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.

The post Top Trump official publishes devastating op-ed in New York Times [anonymously] appeared first on Occasional Planet.

In his latest interview with the New York Times [July 19, 2017], Donald Trump did what he always does: He rambled, flitted from topic to topic—sometimes in mid-sentence– garbled his words, talked about things for which he has limited knowledge, bragged, lied, got the facts wrong, strayed far afield from the topic at hand–and generally spewed strings of words that followed no logical sequence. Reading through the transcript of the interview, I tried to imagine what the New York Times reporters were thinking as they listened. My conclusion is that they had to tune in very closely to extrapolate what Trump was attempting to say.

So, when I watched MSNBC last night and saw New York Times reporter Michael Schmidt discussing the interview, I was surprised at how coherent he made Trump’s comments sound. Clearly, Schmidt was interpreting what Trump said, not quoting him directly. I fear that reporters have become so accustomed to mentally editing Trump’s word salads that they don’t even know they are doing it. To his credit, Schmidt does say, “It is difficult sometimes with the President because he speaks very quickly and says a lot of things and the conversation can meander.” But most of the of his report makes it sound as though Trump actually expressed coherent opinions.

It is always misguided to normalize Trump. His actual words are important—they reveal his way of “thinking,” and that is a scary thing to observe. Reporters who describe his “ideas” and “thoughts” as though they have been clearly expressed are doing Trump too much of a favor.

As with all the other transcripts that I have shared here, I highly recommend that you read the whole thing [although what the New York Times has released is an edited, excerpted version.]

If you don’t want to do that, here’s some of what Michael Schmidt said on MSNBC’s “All In With Chris Hayes” on July 19, 2017, coupled with Trump’s actual words.

What Schmidt said:

He is clearly disappointed in Sessions…

What Trump actually said, and the tone in which he said it, says a lot more than he was “disappointed:”

Well, Sessions should have never recused himself, and if he was going to recuse himself, he should have told me before he took the job, and I would have picked somebody else.

Q: He gave you no heads up at all, in any sense?

Trump: Zero. So Jeff Sessions takes the job, gets into the job, recuses himself. Then I have—which frankly, I think is very unfair to the president. How do you take a job and then recuse yourself? If he would have recused himself before the job, I would have said, “Thanks, Jeff, but I can’t, you know, I’m not going to take you.” It’s extremely unfair, and that’s a mild word, to the president. So he recuses himself,. I then end up with a second man, who’s a deputy.

…Yeah, what Jeff Sessions did was he recused himself right after, right after he became attorney general. And I said, “Why didn’t you tell me this before?” I would have –then I said, “who’s your deputy?” So he deputy he hardly kew, and that’s Rosenstein, Rod Rosenstein, who is from Baltimore. There are very few Republicans in Baltimore, if any. So, he’s from Baltimore.”

How Schmidt characterized Trump’s thoughts on special counsel Robert Mueller:

Trump is clearly upset about the fact that Mueller has been appointed and that he is looking at these different issues and that Mueller has the ability to take his investigation where he may.

…He wouldn’t commit to firing Mueller, but he did say there is a red line. He didn’t define what he meant as a violation. But he clearly sees Muller’s purview as looking into Russia…

What Trump actually said:

Q: If Muller was looking at your finances and your family finances unrelated to Russia—is that a red line?

Trump:

I would say yeah. I would say yes. By the way, I would say, I don’t—I don’t—I mean, it’s possible that there’s a condo or something, so, you know, I sell a lot of condo units, and somebody from Russia buys a condo, who knows? I don’t make money from Russia. In fact, I put out a letter saying that I don’t make—from one of the most highly respected law firms, accounting firms. I don’t have buildings in Russia They said I own buildings in Russia. I don’t. They said I made money from Russia. I don’t. It’s not my thing. I don’t. I don’t do that…

