commitment of the immensely talented Bureau staff has had a tremendous impact on students and families. Together, we returned more than $750 million to harmed student loan borrowers in communities across the country and halted predatory practices that targeted millions of people in pursuit of the American Dream.

The challenges of student debt affect borrowers young and old, urban and rural, in professions ranging from infantrymen to clergymen.  Tackling these challenges should know no ideology or political persuasion. I had hoped to continue this critical work in partnership with you and your staff by using our authority under law to stand up for student loand borrowers trapped in a broken system. Unfortunately, under your leadership, the Bureau has abandoned the very consumers it is tasked by Congress with protecting. Instead, you have used the Bureau to serve the wishes of the most powerful financial companies in America.

As the Bureau official charged by Congress with overseeing the student loan market, I have seen how the current actions being taken by Bureau leadership are hurting families. In recent months, the Bureau has made sweeping changes, including:

Undercutting enforcement of the law. It is clear that the current leadership of the Bureau has abandoned its duty to fairly and robustly enforce the law. The Bureau’s new political leadership has repeatedly undercut and undermined career CFPB staff working to secure relief for consumers. These actions will affect millions of student loan borrowers, including those harmed by the company that dominates this market. In addition, when the Education Department unilaterally shut the door to routine CFPB oversight of the largest student loan companies, the Bureau’s current leadership folded to political pressure. By undermining the Bureau’s own authority to oversee the student loan market, the Bureau has failed borrowers who depend on independent oversight to halt bad practices and bring accountability to the student loan industry.

Undermining the Bureau’s independence. The current leadership of the Bureau has make its priorities clear—it will protect the misguided goals of the Trump Administration to the detriment of student loan borrowers. For nearly seven years, I was proud to be part of an agency that served no party and no administration; the Consumer Bureau focused solely on doing what was right for American consumers. Unfortunately, that is no longer the case. Recently, senior leadership at the Bureau blocked efforts to call attention to the ways in which the actions of this administration will hurt families ripped off by predatory for-profit schools. Similarly, senior leadership also blocked attempts to alert the Department of Education to the far-reaching harm borrowers will face due to the Department’s unprecedented and illegal attempts to preempt state consumer laws and shield student loan companies from accountability for widespread abuses. At every turn, your political appointees have silenced warnings by those of us tasked with standing up for servicemembers and students.

Shielding bad actors from scrutiny. The current leadership of the Bureau has turned its back on young people and their financial futures. Where we once found efficient and innovative ways to collaborate across government to protect consumers, the Bureau is now content doing the bare minimum for them while simultaneously going above and beyond to protect the interests of the biggest financial companies in America. For example, late last year, when new evidence came to light showing that the nation’s largest banks were reipping off students on campuses across the country by saddling them with legally dubious account fees. Bureau leadership suppressed the publication of a report prepared by Bureau staff. When pressed by Congress about this, you chose to leave students vulnerable to predatory practices and deny any responsibility to bring this information to light.

American families need an independent Consumer Bureau to look out for them when lenders push products they know cannot be repaid, when banks and debt collectors conspire to abuse the courts and force families out of their homes, and when student loan companies are allowed to drive millions of Americans to financial ruin with impunity.

In my time at the Bureau I have traveled across the country, meeting with consumers in over three dozen states, and with military families from over 100 military units. I have met with dozens of state law enforcement officials and, more importantly, I have heard directly from tens of thousands of individual student loan borrowers.

A common thread ties these experiences together—the American Dream under siege, told through the hear wrenching stories of individuals caught in a system rigged to favor the most powerful financial interests. For seven years, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau fought to ensure these families received a fair shake as they strived for the American Dream.

For these reasons, I resign effective September 1, 2018. Although I will no longer be Student Loan Ombudsman, I remain committed to fighting on behalf of borrowers who are trapped in a broken student loan system.

 

Sincerely,

Seth Frotman

Assistant Director & Student Loan Ombudsman

Consumer Financial Protection Bureau

The post Student Loan Watchdog Quits Trump Administration with scorching resignation letter appeared first on Occasional Planet.

In an astonishing 30-minute segment, Donald Trump called in to Fox & Friends on April 26, 2018, to rant, vent, yell, interrupt,  and blurt out some things that may place him in further legal jeopardy. He starts out slowly, but he quickly builds to an increasingly angry, out-of-control tone. As you watch, you get a sense that he’s talking this way because he feels at home, and therefore unfettered and unguarded, with his sycophants on Fox & Friends. And in that comfort zone, he escalates into a scary, epic rant—so out of control that even his Fox buddies squirm and try to help him out by cutting the interview off.

The rantiest part starts at about 9 minutes in, and it just gets worse and worse. This is Trump unbound, talking to his intimate friends, unfiltered, unrestricted by a teleprompter. The “interviewers” can’t get a word in. They actually try, weakly, but he talks over them, his tone getting louder and angrier as he continues. The “conversation” gives us insight into how he must rant in White House discussions, where actual policy is made and executed.  Frightening.

He manages, too, to reveal some information that is sure to make both Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller and Stormy Daniels’ attorney Michael Avanatti sit up and take notes:  He admits that he spent an overnight in Moscow [which, according to James Comey’s notes, Trump said he did not.] He acknowledges that Michael Cohen represented him in the Stormy Daniels affair [which Trump has previously denied]. He asserts [a nice word for his aggressive speaking style] that Michael Cohen handled only a “tiny fraction” of his legal work [which would mean that most of what was seized by the FBI raid on Cohen would not contain attorney-client privileged information, as Trump has previously claimed.]  He threatens the Justice Department [the most worrisome–for our legal and checks-and-balances system–of all].

See for yourself, if you can stand it. And enjoy the end, when Fox hosts try to get the hook and get him offstage. Even they are embarrassed about what this rant reveals about Trump.

The post Jaw dropping: Trump’s rant on Fox & Friends appeared first on Occasional Planet.

Calling Fox News “a mere propaganda machine for a destructive and ethically ruinous administration,” Lt. Colonel Ralph Peters [US Army, retired]  quit his job as strategic analyst for Fox on March 1, 2018. Peters, a military intelligence veteran who specialized in the Soviet Union, had been affiliated with Fox for 10 years. On his way out, he sent an explanatory note to his co-workers at Fox News, castigating the organization and many of its on-air personalities for “assaulting our constitutional order and the rule of law, while fostering corrosive and unjustified paranoia among viewers.”

In one section of his scathing departure letter, Peters—an intelligences professional who knows Russia very well—affirms the contents of the controversial Steele dossier, which describes links between Trump world and Russia. “It rings very true,” he states. “That’s how the Russians do things.”

Here is the full text of his email letter, which was first published by BuzzFeed.   It’s worth a read. And stick around for the sign off. It’s priceless.

On March 1st, I informed Fox that I would not renew my contract. The purpose of this message to all of you is twofold:

First, I must thank each of you for the cooperation and support you’ve shown me over the years. Those working off-camera, the bookers and producers, don’t often get the recognition you deserve, but I want you to know that I have always appreciated the challenges you face and the skill with which you master them.

Second, I feel compelled to explain why I have to leave. Four decades ago, I took an oath as a newly commissioned officer. I swore to “support and defend the Constitution,” and that oath did not expire when I took off my uniform. Today, I feel that Fox News is assaulting our constitutional order and the rule of law, while fostering corrosive and unjustified paranoia among viewers. Over my decade with Fox, I long was proud of the association. Now I am ashamed.