…Look, this is about Russia. So I think if he wants to go, my finances are extremely good, my company is an unbelievably successful company. Ad actually, when I do my filings, people say, “Man.” People have no idea how successful this is. It’s a great company. But I don’t even think about the company any more. I think about this. ‘Cause one thing, when you do this, companies seem very trivial, OK? I really mean that. They seem very trivial. But I have no income from Russia. I don’t do business with Russia. The gentleman that you mentioned, with his son two nice people. But basically, they brought the Miss Universe pageant to Russia to open up, you know, one of their jobs. Perhaps the convention center where it was held. It was a nice evening, and I left. I left, you know, I left Moscow. It wasn’t Moscow, it was outside of Moscow.

Q: Would you fire Mueller if we went outside of certain parameters of what his charge is?

Trump: I can’t. I can’t answer that question because I don’t think it’s going to happen.

Like all reporters, Schmidt was looking for the nugget, the money quote, a good lead for a story. So the New York Times led with the Sessions quotes. When you read, or listen to the transcript, there’s a lot more: Much unsolicited ado about Hillary, a lengthy riff on the wonderful Bastille Day celebration, something about Andrew McCabe’s wife getting money, Nixon, and more.

Here’s a section in which Trump tries to explain away the infamous meeting his son had at Trump Tower in June 2016. One reporter asked him what he thought about the email that triggered the meeting:

Well, I thought originally it might have something to do with the payment by Russia of the DNC, or the Democrats. Somewhere I heard that. Like, it was an illegal act done by the DNC or the Democrats. That’s what I had heard. Now, I don’t know where I heard it, but I had heard that it had to do something with illegal acts with respect to the DNC Now, you, know, when you look at the kind of stuff that came out, that, was, that was some pretty horrific things came out of that. But that’s what I had heard. But I don’t know what it means. All I know is this: When somebody calls up and they says, “We have infor—“ Look, what they did to me with Russia, and it was totally phony stuff.”

Unfortunately, we are all becoming inured to Trump’s stream of semi-consciousness, fill-the-vacuum uninformed incoherence. But his inability to make sense when he speaks is a story in itself, and we must not let Trump-scandal fatigue allow this to go un-noted, or characterized as business as usual. We ignore it, normalize it, and accept it as “that’s just Trump”  at our own peril.

The post Latest NY Times Trump transcript: Why do reporters clean it up for TV? 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.

Today, our new president invited 20 or so people to the White House to dutifully celebrate Black History Month [something he’s probably given little previous thought to.]  He did it in his own clumsy, rambling, self-serving way. You can watch the entire video of his remarks here, or below, or you can read the full transcript.

This is another glimpse into how Trump conducts himself in less-visible meetings and casual settings. He’s still in campaign mode, still unable to focus on the task at hand, still angry and lashing out at people who don’t give him proper adulation. Personally, I thought he seemed uncomfortable, but he probably thought his event was a home run and that he charmed the group with his quips and off-the-cuff remarks. [One troubling aspect of the meeting, for me, is how his audience kisses up to him after his brief remarks, tells him they “have his back,” and treats him as though he is doing a great job.] If you watch the video, be sure to stick around after the “formal” remarks to hear what his guests say, and how he responds–that’s not in this transcript. Some of it made me cringe.

The transcript and the video demonstrate, once again, what we are unfortunately becoming accustomed to: A few scripted words about the event itself, but many, many more impromptu, off-topic words about Trump himself, his glorious victory, his great campaign, fake news, the missing-not-missing statue of Martin Luther King in the White House, etc. Every so often, he remembers where he is and that this is a Black History Month event, so he throws in something about the only black people he sorta knows who are in the room with him, including Omarosa–from his favorite tv show, “The Apprentice.” He calls her “my television star over here, and as his attention wanders from the tedious job of acknowledging black history, he reminds us that she is not the meanie portrayed on tv. But she’s black, see, so the comments are appropriate for the occasion, right?