In my view, Fox has degenerated from providing a legitimate and much-needed outlet for conservative voices to a mere propaganda machine for a destructive and ethically ruinous administration. When prime-time hosts–who have never served our country in any capacity–dismiss facts and empirical reality to launch profoundly dishonest assaults on the FBI, the Justice Department, the courts, the intelligence community (in which I served) and, not least, a model public servant and genuine war hero such as Robert Mueller–all the while scaremongering with lurid warnings of “deep-state” machinations– I cannot be part of the same organization, even at a remove. To me, Fox News is now wittingly harming our system of government for profit.

As a Russia analyst for many years, it also has appalled me that hosts who made their reputations as super-patriots and who, justifiably, savaged President Obama for his duplicitous folly with Putin, now advance Putin’s agenda by making light of Russian penetration of our elections and the Trump campaign. Despite increasingly pathetic denials, it turns out that the “nothing-burger” has been covered with Russian dressing all along. And by the way: As an intelligence professional, I can tell you that the Steele dossier rings true–that’s how the Russians do things.. The result is that we have an American president who is terrified of his counterpart in Moscow.

I do not apply the above criticisms in full to Fox Business, where numerous hosts retain a respect for facts and maintain a measure of integrity (nor is every host at Fox News a propaganda mouthpiece–some have shown courage). I have enjoyed and valued my relationship with Fox Business, and I will miss a number of hosts and staff members. You’re the grown-ups.

Also, I deeply respect the hard-news reporters at Fox, who continue to do their best as talented professionals in a poisoned environment. These are some of the best men and women in the business.

So, to all of you: Thanks, and, as our president’s favorite world leader would say, “Das vidanya.”

The post Why he quit: Fox News analyst denounces propaganda channel appeared first on Occasional Planet.

Here’s a transcript of a bootleg tape obtained by the Washington Post, of Donald Trump’s typically rambling and incoherent “speech” at a fundraiser in Missouri on March 14. It should be noted that he was purportedly speaking in support of Josh Hawley, a Republican who hopes to defeat Missouri Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill in the November 2018 election. It should be further noted that he only sporadically mentions Hawley, preferring to pump and congratulate himself instead. And it should be even further noted that almost nothing he says makes any sense at all.

The Washington Post has arbitrarily broken the remarks up into paragraphs, most likely as a way to make them more readable. But these are not paragraphs. They are lines of gibberish. I’ve highlighted some of the wackiest pronouncements—such as the nonsensical bowling-ball story—to enable skimming for readers who can’t stomach the totality, and the inescapable reality of Trump’s March madness. The worst thing about trying to highlight the most egregious remarks is that I had to read the thing through again. Also, selecting the most incoherent is an impossible task when everything is so unintelligible. Either the audience wasn’t listening, or they didn’t care, or—worst of all—they are as devoid of logical thinking as Trump is, and they accept his complete ignorance as new, acceptable norm.
This is our president.

President Trump: What a, what a family and your sister, where is your sister? Your sister was in uniform before, where is she? See? We’re very proud of you. [Applause]

So, you know we have a lot of friends in this area, and I just stopped at a little place called Boeing. [Unintelligible.] Dennis is doing a good job. But we were just looking at some of the new planes without pilots, now. I mean, you know, look at them. I’m saying, “What about that one?” It has no cockpit.
Dennis, tell me, what’s going on?

He said, “Well, this plane doesn’t have a pilot.” This is where we’re going, I guess. But, what a job they’re doing. I want to thank a great friend of mine Congressman Jason Smith. He’s here someplace, where is Jason?

First off we have a situation so important here. That’s why I’m here. I’m here for this [unintelligible] big success, from what I understand. A [unintelligible] success. That’s a big success, isn’t it? [Applause.]
Really. It’s a testament to a wonderful guy who’s running who knows what it’s all about. He’s somebody that can win. He’s leading the polls, just about every poll I’ve seen. But there was one that was a little bit down. And that’s the one you have to run on because you always have to run a little bit scared, right, a little bit scared. But then I saw fortunately the following week it kicked back up, I got a little nervous. [Laughter.] But you’re doing good, and I tell ya, every one of them. And, you’re the one that can do it. And the whole the whole world is watching, really, we have to change things.

And we need, we need those votes. We need the votes. You’ll work on the filibuster once you get in there, right? I know that. Does anybody know what that means? Wouldn’t it be nice if we had 51 instead of 60? Wouldn’t that be nice?
Some day somebody’s going to explain that do me. What’s going on here?

But that’s it. Some of the senators have been there, really, for a long time are just dead set on that. But we’re gonna get — we have a chance to win a number of seats. And I think we have a really good chance to win a large number of seats, so we’ll see what happens. Mr. Ashcroft, where is Mr. Ashcroft? I didn’t see him. I met your son, by the way. [Unintelligible.] [Applause.] I met John’s son.
I said, “Hey, where’s your father?” He said, “He’s up speaking,” I said, “Oh, okay. So, maybe I’ll see him outside.” You’re a terrific man, terrific family.

But we have a chance to do something that’s going to be very important and it starts right here, it starts right here. And you know, last night, I don’t know I guess the final results aren’t quite in, we had an interesting time because we lifted seven points up that’s a lot. And I was up 22 points, and we lifted seven and seven normally would be enough, but we’ll see. We’ll see how it all comes out. It’s like virtually a tie.

Where’s our great Ronna, is she here?
Ronna McDaniel, who ran Michigan for me. And we won the state of Michigan, first time since Reagan. [Unintelligible.] [Applause] Two hundred and some odd thousand votes and it was a difference of four hundred and something, right? Four hundred and something votes. And I don’t know what’s going to happen but I know he came up a lot in the last few days. We went there, we read his speech, the place was packed, and we’ll see what happens. It’s actually interesting because it’s only a congressman for about five months. I don’t know about that one, Josh, it’s a lot of work for five months. They changed the district, they’re redistricting.

But we’ll see what happens. But I told Josh just a little while ago, I’m coming back here just before the race and we’ll get, get a bigger [unintelligible] and get a big something, and we’ll do a job. [Unintelligible.] [Applause.]

The country is watching. This is one of the most important races because this is one that we can win because of Josh, we had to get Josh to do it. Once that was it just we haven’t ingested. Once that was [unintelligible], that was a big thing. Because you do need the right candidate, and we have a few of them, we have a few pretty good ones. You know about what’s happening. A couple of other guys joined and they are going to have great success. So we look forward to — One of the things that we, that Josh actually mentioned that I think is probably underscored understated but very important is judges.
We are going to be appointing 145, came in 140 — you know, my whole life I’ve helped a few people become a federal judge. Not gotten it for them, but I helped and they never forget. It’s a big deal. A federal judge.

So I come and there’s this whole pile of papers on my desk — these are federal judges, these are applications. I said, “How many do we appoint?” “145.” “145!” Because for two years, two and a half years, almost none were appointed by President Obama. So I say thank you, President Obama. [Applause]
Well, we have 17 court of appeals judges. We had one Supreme Court judge who’s done a fantastic job, Justice Gorsuch. And we’ll see what happens on that score, but we have 145 judges and 17 court of appeals judges and we’ve appointed — I guess we’ve had almost 30 approved already. And what difference that’s making. That’ll be almost half of the judiciary will be appointed by us. [Unintelligible.] [Applause.]

I mentioned before, we have to run on the tax cuts because that has become the most popular thing. Everybody’s happy, the companies kicked in like crazy you know. The companies — we didn’t expect, when we did the tax cuts and you know they called it tax reform. I said, “Do me a favor, don’t call it tax reform, hasn’t worked in 45 years, right?” Tax reform! People saying, “Are you going to raise my taxes? They’re reforming taxes!” I said that means taxes to go up, and they said well, no, but it’s always called tax reform, I said, let’s call it tax cuts. In fact, I said, they said what would you like to call it? Call it the tax cut cut cut plan. [Applause.] They thought it sounded a little hokey, so we called it the tax cut and jobs plan.
I liked the first one better.

We had no Democrat votes. Claire McCaskill was against it because she’s party line. It’s not that she’s was against it. She’s party line. She’s going to go with the party line. It’s like the young man last night that ran, he said, oh, I’m like Trump. He said, I, I, you know, Second Amendment, all, everything. I love the tax cuts. Everything. You wouldn’t have known. It’s a pretty smart race, actually. But he ran and he ran on that basis. But the bottom line is when he votes, he’s going to vote with Nancy Pelosi. He’s going to vote with Pelosi, he’s going to vote with Schumer, and that’s what’s going to happen. And there’s nothing he can do about it, he’s not going to vote with the Republicans. So it doesn’t matter, what he feels doesn’t matter. Claire McCaskill has voted against everything that we want. Voted against everything that you stand for, and voted against these massive tax cuts that are bringing wealth back into families and bringing wealth into the state of Missouri and every other state. And she voted against, because this wasn’t principle. This was the fact that she was told to vote that way, and she has to vote that way. And if she didn’t vote that way, the party would drop her very easily and wouldn’t be around and wouldn’t be spending lots of money on her and that’s the way it is. So she voted against tax cuts and I believe that anybody that voted against that bill, I think it would be very hard to win an election.

So I think when you campaign when you’re out there Josh, you should just keep bringing it up, she voted against. And I read an article and I thought it was very nice, actually. She said she said she’s not going to say bad things about President Trump, I said, boy, I must be very popular in that state.

And last night, the young man also, he ran on a campaign, he said very nice things about me. I kept saying, is he a Republican? He sounded like a Republican to me. But I guess when you’re popular in a certain area, that’s probably a good tactic. But we’re not going to get her vote. So you have to defeat her. You have to defeat her. And if you don’t, it’s just going to be Trump. I mean, they could actually take away the tax cuts, they could take away your Second Amendment. Very importantly, judges, they’ll start putting the judges that we’ve been having poured onto the court over the last eight years. You can’t take it. I mean you just can’t have it. You see some of the decisions. How about the Ninth Circuit? Anytime you go. They always file in the Ninth Circuit, which says something — look that’s not right. No matter where they’re sued, they file in the Ninth Circuit. And they win, win, win and then they lose, usually the Supreme Court, hopefully they will. But it’s you know it’s a very unfair thing, it shows you how important it is to have fair people put on the bench.

So the judges are so important, I mean just so important. We’re doing a lot of things. Companies are moving back into our country. Chrysler that’s coming back from Mexico, you [unintelligible] hear that one? It’s always they’re leaving from Mexico, someone’s leaving from Mexico, they’re always leaving for Mexico. And now, you have many, many companies coming back in, you have steel mills opening up, which hasn’t happened in 30 years. And the tariffs are just a form of, like, you just can’t keep doing this to the outside world. And some of our worst abusers in terms of what they do on trade our so-called friends. You look in some of these countries that are our friends and you look at the trade deficits we have and it’s, it’s staggering. So that’s just Phase One, but that’s a little phase, but we have to get back the respect. You know we built ourselves as a great power, a great manufacturing power. And then you look how so many jobs was taken. I mean NAFTA has been a disaster for this country. And I know it affected your [unintelligible], but you go up to New England, and they’re still paying the price of losing all of those jobs. And those are real jobs. Those are real, incredible, powerful, important jobs — even for defense. We have to be able to make steel. We have to be able to have aluminum. We were at a point where we were going to lose all our steel factories, our steel mills, our plants, and we can’t let that happen. People said you know it’s sort of — oh, we’ll get our steel from China. Oh good. Let’s see if we can, we have a national emergency. We’re gonna get our steel from China. It’s incredible.

I’ve been using the expression, if you don’t have steel you don’t have a country. There’s a lot to it. This is like we’re making pencils. This is big stuff.

So since I announced this we’ve had numerous openings of plants and you have some that are going to open up or expand right here, and we’ve had a lot of, I mean, people are [unintelligible] to see a little bit differently. But we have to do what’s called reciprocal tax, because we have countries that charge us 25 percent to get a car and they don’t take the car anyway. Just so you know

.
They have nondollar barriers. okay, they’re nondollar. You know what the barrier says? You can’t sell in our country. That’s worse than heavy taxes. So we have countries and groups of countries, which is even worse.
European Union is very tough. You know, we had the European Union — a lot of you came from Europe, right? Guess what. They’re pretty smart. And they formed a group, and they make it very difficult, they’re very difficult traders. They have these barriers where you can’t get your product in. No matter what you do, if you do get your product in, you pay dearly. China would be the biggest abuser. There’s no question about it.
So last year with China, we lost 500 billion dollars, would you say that? Not million, 500 million, that’s a lot.
500 billion dollars. And it’s been that way for years, from 200 to 504 billion dollars, every year. We rebuilt China, we actually did. You take that money away from China.
I mean we rebuilt it, and it all started with the World Trade Organization. If you look at China, it’s like this for many, many centuries.
World trade, it’s like a rocket ship, and much of it came right out of this country, got to stop it. And I’m very friendly with the president, he’s a great guy. We have a great chemistry, a great relationship. But he’s for China and I’m for the good old USA. [Applause.]
As an example, they send a car to us, we charge them a 2 percent tax. We send a car to them, and they charge us a 25 percent tax.
Somehow that doesn’t work too well.
That’s not a great formula. But not only is it 25, 25, but most of the time you can’t even get the car. Even Japan. Look, the prime minister’s a great guy, Abe. He’s a warrior. Tough, strong, smart. But I said trade isn’t so good with Japan. It’s so one-sided. They don’t take our product and we take their cars, I mean the cars and 90 percent of the cars, they just come. They need Mario Andretti to drive those cars off the boats. They come off the boats like 60 miles an hour. We send a car to Japan, they analyze it for four weeks before they decide to send it back because it’s not environmentally friendly. [Unintelligible.] They actually, one of the car companies actually had a car made and it was the most environmentally perfect car, cost them a fortune. They spent a fortune. And they had everything, the highest quality that you can have. Everything was far better than any car they ever sent to us. They spent three or four hundred thousand dollars for a car that would sell for like 35,000, right? Not a good deal. But they wanted to see if they could get it in. And it, they were going crazy. Four days went by. Then five days. And they were ready to approve it and they said, no no, we have to do one more test. It’s called the bowling ball test, do you know what that is? That’s where they take a bowling ball from 20 feet up in the air and they drop it on the hood of the car. And if the hood dents, then the car doesn’t qualify. Well, guess what, the roof dented a little bit, and they said, nope, this car doesn’t qualify. It’s horrible, the way we’re treated. It’s horrible.
And then you hear about the free traders, because I’m a free trader, but I’m like, I want to be a smart trader, I want to be a fair trader. It’s so unfair what’s happened to our country, and I don’t know, the politicians have lost their way. In some cases like South Korea you know they’re making a fortune. Well we backed them many years ago.

But we never trade — you know when they became rich we never changed the deal. So we were backing, backing, backing. And no politician ever changed the deal.
Now we have a very big trade deficit with them, and we protect them. So we lose money on trade, and we lose money on the military. We have right now 32,000 soldiers on the border between North and South Korea.
Let’s see what happens. Think I’ve done a good job with that one. That’s sort of interesting.