At one point he tries to pay homage to black history luminary Frederick Douglass [whom he probably never heard of before]. Here’s how that went:

“Frederick Douglass is an example of somebody who’s done an amazing job and is being recognized more and more, I noticed. Harriet Tubman, Rosa Parks, and millions more black Americans who made America what it is today. Big impact.”

Big deal: He can name check Tubman and Parks. Last week, my 7-year-old granddaughter did the same thing.

Trump also blathers–falsely, of course–about how much support he had in the black community during the election.

This is a great group, this is a group that’s been so special to me. You really helped me a lot. If you remember I wasn’t going to do well with the African-American community, and after they heard me speaking and talking about the inner city and lots of other things, we ended up getting—and I won’t go into details—but we ended up getting substantially more than other candidates who had run in the past years

Fact check: Trump got 8 percent of the black vote.

And here’s what he’s going to do for the black community:

We’re gonna need better schools and we need them soon. We need more jobs, we need better wages, a lot better wages. We’re gonna work very hard on the inner city. Ben is gonna be doing that, big league. That’s one of the big things that you’re gonna be looking at. We need safer communities and we’re going to do that with law enforcement. We’re gonna make it safe. We’re gonna make it much better than it is right now. Right now it’s terrible.

It’s more of the same incoherent, zigzagging babble we’ve heard and read in previous transcripts.

But it’s still not normal.

The post Trump’s Black History Month transcript: Not much history included appeared first on Occasional Planet.

Trump’s inaugural speech was a speech for the ages: The Dark Ages. If you couldn’t bear to watch it, you can gag your way through the full transcript here.  I watched and took notes. And what struck me was his repeated use of the language of demagoguery.

It was an angry, sabre-rattling, self-congratulatory and alarmingly nationalistic speech that offered a very dark view of America today. It was a speech that could have been delivered in 1933 Germany, when that country was in terrible shape after the devastation of World War I and at the onset of a worldwide economic Depression. That view, quite simply, does not jibe with the America of 2017, where unemployment is down, and the economy and the stock market are up. But Trump always plays to anger and resentment, via the false populism of a rich guy pretending to be the voice of the people.

He offered no positive vision or hope, no acknowledgment of previous presidents’ accomplishments, and no awareness that this was his inauguration, not another campaign rally. If you closed your eyes and listened, you could envision this speech being delivered in Moscow’s Red Square, simply by substituting “Russia” for “America.” It was a sickening display that portends troubling days ahead.

The speech’s only positive attribute was that it was short, as Inaugural speeches go. But that’s because Trump himself is short on ideas.

Here are excerpts from my notes, emphasizing the words and phrases that his speechwriter [who should be ashamed of himself for passing this off as an inaugural speech] copied out of the Demagogue’s Dictionary, or cribbed from speeches of previous authoritarians. The all-caps emphasis is mine:

“We are transferring POWER to you, THE PEOPLE.”

“That all changes now. This moment is your moment. The POWER now belongs to you.”

“Today, the people became the RULERS of this nation.”

“You are part of a historic MOVEMENT the likes of which the world has never seen before.”

“One heart, one home. We share one GLORIOUS DESTINY.”

“Today, we are issuing a new DECREE…”

‘It’s going to be AMERICA FIRST.”

“We will ERADICATE radical Islamic terrorism FROM THE FACE OF THE EARTH”

“LOYALTY”

“When you open your heart to PATRIOTISM, there is no room for prejudice.”

“When America is united, America is TOTALLY UNSTOPPABLE.”

“We will be protected by GOD”

“A new NATIONAL PRIDE”

“We all bleed the same RED BLOOD OF PATRIOTISM.”

“Our GLORIOUS FREEDOMS”

‘The same ALMIGHTY CREATOR.”

This is what authoritarians, dictators and demagogues sound like. We have now been warned, officially, and in no uncertain terms.

The post Trump’s inauguration transcript: A demagogue’s dictionary appeared first on Occasional Planet.