People are saying, “oh, his rhetoric is terrible. He’s going to go” — well, the rhetoric from last 30 years hasn’t been so good. It was called appeasement.

Please don’t do anything. Obama, let’s not talk about that. In the meantime, he’s making nuclear weapons. He had a test, they had a test of a nuclear weapon about a year ago, and it registered as an 8.6. Now, you heard of that, on the Richter scale, right? So they said, “man, there was an earthquake.” Eight point six someplace in Asia. Where was it? Oh it was in North Korea. It wasn’t — it was a nuclear test, and it shifted a mountain — it was a real mountain. This isn’t like a little, you know, 10-foot deal. It’s not a hill. And it actually shifted. That’s the power. So they’re all saying, his rhetoric is terrible and so tough. Little Rocket Man, you know all this stuff. It’s so terrible. He’s going to get us into a war. Well, you know what’s going to get us into a war is weakness. [Applause.] [Unintelligible.] Massive sanctions on North Korea.
Massive, like nobody’s ever been sanctioned. And in all fairness, China has really helped at the border. They could help more, but they’ve done more for us than they’ve done for any president, that I can tell you.
So here’s a funny subject — everybody’s saying, oh, he’s going to get us in trouble, in trouble. Then three weeks ago, you hear, we’d love to go to the Olympics and participate.
Everybody’s like, what? Where did that come from? So they participate in the Olympics, that’s nice. Then the delegation comes over from South Korea and they just left North Korea, and they said Mr. President, Kim Jong Un would love to meet with you. And he will not do any testing and he will not do missile launches and he would love to meet with you. I said really? Well. That’s good. I said how did that happen. And he said well, you’re having an impact. They go out to the press, and the press is there, they were — you never saw so many reporters. Because they heard there was a big announcement on North Korea. So the worst, like CNN, you know, fake news?
Erin Burnett said this could make him a great president. [Applause.] Right? She said it. She’ll probably lose her job.

But she actually said that — this could make him a great president. Even the worst — for two hours, three hours they couldn’t believe. They said, did you hear what ha — they’re looking at each other. Can you believe? Where did this come from, after 25, 30 years, where did this come from?
You believe what just come from after 25, 30 years from. And then it happened. A day later, “Obama could have done that, too.” Obama could not have done it. [“No way,” crowd replies.]

It’s really, you know, it’s really sad. Now, it was almost, you had to smile, because it’s so out of control. But what I heard — and I woke up the next morning and said, finally I’m getting some great stuff — because got things, the taxes, the this, they were — a lot of stuff.
Our military’s stronger now, and we just got 700 billion dollars. We have to build it because it’s totally depleted. We don’t have our military, we’re not going to be here. We’ll be walking into the doors. [Unintelligible.] [Applause.] It’s jobs.

We make the greatest equipment in the world right down the street with Boeing and other places. And it’s jobs. But we have no choice. But when I heard that, I said, I wake up and I just heard the greatest statements from MSNBC, from CNN, from all the haters. I hear these — they couldn’t believe it.
Reporters. Professionals. The ones you see hating all the time. I say, this is the most incredible thing, we’ve never seen anything like it.

But by the time you woke up the next morning, they had a new line: Anybody could’ve done it. Obama could have met. Bush could have met. I don’t know how many Bush fans are in here. But Bush could have — [Laughter.] But they couldn’t have met. Because nobody would’ve done what I did to set the table.

And this suffering, I don’t want them to suffer. But they’re suffering. Lack of food, lack of everything. Nobody would’ve done that.
So you see the narrative change, because now they’re saying it will take at least two months to be able to negotiate. And so these are the people who say you will take two months to be able to negotiate. He shouldn’t go there. And the greatest line is, President Trump has agreed to meet — these are people who say I can’t believe it. Unbelievable. This is great news. This is the biggest thing that’s happened in 40 years. The next day: President Trump has conceded a meeting with Kim Jong Un. Because he has met, he has already given them a victory because he’s agreed to meet. I mean [unintelligible] media, right? [Applause.] The greatest is when, you know, you’re watching them, and these are the people who were so afraid it was going to be — and then they say, and they say it was incredible and then they get back and their bosses tell them what to say. But they say maybe he’s not the one to negotiate.
He’s got, he’s got very little knowledge of the Korean Peninsula, and maybe he’s not the one. Maybe we should send in the people that have been playing games and didn’t know what the hell they’ve been doing for 25 years. [Applause.] [Unintelligible.] What we’re finding there, and I don’t know if you are now, is, it’s a beautiful young, beautiful couple that everybody thinks is a star, and he is a star, and I don’t know how the press treats you. [Unintelligible.] [Laughter.] Enjoy it while you can.

The better you do, the worse they’ll [unintelligible.] And I tell this Korea story because it was, it was somewhat of a miracle. It’s actually far ahead of schedule. And you know, you hear that we’re making a major concession by agreeing to the meeting, you know, it’s the craziest thing. But go back a couple of weeks earlier and listen to what — they were petrified. [Unintelligible.] They were afraid of being blown up. Then all of a sudden they say let’s not meet.

So we are always a little bit of a disadvantage because of the media, and you have it here, I know you have it here too. But the advantage we have is the people are really smart. When I did the tariffs — and basically what I’m really saying, it’s not so much tariffs, it’s really saying we can’t be taking advantage of anymore by these people that come in and dump everything into our country and destroy our mills and destroy our workers and destroy everything. So when I did the tariffs, most people understand what I’m doing is fighting for them, I’m fighting for these companies that are being abandoned and the jobs that are being abandoned.
And that’s why we have a lot of companies moving back in.
I mean seriously, when you see what’s happening you look — we’re renegotiating NAFTA right now. I don’t know that we can make it good.

I tell people openly, because the best deal is to terminate it and then make a new deal. But I don’t know that we can make a deal because Mexico is so spoiled with this horrible deal that they’ve lived with, from our standpoint horrible.
So think of it, Mexico makes more than a hundred billion dollars a year on the United States. Now, how stupid is this.
But sometimes something is so good that you can’t — how do you? The best way? Terminate, let’s start all over again. Let’s start all over again. But some of the politicians are afraid to terminate, oh, we don’t want to terminate NAFTA. Take a look at these empty mills all over the place, that they turn into nursing homes, you know. Nice solid walls on the outside. But, it’s — it just can’t be.

I really think we’re making the point a lot of people are digging it. I will tell you, the people that really count, which is you, the workers, everybody, they’re really understanding what’s going on. Nobody’s done what I’m doing. I mean it’s sort of really virgin territory.
It’s absolutely virgin territory. It’s territory that our country for 50 or 60 or 70 years has not wanted to go there. They just haven’t for whatever reason.
And our wealth has been taken, our jobs have been taken, our companies have moved, and now they’re starting to move back. So it’s, it’s a formula that is, it’s just absolute — there’s disruption, there’s anger. And just remember, our friends that everybody says — our allies, our allies are wonderful — I love our allies. Our allies care about themselves, they don’t care about us. You look at our trade deficit with these countries are our allies. It’s unbelievable. And they understand it. I don’t blame them.
I told Japan — so we lose 100 billion dollars a year with Japan — 100 billion. So why aren’t we taxing their cars when they come in. Then we’d lose nothing. We might even make something. And you know what they’re going to do, they’re going to say we don’t want to pay that tax, so let’s build plants in the United States. They already have some. But they’ll expand them and they’ll build new plants. Because they don’t want to pay the tax — I want them to build new plants in the United States. Let them make United States here — like China makes them do, we have a company, they want to build planes over there, hate to say it, Boeing is being forced to build plants. I don’t like that, I don’t like it, so I’m not saying China’s wrong. I was with President Xi, I was with a big group of people, and I was saying how China is ripping off the United States. And he’s like “woo, this is uncomfortable.” [Laughter.] 700 press. I’m saying China is ripping off our — but I don’t blame you. I say, it’s great that you were able to do it for yourselves. I blame the people that represented our country, because they were not doing their job — they were delinquent in allowing this to happen to us. So we owe 21 trillion dollars. We lose 800 billion a year.
Josh will say, I don’t think I’m going to ruin [unintelligible.] Think of it, Josh. We lose 800 billion a year on trade. Who made these deals? Who made these deals?

Then you have certain people that think it’s okay to lose 800. You know, these worldly people. You know why they’re worldly people, because they have stuff on the other side. [Laughter.] That’s what it is. Can’t be any other reason. But we lose 800 billion dollars a year on trade. We lose our jobs, we lose everything.

And it’s not happening anymore, because it’s starting to come back. But over the next few months, you’re going to find it even more interesting. Because things are really — you know, we have, statutorily you have to do this, this, this, wait 90 days, wait six months, you can’t do it, you’re not allowed to legally. We have agreements that are so bad.

We have one agreement with a trade. I said when does that agreement terminate, it’s terrible. Sir, there is no termination. I said, what do you mean? We don’t have the right to term — I said, well, okay, after 10 years, 20 years. No sir, there is no right of term — I said what the hell kind of — So you know what I did, I just terminated. [Applause.]
Which would mean that’s, we’ll call it unconstitutional. There’s no end date. There’s no nothing. I’ll give you another example, Mexico, so they have this great deal. The day it was signed, it was a bad deal, because they have a 16 percent VAT tax, and we don’t. So they were already up 16 percent before the deal. And nobody saw that. And by the time they realized it, the deal was gone. But instead of adjusting the deal — what was that, 30 years ago when it was first signed — instead of adjusting the deal, we lived with it. What the hell difference does it make?

So they had a 16 percent step up advantage on us, and they have for many years. And Mexico and Canada — and, by the way, Canada, they negotiate tougher than Mexico. Trudeau came to see me, he’s a good guy, Justin. He said, no, no, we have no trade deficit with you, we have none. Donald, please. Nice guy, good-looking, comes in — Donald, we have no trade deficit — he was very proud, because everybody else you know were getting killed with our, so he’s [unintelligible]. I said wrong, Justin, you do. I didn’t even know. Josh, I had no idea. I just said, you’re wrong. You know why? Because we’re so stupid. [Unintelligible, laughter] And I thought they were smart.
I said you’re wrong, Justin. He said, Nope, we have no trade deficit. I said, Well, in that case, I feel differently, I said, but I don’t believe it. I sent one of our guys out, his guy, my guy, they went out, I said, Check, because I can’t believe it.

Well sir you’re actually right. We have no deficit, but that doesn’t include energy and timber. But when you do we lose 17 billion dollars a year. It’s incredible. So you’re in good hands. And I need Josh to help [unintelligible]. [Applause.]
Claire McCaskill is a guaranteed negative vote on every single thing that you people stand for, and frankly that a vast majority of the people of Missouri stand for. It is a negative vote for our country. And you have to defeat Claire McCaskill. Last time she get very lucky. She got lucky — she was going to lose. That was a done deal. And then, something happened. I was watching, I said, oh! What happened. That was big! The next day I said, oh yeah, I was right, I watched that.
So you got to get her out. Bad for Missouri, bad for the country. And this is going to be a great United States senator. Thank you very much. [Applause.]

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As transcripts of Donald Trump’s conversations and interviews continue to roll out [authorized or not], we are getting a behind-the-scenes look at how he really operates. For instance, he has repeatedly bragged that he is the world’s best deal-maker and negotiator. But when a transcript emerged of a phone call he had with Mexico’s president, it revealed a Trump who was inept at getting what he wanted, and who essentially pleaded with Pena Nieto to help him out.

The New York times has posted the transcript, with annotations indicating where Trump  threatened, exaggerated, got his facts wrong, privately backtracked on his big campaign pledge to build a wall and make Mexico pay for it, and tried to instruct Pena Nieto on how to talk about the wall in public. The annotated version makes it clear that—as usual—Trump often has no idea of what he is talking about, throws around numbers that don’t add up, and has not done his homework before making this call.

For me, though, there’s another significant revelation in this transcript: Trump’s negotiating “style” is mostly about creating a continuous, overpowering wave of words, whether they add up to anything meaningful or not. He’s not at all artful. He’s just trying to out-talk the other guy, to wear him down in order to get him to say yes. So, this is how Trump negotiates: under-informed and over-talked. He doesn’t sound very masterful here. Maybe he should change the name of his book from The Art of the Deal to The Art of the Desperate Appeal. 

In this case, “yes” would mean that Pena Nieto agrees—not to pay for the border wall that Trump has been touting for two years—but to stop saying publicly that he won’t pay for it. Reading the transcript of this section of the conversation, I get the impression that Trump is just trying to drown Pena Nieto in verbiage.

But as he attempts to get Pena Nieto to give him political cover for a situation Trump has created for himself, he starts sounding pretty desperate. Some people have described it as “begging.” Clearly, what is important to him is not maintaining goodwill with our closest neighbors, nor is it understanding the nature of our economic interactions with Mexico. As you read this section of the transcript, Trump’s own words bear out what can no longer be called speculation about his priorities: his main concern is himself and how he is perceived by his base. Everything else is secondary to that. To borrow an interjection that Trump himself often uses in his tweets: “Sad!”

Call it what you will. If this is how our president talks with the leaders of other countries, he deserves to be the subject of international derision that he is rumored to be.

Pena Nieto:

You have a very big mark on our back, Mr. President, regarding who pays for the wall. This is what I suggest, Mr. President – let us stop talking about the wall. I have recognized the right of any government to protect its borders as it deems necessary and convenient. But my position has been and will continue to be very firm saying that Mexico cannot pay for that wall.

Trump

The only thing I will ask you though is on the wall, you and I both have a political problem. My people stand up and say, “Mexico will pay for the wall” and your people probably say something in a similar but slightly different language. But the fact is we are both in a little bit of a political bind because I have to have Mexico pay for the wall – I have to. I have been talking about it for a two year period, and the reason I say they are going to pay for the wall is because Mexico has made a fortune out of the stupidity of U.S. trade representatives. They are beating us at trade and they are beating us at the border, and they are killing us with drugs. Now I know you are not involved with that, but regardless of who is making all the money, billions and billions and billions – some people say more – is being made on drug trafficking that is coming through Mexico. Some people say that the business of drug trafficking is bigger than the business of taking our factory jobs. So what I would like to recommend is – if we are going to have continued dialogue – we will work out the wall. They are going to say, “who is going to pay for the wall, Mr. President?” to both of us, and we should both say, “we will work it out.” It will work out in the formula somehow. As opposed to you saying, “we will not pay” and me saying, “we will not pay.”

Because you and I are both at a point now where we are both saying we are not to pay for the wall. From a political standpoint, that is what we will say. We cannot say that anymore because if you are going to say that Mexico is not going to pay for the wall, then I do not want to meet with you guys anymore because I cannot live with that. I am willing to say that we will work it out, but that means it will come out in the wash and that is okay. But you cannot say anymore that the United States is going to pay for the wall. I am just going to say that we are working it out. Believe it or not, this is the least important thing that we are talking about, but politically this might be the most important talk about. But in terms of dollars – or pesos – it is the least important thing. I know how to build very inexpensively, so it will be much lower than these numbers I am being presented with, and it will be a better wall and it will look nice. And it will do the job.