In an attempt to sound like he knows something about foreign policy, Donald Trump sat for an interview with Michael Gove, of the Times of London, and Kai Diekmann, former editor of Germany’s Bild newspaper, on Jan. 15, 2017.

Spoiler alert: He failed.

You can read the full transcript here, and I urge you to do so, because the Times’ own cleaned-up summary of the interview does not reflect his terrifying incoherence or his pathetic, superficial way of discussing international issues.

In its news report, The Times highlighted several areas of foreign policy touched upon [not deeply explored] during the interview [the ones of most interest to British and European readers]. Here are some excerpts that show how the Times condensed and scrubbed Trump’s answers in the lead paragraphs of their news report. Trying to find where the Times got the information for these keyword summaries of Trump’s positions is not easy: Clearly, the Times had to comb back through the transcript several times to cut and paste these points together. And that’s not easy, when the answers are as rambling and as shallow as Trump’s.

And yes, I know that cleaning up politicians’ quotes has been standard journalistic practice forever. But, in the case of Trump, it’s not just about removing a few ers and ums to help the speaker sound more articulate. Gleaning “ideas” from Trump’s “sentences” and “paragraphs” is like sifting through a toxic waste dump, trying to find an unused tissue. I think that it’s dishonest of the Times to make a person as incompetent and superficially informed as Trump sound like a normal politician who has thought things out. Maybe I missed something, but I didn’t notice that the Times included any characterization of Trump’s answers as “rambling.” Using the term “wide-ranging” as a euphemism for unfocused is not enough.

What the Times of London wrote:

[Trump] will agree a nuclear weapons reduction deal with President Putin of Russia in return for lifting US sanctions.

What Trump actually said:

Q: Do you support European sanctions against Russia?

A: Well, I think you know — people have to get together and people have to do what they have to do in terms of being fair. OK? They have sanctions on Russia — let’s see if we can make some good deals with Russia. For one thing, I think nuclear weapons should be way down and reduced very substantially, that’s part of it. But you do have sanctions and Russia’s hurting very badly right now because of sanctions, but I think something can happen that a lot of people are gonna benefit.

What the Times wrote:

He was highly critical of Russia’s intervention in Syria, however, describing it as “a very bad thing” that had led to a “terrible humanitarian situation”.

What Trump actually said:

Q: Do you think that what’s happened in Syria now with Putin intervening is a good thing or a bad thing?

A: Nah, I think it’s a very rough thing. It’s a very bad thing, we had a chance to do something when we had the line in the sand and it wasn’t — nothing happened. That was the only time — and now, it’s sort of very late. It’s too late. Now everything is over — at some point it will come to an end — but Aleppo was nasty. I mean when you see them shooting old ladies walking out of town — they can’t even walk and they’re shooting ’em — it almost looks like they’re shooting ’em for sport — ah no, that’s a terrible — that’s been a terrible situation. Aleppo has been such a terrible humanitarian situation.

What the Times wrote:

Orders will be signed next Monday to strengthen America’s borders, which could include travel restrictions on Europeans coming to the US as well as “extreme vetting” for those entering America from parts of the world known for Islamist terrorism.

What Trump actually said:

People don’t want to have other people coming in and destroying their country and you know in this country we’re gonna go very strong borders from the day I get in. One of the first orders I’m gonna sign – day one – which I will consider to be Monday as opposed to Friday or Saturday. Right? I mean my day one is gonna be Monday because I don’t want to be signing and get it mixed up with lots of celebration, but one of the first orders we’re gonna be signing is gonna be strong borders.

We don’t want people coming in from Syria who we don’t know who they are. You know there’s no way of vetting these people. I don’t want to do what Germany did.

[In another section of the transcript]  Q: You said during the campaign that you’d like to stop Muslims coming to the US. Is that still your plan?

A: Well, from various parts of the world that have lots of terrorism problems.

There will be extreme vetting, it’s not gonna be like it is now, they don’t even, we don’t even have real vetting. The vetting into this country is essentially non-existent as it is, as it was at least, with your country.