The post Trump’s Mexico call: The Art of the Desperate Appeal appeared first on Occasional Planet.

After its Oval Office interview with Trump on July 25, 2017, the Wall Street Journal released highlights of what the newspaper considered the most newsworthy sections. But, as always, there was a lot more that didn’t make it to print—at first. Then, one week later, the full transcript was leaked to Politico. And, once again, Trump’s abject, know-nothing grasp of critical issues is on full display.

I have been reading the complete transcripts of these interviews since the first jaw-dropping one materialized in November 2016. They leave me speechless—unlike the president—and more frightened for the future of our country than anything else I’ve read about the empty person in a baggy suit who occupies the Oval Office. This is the man-boy unrehearsed, scriptless and spontaneous, responding to questions he doesn’t understand with “answers” he hasn’t thought about. If you want to know who this person is backstage, how his brain connects to his mouth, and what his “idea” of an “idea” is, these transcripts offer a primary, unfiltered source of information.

You can read the full transcript at Politico. If you choose not to, here are some excerpts that reveal a lot about how little Trump knows, how incoherently he speaks about things he doesn’t understand, and how a no-brainer president really sounds. No wonder the WSJ didn’t include these passages in its story and tried to suppress leaks.

On taxes:

I want to achieve growth. We’re the highest-taxed nation in the world, essentially, you know, of the size. But we’re the highest-taxed nation in the world. We have – nobody knows what the number is. I mean, it used to be, when we talked during the debate, 2 ½ trillion (dollars), right, when the most elegant person – right? I call him Mr. Elegant. I mean, that was a great debate. We did such a great job. But at that time I was talking $2 ½ trillion. I guess it’s 5 trillion (dollars) now. Whatever it is, it’s a lot more. So we have anywhere from 4 to 5 or even more trillions of dollars sitting offshore.

Comparing the US economy to those of other countries:

So I deal with foreign countries, and despite what you may read, I have unbelievable relationships with all of the foreign leaders. They like me. I like them. You know, it’s amazing. So I’ll call, like, major — major countries, and I’ll be dealing with the prime minister or the president. And I’ll say, how are you doing? Oh, don’t know, don’t know, not well, Mr. President, not well. I said, well, what’s the problem? Oh, GDP 9 percent, not well. And I’m saying to myself, here we are at like 1 percent, dying, and they’re at 9 percent and they’re unhappy. So, you know, and these are like countries, you know, fairly large, like 300 million people. You know, a lot of people say — they say, well, but the United States is large. And then you call places like Malaysia, Indonesia, and you say, you know, how many people do you have? And it’s pretty amazing how many people they have. So China’s going to be at 7 [percent] or 8 percent, and they have a billion-five, right? So we should do really well.

Trump is surprised by how many people there are in Malaysia and Indonesia. Note, too, how he does not understand why the fully developed US economy can’t grow at the same rate as a country like China or Indonesia, which are developing nations with more potential for rapid growth.

On NAFTA:

I’m looking for fairness… No, it means – look, our automobile industry has just left us and gone to Mexico – I mean, a big chunk of it. And it’s very unfair for them to take our companies, build their cars, and then sell the car back into our country with no tax. It’s very unfair. They fire all our people in Michigan and Ohio, and they take it, and they build a car. And now they sell the car back in with no tax. It’s not fair.

On estate and corporate taxes:

When George Steinbrenner died, like with the estate taxes, the estate paid nothing. And if he would have died like two weeks later, they would have paid 50 percent of the Yankees. That would have been the end of the team, right? He had very fine tax planners. But it hasn’t come up…

…We think we’re going to have tremendous growth. We think money’s going to come pouring into the country.

…Look, we’re losing companies. People don’t even realize how bad it is, but we’re losing companies every single day where they’re leaving because the taxes are too high. When we do this, we’ll have companies – I know companies that have left. They go to Ireland, they go to other – I own a lot of property in Ireland. They go to Ireland because of these incredible tax rates, and other places, right? We’ll have companies pouring back into our nation. I mean, it’s going to be – you know, it’s going to be beautiful.

I hope we can – I hope we can do the 15 percent, actually. By the way, 15 percent is not by any means the lowest, but at least we would go from the highest to one of the lower, lower taxes.

But those are just the “substantive” topics Trump tried to bullshit his way through. The interview also meanders to Jared Kushner [“…a really nice, smart guy…he’s a good—he’s a good boy”], the United Kingdom [“I mean, you don’t hear the word Britain anymore. It’s very interesting. It’s like, nope.”], and the infamous Boy Scout speech [“..I got a call from the head of the Boy Scouts saying it was the greatest speech that was ever made to them.”]

Look [to steal a word from Trump’s own limited repertoire of explanatory introductions], Trump can hire and fire communications directors and advisers until the lights go out, but he appears incapable of achieving command of the issues, is not interested in learning about them, and cannot talk about them without revealing his ignorance. And nowhere are those facts more evident than in the fact-free twilight zone of Trump’s transcribed interviews.

The post WSJ Interview transcript: More know-nothing bs from Trump appeared first on Occasional Planet.

I was so sure that, after transcripts of our dear leader’s earlier, shockingly incoherent ramblings were released, we would never again see such a thing. But yesterday, after essentially shutting out the press for days, Trump—perhaps having no TV to watch—impulsively decided to have a chitchat with the press as they all flew together to Paris.  And although what turned out to be a one-hour session was initially billed as off-the-record, today, the White House inexplicably released a full transcript of the conversation.

It’s as bad as ever—revealing Trump’s unfocused, irrational, incomprehensible “thinking,” his inability to get from the beginning to the end of a single sentence, and his complete lack of understanding of any issue. It’s really hard to believe that they released this. But they did, after [Bloomberg News reports] “Trump [incredibly] asked a reporter why she hadn’t reported on what he’d said the night before,” demonstrating that he either doesn’t know what “off-the-record” means, or he doesn’t remember much about the conversation.

You can read the full transcript here. But if you can’t bear it to see every word, here are some excerpts. Buckle up. And remember, this is a transcript released by the Trump White House: It’s probably somewhat cleaned up–and yet, it is still incredibly idiotic.

Q: When were you last in Paris? When were you last in France?

So, I was asked to go by the President, who I get along with very well, despite a lot of fake news.  You know, I actually have a very good relationship with all of the people at the G20.  And he called me, he said, would you come, it’s Bastille Day — 100 years since World War I.  And I said, that’s big deal, 100 years since World War.

Bastille Day? World War I? History emergency…

On the border wall:

This is a doozy. It sounds as if someone asked him about government transparency, and instead he answered with an argument about needing a see-through wall.

One of the things with the wall is you need transparency.  You have to be able to see through it.  In other words, if you can’t see through that wall — so it could be a steel wall with openings, but you have to have openings because you have to see what’s on the other side of the wall.

And I’ll give you an example.  As horrible as it sounds, when they throw the large sacks of drugs over, and if you have people on the other side of the wall, you don’t see them — they hit you on the head with 60 pounds of stuff?  It’s over.  As crazy as that sounds, you need transparency through that wall.  But we have some incredible designs

On President Putin and Russia:

Q: Are you mad that Putin lied about the meeting that you had with him, especially about —

Trump:  What meeting?

Q : At the G20, when he said that you didn’t — you know, you accepted that the hacking wasn’t real.

Trump:  He didn’t say that.  No.  He said, I think he accepted it, but you’d have to ask him.  That’s a big difference.  So I said, very simply — and the first 45 minutes, don’t forget, most of the papers said I’d never bring it up.  Had to be the first 20 to 25 minutes.

Remember, no one on the US side was taking notes, so there’s no official record of what transpired during that meeting–except for Rex Tillerson’s spin. It sounds as though Trump doesn’t have a very clear memory of what was discussed.

…And, by the way, I only want to make great deals with Russia. Remember this, I have built up—we’re getting $57 billion more for the military. Hillary was going to cut the military. I’m a tremendous fracker, coal, natural gas, alternate energy, wind—everything, right? But I’m going to produce much much more energy that anyone else who was ever running for office. Ever. We’re going to have clean coal, and Hillary wasn’t. Hillary was going to stop fracking. She was going to stop coal totally. Hey, in West Virginia I beat her by 42 points. Remember, she went and sat with the miners and they said get the hell out of here. So, I was going to—if Hillary got in, your energy prices right now would be double. You’d be doing no fracking. You’d be doing practically no fossil fuels.

He’s a “tremendous fracker.” Interesting way to describe oneself. He is, indeed, a huge motherfracker.

On Russian sanctions:

I saw a report and I read a report that Trump wants to take off the sanctions. I’ve made a lot of money. I’ve made great deals. That’s what I do. Why would I take sanctions off without getting anything?

Several times during the wing-side chat, Trump makes a point of saying that he has “read” reports. Yeah, right. And, of course, it all gets back, always, to Donald Trump the amazing deal-maker.

On allegations of collusion with Russia:

Trump begins with the witch hunt argument, repeats it several times, and then blames it all on Democrats. If you can understand the logic that follows, you’re a better sleuth than I am:

…It’s a witch hunt and [the Democrats} understand that. When they say “treason”—you know what treason is? That’s Julius and Ethel Rosenberg for giving the atomic bomb, okay? But what about all the congressmen, where I see the woman sitting there surrounded by—in Congress. So I think it’s a good thing When Hillary spent her ads—you know, she spent almost 100 percent of her ads on anti-Donald Trump ads. You know that. Every ad was an anti ad.

On Putin’s alleged support for Trump:

So, the next time I’m with Putin, I’m going to ask him: who were you really for? Because I can’t believe that he would have been for me. Me. Strong military, strong borders—but he cares less about the borders—but strong military, tremendous.

The release of the transcript indicates to me that Trump believes that he handled the interview well, and that he is, indeed, the best spokesperson for himself. So much for self-awareness. We need to keep reading these things, as they offer prima facie evidence of Trump’s ineptness, absence of ideas or substance, his giant ego, and his inability to move beyond his win over Hillary Clinton. This is who Trump is. There has never been, and never will be, another more presidential version. Transcripts don’t lie, and that’s why I love them.

The post Trump talks: A new transcript, from Air Force One “wingside chat” appeared first on Occasional Planet.

The Associated Press has released the full transcript of its April 21, 2017 interview with Donald Trump, and it’s another doozy in a growing series of transcripts you wish you’d never had to read. We are, unfortunately, becoming accustomed to the lies, exaggerations, flip-flops, and denials of having said what he is on record for saying—and those characteristics permeate this interview transcript from start to finish. I will leave the fact-checking to others, but suffice it to say that there are large chunks of baloney throughout.

Even more disturbing, though, is the rambling incoherence of Trump’s responses to AP reporter Julie Pace’s questions. In publishing the transcript, the AP includes an explanation that says: “Where the audio recording of the interview is unclear, ellipses or a notation that the recording was unintelligible are used.” It’s a good thing they included that disclaimer, because the transcript contains at least 15 remarks that the AP labeled “unintelligible,” and many ellipses indicating that transcribers couldn’t figure out what he was talking about.

Reading through the transcript, one thing is quite clear, though: After nearly 100 days in office, Trump has no better understanding of what he’s doing than he did on Day 1. He is as incoherent as ever. He is still parroting the ideas and policies of whoever he spoke to most recently, even when those most-recent whisperings directly controvert things he’s said before. He is still making up facts. He is not becoming more knowledgeable or more presidential: There’s only one Donald Trump—the one who bullshits his way through everything, blatantly lies, claims victory where there is none, is delusional about his abilities and accomplishments, and takes no responsibility for any mistakes or offensive utterings.

The interview starts weirdly. Without even being asked, Trump gratuitously brags about securing the release of an Egyptian aid worker, boasting that Obama failed in that effort, getting “zero, zippo.” Then, again without being asked, he declares that he had “great chemistry” with German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

The incoherence continues throughout. Here are some examples:

Trump on the cost of military equipment

TRUMP: A little before I took office there was a terrible article about the F-35 fighter jet. It was hundreds of billions of dollars over budget. It was seven years behind schedule. It was a disaster. So I called in Lockheed and I said, “I’m sorry, we’re going to have to bid this out to another company, namely Boeing,” or whoever else. But Boeing. And I called in Boeing and I started getting competing offers back and forth. …

I saved $725 million on the 90 planes. Just 90. Now there are 3,000 planes that are going to be ordered. On 90 planes I saved $725 million. It’s actually a little bit more than that, but it’s $725 million. Gen. Mattis, who had to sign the deal when it came to his office, said, “I’ve never seen anything like this in my life.” We went from a company that wanted more money for the planes to a company that cut. And the reason they cut — same planes, same everything — was because of me. I mean, because that’s what I do.

TRUMP: Now if you multiply that times 3,000 planes, you know this is on 90 planes. In fact, when the Prime Minister (Shinzo) Abe of Japan came in because they bought a certain number of those … The first thing he said to me, because it was right at the time I did it, he said, “Could I thank you?” I said, “What?” He said, “You saved us $100 million.” Because they got a $100 million savings on the 10 or 12 planes that they (bought). Nobody wrote that story. Now you know that’s a saving of billions and billions of dollars, many billions of dollars over the course of — it’s between 2,500 and 3,000 planes will be the final order. But this was only 90 of those 2,500 planes.

Trump on China

TRUMP: There has to be flexibility. Let me give you an example. President Xi, we have a, like, a really great relationship. For me to call him a currency manipulator and then say, “By the way, I’d like you to solve the North Korean problem,” doesn’t work. So you have to have a certain flexibility, Number One. Number Two, from the time I took office till now, you know, it’s a very exact thing. It’s not like generalities. Do you want a Coke or anything?

AP: I’m OK, thank you. No. …

TRUMP: But President Xi, from the time I took office, he has not, they have not been currency manipulators. Because there’s a certain respect because he knew I would do something or whatever. But more importantly than him not being a currency manipulator the bigger picture, bigger than even currency manipulation, if he’s helping us with North Korea, with nuclear and all of the things that go along with it, who would call, what am I going to do, say, “By the way, would you help us with North Korea? And also, you’re a currency manipulator.” It doesn’t work that way.

AP: Right.

TRUMP: And the media, some of them get it, in all fairness. But you know some of them either don’t get it, in which case they’re very stupid people, or they just don’t want to say it. You know because of a couple of them said, “He didn’t call them a currency manipulator.” Well, for two reasons. Number One, he’s not, since my time. You know, very specific formula. You would think it’s like generalities, it’s not. They have — they’ve actually — their currency’s gone up. So it’s a very, very specific formula. And I said, “How badly have they been,” … they said, “Since you got to office they have not manipulated their currency.” That’s Number One, but much more important, they are working with us on North Korea. Now maybe that’ll work out or maybe it won’t. Can you imagine? …

Trump’s understanding of the presidency

This section is one of the most troubling. Obviously, Trump came into the White House with almost no understanding of the role and scope of the presidency—except that it sounded great on his resume and it involved winning. But it is still shocking to read his actual words describing his surprise at how big the job is and how it involves “death and life and so many things,” and how it requires “heart.”