[From another section of the transcript] Q: Are there any travel restrictions that could be imposed on Europeans coming to the US?

Well, it could happen, I mean we’re gonna have to see. I mean, we’re looking at parts of Europe; parts of the world and parts of Europe, where we have problems where they come in and they’re gonna be causing problems. I don’t wanna have those problems. Look, I won the election because of strong borders and trade. And military, we’re gonna have strong military.

What the Times wrote:

He believes that Angela Merkel made a “catastrophic mistake” when she let more than a million migrants into Germany, adding that the EU had become “a vehicle for Germany”

What Trump actually said:

Q: When Obama came for his last visit to Berlin, he said that if he could vote in the upcoming election he would vote for Angela Merkel. Would you?

A: Well, I don’t know who she’s running against, number one, I’m just saying, I don’t know her, I’ve never met her. As I said, I’ve had great respect for her. I felt she was a great, great leader. I think she made one very catastrophic mistake and that was taking all of these illegals, you know taking all of the people from wherever they come from. And nobody even knows where they come from. You’ll find out, you got a big dose of it a week ago. So I think she made a catastrophic mistake, very bad mistake. Now, with that being said, I respect her, I like her, but I don’t know her. So I can’t talk about who I’m gonna be backing — if anyone.

[From another section of the transcript] Q: In your campaign you said Angela Merkel’s policy on Syrian refugees was insane. Do you still think so?

A: I think it’s not good. I think it was a big mistake for Germany. And Germany of all countries, ’cause Germany was one of the toughest in the world for having anybody go in, and, uh, no I think it was a mistake. And I’ll see her and I’ll meet her and I respect her. And I like her but I think it was a mistake. And people make mistakes but I think it was a very big mistake. I think we should have built safe zones in Syria. Would have been a lot less expensive. Uh, get the Gulf states to pay for ’em who aren’t coming through, I mean they’ve got money that nobody has.

Would have been a lot less expensive than the trauma that Germany’s going through now — but I would have said — you build safe zones in Syria. Look, this whole thing should have never happened. Iraq should not have been attacked in the first place, all right? It was one of the worst decisions, possibly the worst decision ever made in the history of our country. We’ve unleashed — it’s like throwing rocks into a beehive. It’s one of the great messes of all time. I looked at something, uh, I’m not allowed to show you because it’s classified – but, I just looked at Afghanistan and you look at the Taliban – and you take a look at every, every year its more, more, more, you know they have the different colours – and you say, you know – what’s going on?

To its credit, the Times did include some of Trump’s more egregious statements. But the Times still made Trump seem far too close to normal by reporting his statements as if they were those of a person who had actually considered the issues.

But how does any of this pass for foreign policy thinking? Of course, the main problem is that Trump has never thought about any of this—unless it had a tangential effect on his businesses’ bottom lines. You can tell that he’s been briefed recently—but not a lot of it appears to be sinking in, and what has sunk in reflects—as we have learned—what the last person he talked with said. He throws around the facts that he can remember and blusters and bullshits his way through the rest of it. His inarticulateness is, once again, on full display.

But another part of the problem is that, as you can see in the full transcript, the interviewers served up a lot of very soft questions. [“Is there anything else you take from having a Scottish mother? Is there anything typically German about you?”] And when they did ask serious questions, they did not follow up when Trump gave an incoherent or off-the-subject answer.

Isn’t anyone in the press going to stand up to Trump, call him out to his face on lies and inaccuracies, and remind him to actually answer the question? Is this let-him-ramble-unchecked interview model the way things are going to be? Both this interview and his previous sit-down with the New York Times reflect a willingness by the press to be bullied in advance as a way of avoiding getting on Trump’s shit list. Put it all together—the press’s obsequious and cowering attitude, the increasing normalization by the press of Trump’s abnormality, the incoming administration’s threats against the press, plus Trump’s obvious incompetence: Where are we going?

The post Trump’s London Times transcript: What he said vs. what they reported appeared first on Occasional Planet.

If you don’t have the time or patience [or stomach] to read the entire, word-for-word transcript of Donald Trump’s interview with the New York Times, allow me to help. Here are some additional excerpts [I posted others yesterday], guaranteed to make you scratch your head in wonder at the man’s short-attention-span thinking and his narcissism. The excerpts I’m including have not received much media attention, because they’re not Tweet-ishly succinct. But they’re equally important, because they reveal a lot about this man’s perspective and his wandering focus.

Here’s an excerpt from Trump’s opening remarks.The New York Times gave him about 10 minutes of unstructured time in which to say whatever he wanted to before answering specific questions. In this section, he is talking about his intention to “bring the country together” after a “vicious” election.

TRUMP: What we do want to do is we want to bring the country together, because the country is very, very divided, and that’s one thing I did see, big league. It’s very, very divided, and I’m going to work very hard to bring the country together.

I mean, I’m somebody that really has gotten along with people over the years. It was interesting, my wife, I went to a big event about two years ago. Just after I started thinking about politics.

And we’re walking in and some people were cheering and some people were booing, and she said, you know, ‘People have never booed for you.’

I’ve never had a person boo me, and all of a sudden people are booing me. She said, that’s never happened before. And, it’s politics. You know, all of a sudden they think I’m going to be running for office, and I’m a Republican, let’s say. So it’s something that I had never experienced before and I said, ‘Those people are booing,’ and she said, ‘Yup.’ They’d never booed before. But now they boo. You know, it was a group and another group was going the opposite.

Yeah, it’s all about the booing.

Here’s another excerpt. In it, Trump responds to a question about climate change:

TRUMP: You know the hottest day ever was in 1890-something, 98. You know, you can make lots of cases for different views. I have a totally open mind.

My uncle was for 35 years a professor at M.I.T. He was a great engineer, scientist. He was a great guy. And he was … a long time ago, he had feelings — this was a long time ago — he had feelings on this subject. It’s a very complex subject. I’m not sure anybody is ever going to really know. I know we have, they say they have science on one side but then they also have those horrible emails that were sent between the scientists. Where was that, in Geneva or wherever five years ago? Terrible. Where they got caught, you know, so you see that and you say, what’s this all about. I absolutely have an open mind. I will tell you this: Clean air is vitally important. Clean water, crystal clean water is vitally important. Safety is vitally important.

And you know, you mentioned a lot of the courses. I have some great, great, very successful golf courses. I’ve received so many environmental awards for the way I’ve done, you know. I’ve done a tremendous amount of work where I’ve received tremendous numbers. Sometimes I’ll say I’m actually an environmentalist and people will smile in some cases and other people that know me understand that’s true. Open mind.

So, Trump is an environmentalist because he built some “great, great, very successful golf courses,” and he had an uncle.

Finally, here is Trump’s take on his strategy late in the campaign:

TRUMP: …the numbers are coming out far beyond what anybody’s wildest expectation was. I don’t know if it was us, I mean, we were seeing the kind of crowds and kind of, everything, the kind of enthusiasm we were getting from the people.

As you probably know, I did many, many speeches that last four-week period. I was just telling Arthur that I went around and did speeches in the pretty much 11 different places, that were, the massive crowds we were getting. If we had a stadium that held — and most of you, many of you were there — that held 20,000 people, we’d have 15,000 people outside that couldn’t get in.

So we came up with a good system — we put up the big screens outside with a very good loudspeaker system and very few people left. I would do, during the last month, two or three a day. That’s a lot. Because that’s not easy when you have big crowds. Those speeches, that’s not an easy way of life, doing three a day. Then I said the last two days, I want to do six and seven. And I’m not sure anybody has ever done that. But we did six and we did seven and the last one ended at 1 o’clock in the morning in Michigan.