TRUMP: Number One, there’s great responsibility. When it came time to, as an example, send out the 59 missiles, the Tomahawks in Syria. I’m saying to myself, “You know, this is more than just like, 79 (sic) missiles. This is death that’s involved,” because people could have been killed. This is risk that’s involved, because if the missile goes off and goes in a city or goes in a civilian area — you know, the boats were hundreds of miles away — and if this missile goes off and lands in the middle of a town or a hamlet …. every decision is much harder than you’d normally make. (unintelligible) … This is involving death and life and so many things. … So it’s far more responsibility. (unintelligible) ….The financial cost of everything is so massive, every agency. This is thousands of times bigger, the United States, than the biggest company in the world. The second-largest company in the world is the Defense Department. The third-largest company in the world is Social Security. The fourth-largest — you know, you go down the list.

AP: Right.

TRUMP. It’s massive. And every agency is, like, bigger than any company. So you know, I really just see the bigness of it all, but also the responsibility. And the human responsibility. You know, the human life that’s involved in some of the decisions.

___

AP: You’ve talked a little bit about the way that you’ve brought some business skills into the office. Is there anything from your business background that just doesn’t translate into the presidency,  that just simply is not applicable to this job?

TRUMP: Well in business, you don’t necessarily need heart, whereas here, almost everything affects people. So if you’re talking about health care — you have health care in business but you’re trying to just negotiate a good price on health care, et cetera, et cetera. You’re providing health. This is (unintelligible). Here, everything, pretty much everything you do in government, involves heart, whereas in business, most things don’t involve heart.

AP: What’s that switch been like for you?

TRUMP: In fact, in business you’re actually better off without it.

Additional ramblings

There are some topics that Trump just can’t resist, and he blathers on about all of them in this interview, even if he’s not asked to comment on them: Winning the electoral vote even though Hillary Clinton had a huge advantage; the dishonest press, his unfair treatment by the press and “fake” news; how many people in Congress love him—including [incredibly] Congressman John Lewis; his ability to generate the highest tv ratings; his “10-0” track record in clairvoyantly knowing that certain acts of violence were terrorist attacks.

And then there’s this: Trump’s revelation that he has “learned” to not watch negative coverage of himself on tv. Clearly, as a tv addict, he views this recently acquired skill of averting his eyes—particularly from CNN—as a major personal accomplishment. You just have to read it to believe it:

TRUMP: OK. The one thing I’ve learned to do that I never thought I had the ability to do. I don’t watch CNN anymore.

AP: You just said you did.

TRUMP: No. No, I, if I’m passing it, what did I just say (inaudible)?

AP: You just said —

TRUMP: Where? Where?

AP: Two minutes ago.

TRUMP: No, they treat me so badly. No, I just said that. No, I, what’d I say, I stopped watching them. But I don’t watch CNN anymore. I don’t watch MSNBC. I don’t watch it. Now I heard yesterday that MSNBC, you know, they tell me what’s going on.

AP: Right.

TRUMP: In fact, they also did. I never thought I had the ability to not watch. Like, people think I watch (MSNBC’s) “Morning Joe.” I don’t watch “Morning Joe.” I never thought I had the ability to, and who used to treat me great by the way, when I played the game. I never thought I had the ability to not watch what is unpleasant, if it’s about me. Or pleasant. But when I see it’s such false reporting and such bad reporting and false reporting that I’ve developed an ability that I never thought I had. I don’t watch things that are unpleasant. I just don’t watch them.

AP: And do you feel like that’s, that’s because of the office that you now occupy —

TRUMP: No.

AP: That you’ve made that change?

TRUMP: I don’t know why it is, but I’ve developed that ability, and it’s happened over the last, over the last year.

AP: That’s interesting.

TRUMP: And I don’t watch things that I know are going to be unpleasant. CNN has covered me unfairly and incorrectly and I don’t watch them anymore. A lot of people don’t watch them anymore, they’re now in third place. But I’ve created something where people are watching … but I don’t watch CNN anymore. I don’t watch MSNBC anymore. I don’t watch things, and I never thought I had that ability. I always thought I’d watch.

AP: Sure.

TRUMP: I just don’t. And that’s taken place over the last year. And you know what that is, that’s a great, it’s a great thing because you leave, you leave for work in the morning you know, you’re, you don’t watch this total negativity. I never thought I’d be able to do that and for me, it’s so easy to do now. Just don’t watch.

Bottom line: We have an idiot—an extremely dangerous and powerful idiot—in the White House.

The post Transcript of Trump’s AP interview: Unintelligible and incoherent, as usual appeared first on Occasional Planet.

I watched Trump’s insane press conference today. According to some reporting, it came as a surprise even to his top staff. Apparently, he just wanted to get out there and vent — and also distract attention from the “what did he know and when did he know it” question — and put out some red meat for the base. Note that, on Saturday, Feb. 18, he will be holding a campaign rally in Melbourne, Florida–a rally paid for by the Trump re-election campaign [he filed for re-election on Inauguration Day]–not a White House event. But I digress. It’s contagious.

I didn’t take notes as I watched the press melee. It was too painful. But here’s what I came away with–not necessarily in chronological order, and not verbatim. [You can check the accuracy of my impressions by watching the whole sorry affair on YouTube or DVR or by reading the transcript. My heart goes out to the unlucky person charged with creating the transcription as he/she tried to keep up with the digressions, zigzags, flights of fancy, lies, accusations, complaints, circular and non-linear word streams, and evasions].

Here’s what I heard — when I wasn’t yelling at the tv:

I’m doing this today because the dishonest press won’t report the truth. CNN is full of hatred. My administration is working like a well-tuned machine. I won because of the many press conferences I gave — just about every day, or whenever I gave a speech. I have no contacts, no deals, no debt in Russia. Hillary got debate questions in advance and no one reported on it. We had a very smooth rollout of the travel ban, but we had a bad court. The leaks are real–the news is fake. DACA is one of the toughest issues for me to deal with because I love kids–I have them–but some DACA kids are in gangs.

The inner cities are hell, worse than Afghanistan or anyplace where we are fighting. I want friendly questions. BBC — there’s another beauty. Fake news.  Tomorrow’s headlines will say “Trump ranted and raved.” I’m not ranting and raving. I’m not going to tell you what I will do about Russian ships near Connecticut or Russian airplanes buzzing our ships, and I’m not going to tell you what I’m going to do about Mosul.

Does anybody in this room really believe that HIllary Clinton would be tougher on Russia than me? I won the election by the largest Electoral margin ever. We should get along with Russia. I might make a deal with Russia, but maybe I won’t. Hillary Clinton gave Russia 20 percent of United States’ uranium. Do you know what uranium is? It’s nuclear weapons.

I am the least anti-Semitic person you’ll ever meet. If Mike Flynn hadn’t been speaking with the Russian ambassador, I would have told him to do that, because that’s his job. If he did it, I would have approved. I know of no one in my campaign who consulted with Russia during the campaign. Everybody already knew that Paul Manafort was a consultant — but not for Russia, for Ukraine or some people there.

Thank you for asking me a question about Melania. That’s a nice question. I like nice questions. She is fantastic.

We’re going to issue an executive order that follows the court ruling on the travel ban. Next week. I’m not going to tell you what today’s executive order is going to be about. We’re putting the finishing touches on Obamacare replacement plan. It’ll be ready in early March. Mid-March.

I appointed a new guy to be Secretary of Labor. He’s a genius. I’m having fun out here today.

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