And we had 31,000 people, 17,000 or 18,000 inside and the rest outside. This massive place in Grand Rapids, I guess. And it was an incredible thing. And I left saying: ‘How do we lose Michigan? I don’t think we can lose Michigan.’

And the reason I did that, it was set up only a little while before — because we heard that day that Hillary was hearing that they’re going to lose Michigan, which hasn’t been lost in 38 years. Or something. But 38 years. And they didn’t want to lose Michigan. So they went out along with President Obama and Michelle, Bill and Hillary, they went to Michigan late that, sort of late afternoon and I said, ‘Let’s go to Michigan.’

It wasn’t on the schedule. So I finished up in New Hampshire and at 10 o’clock I went to Michigan. We got there at 12 o’clock. We started speaking around 12:45, actually, and we had 31,000 people and I said, really, I mean, there are things happening. But we saw it everywhere.

…And I thought we were going to win it. And we won it, we won it, you know, relatively easily, we won it by a number of points. Florida we won by 180,000 — was that the number, 180?

For Trump, it’s not about a message or a plan: It’s all about the crowds, the adulation, and the sound system..This is what he chooses to talk about with the New York Times, in hopes of impressing them.

I wonder if, after seeing this transcript, Trump will ever again agree to a completely on-the-record interview. I hope he does, but I have my doubts. On the other hand, he is so delusional about himself that he probably thinks this interview went extremely well and that he won over [or snowed] the New York Times with his bullshit.

Frightening.

The post More excerpts from Trump’s NYT interview: Incoherence & narcissism appeared first on Occasional Planet.

I urge everyone to take the time to read the entire transcript of Donald Trump’s Nov. 23, 2016 on-the-record interview with the New York Times. It will make you cringe, grimace and maybe even cry. Some of it has already been quoted many times: We’ve seen excerpts about his not wanting to “hurt” the Clintons, about not seeing The Wall as a top priority, and especially that cringe-inducing, Nixonian assertion that “the law is on my side, the President cannot have a conflict of interest.” Understandably, the mainstream media have focused on statements pertaining to policy [a term that, when applied to Trump, is very generous].

But there is a lot more in the transcript that is not getting the attention it deserves. It’s not as quote-worthy—because it’s not succinct or pithy, or headline-ready. But it’s important to read it, because the parts of the interview that are not being highlighted offer significant insight into Trump’s thinking [again, using that term loosely] and his way of communicating.  And it’s not pretty.

My tenth-grade English Composition teacher always said that “writing is thinking.” A corollary to that truism is that speaking is also reflective of one’s thought process. If that’s the case with Trump, we are in serious trouble.

The New York Times transcript offers a look inside Trump’s brain, via his answers to the questions posed by reporters and editors. This is Trump completely unscripted: not reading from a teleprompter; not campaigning at a rally; not being coached by his handlers [although Kelly Anne Conway and Reince Preibus were sitting next to him]; not Tweeting at 5 am; not calling in to Hannity or Scarborough. This is Trump at the New York Times—a newspaper that he has railed against, but also a media power that he wants to convert to his side. This is Trump attempting to say the things that he thinks a President should be saying to make the New York Times love him.

When you read it, you see that he is doing what he always does: spitballing, winging it, rambling to fill the silence, changing the subject when he doesn’t know what he’s talking about, bragging, exaggerating, talking about all of the people who love him, making shit up on the fly, and—above all—trying to say something that will impress the New York Times. And rambling—lots of incoherent, inarticulate rambling. Imagine this loose-lipped man, who has clearly not thought through any of the issues–except the ones that affect his bottom line–in private talks with world leaders who actually know stuff.

Here’s an example that we probably won’t see quoted on mainstream media, or anywhere else, for that matter. This statement came in response to a question about Trump’s recent meeting with Nigel Farage. The Times reporter wanted to know if Trump had sought help in preventing the development of a wind farm near his golf course in Scotland: [This is the formatting as published by the New York Times.]

TRUMP: Oh, I see. I might have brought it up. But not having to do with me, just I mean, the wind is a very deceiving thing. First of all, we don’t make the windmills in the United States. They’re made in Germany and Japan. They’re made out of massive amounts of steel, which goes into the atmosphere, whether it’s in our country or not, it goes into the atmosphere. The windmills kill birds and the windmills need massive subsidies. In other words, we’re subsidizing wind mills all over this country. I mean, for the most part they don’t work. I don’t think they work at all without subsidy, and that bothers me, and they kill all the birds. You go to a windmill, you know in California they have the, what is it? The golden eagle? And they’re like, if you shoot a golden eagle, they go to jail for five years and yet they kill them by, they actually have to get permits that they’re only allowed to kill 30 or something in one year. The windmills are devastating to the bird population, O.K. With that being said, there’s a place for them. But they do need subsidy. So, if I talk negatively. I’ve been saying the same thing for years about you know, the wind industry. I wouldn’t want to subsidize it. Some environmentalists agree with me very much because of all of the things I just said, including the birds, and some don’t. But it’s hard to explain. I don’t care about anything having to do with anything having to do with anything other than the country.

If you were standing on 5^th Avenue in New York, and some guy came up to you and said what Trump said about windmills and birds, you’d probably walk away as quickly as possible. And if you were a mental-health professional, and a guy came into your office rambling like that, might you possibly put a note in his chart about incoherent thinking, and maybe wonder if he needed medication or hospitalization?

Here’s another excerpt.This one is in response to a question about mixing his personal business with his role as President, and whether business partners in other countries will try to curry favor with Trump. Part of this has already made the news cycle–the part about “the law is on my side.” But here’s the rest of it. [Buckle up.]

TRUMP: O.K. First of all, on countries. I think that countries will not do that to us. I don’t think if they’re run by a person that understands leadership and negotiation they’re in no position to do that to us, no matter what I do. They’re in no position to do that to us, and that won’t happen, but I’m going to take a look at it. A very serious look. I want to also see how much this is costing, you know, what’s the cost to it, and I’ll be talking to you folks in the not-too-distant future about it, having to do with what just took place.

As far as the, you know, potential conflict of interests, though, I mean I know that from the standpoint, the law is totally on my side, meaning, the president can’t have a conflict of interest. That’s been reported very widely. Despite that, I don’t want there to be a conflict of interest anyway. And the laws, the president can’t. And I understand why the president can’t have a conflict of interest now because everything a president does in some ways is like a conflict of interest, but I have, I’ve built a very great company and it’s a big company and it’s all over the world. People are starting to see, when they look at all these different jobs, like in India and other things, number one, a job like that builds great relationships with the people of India, so it’s all good. But I have to say, the partners come in, they’re very, very successful people. They come in, they’d say, they said, ‘Would it be possible to have a picture?’ Actually, my children are working on that job. So I can say to them, Arthur, ‘I don’t want to have a picture,’ or, I can take a picture. I mean, I think it’s wonderful to take a picture. I’m fine with a picture. But if it were up to some people, I would never, ever see my daughter Ivanka again. That would be like you never seeing your son again. That wouldn’t be good. That wouldn’t be good. But I’d never, ever see my daughter Ivanka.

There’s more. Much more. To me, a lot of it sounds like Trump is desperately babbling in an effort to find something—anything—that will sound presidential, will make him sound reasonable to the New York Times, and give them an answer that they want to hear.

Read it for yourself. This is the unfocused, inarticulate, inchoate thinking of the person who is about to be our 45^th President. Shockingly, after the interview, after hearing Trump’s tsunami of bullshit, the Times editorial board praised Trump for being “flexible” on certain issues.

I’m not a person who prays, but if you are, please do what you can.

[UPDATE: Read additional excerpts here, with my commentary.]

[Also, see Trump’s edited Person-of-the-Year interview with Time magazine.]

The post Trump’s NYT transcript: Read it, and weep for our country appeared first on Occasional Planet.