Donald Trump Presidency discussion thread II

Leroy42

The thing I can't work out is why everyone around Trump seems so incompetent as well.

I get it that Trump is out of his depth, but people like Session, Paul Ryan, KA Conway, etc have been in this game for years and still comes across as totally clueless.

KAC - Alternative Facts - I mean for a PR person to say that on live TV is incredible
Paul Ryan - Trump is new at this. For the Speaker of the House to come out an call the POTUS clueless and think that is a good defence is quite staggering.
Sessions - For a man with so many years legal experience to get himself so tied up in denials and lack of evidence is amazing that he agreed to appear at all. Why put himself through that?

Take the lawyer doing the rounds yesterday, claiming that Trump wasn't under investigation despite Trump tweeting he was.

At some point someone thought it was a good idea to put him on the TV, a number of times, to try to put this line out. Within 5 minutes of each interview he had basically admitted that Trump was under investigation but that it was Comey's fault.

Whatever about the yeah or nays about it, why go on TV with such a thin defence. It can't be that they have trouble lying, that basically is a major part of all their jobs, so waht can explain why they all seem to fall to pieces.

And finally, why is it proving so hard to reign Trump in? Surely someone senior in the GOP should have taken him aside and explained exactly what is happening and how wimple it would be to defuse the situation. Simpy stop tweeting for a few weeks, stop golfing and concentrate on getting ACHA and tax bills moving. The Russian etc stuff will rumble on but getting stuff done would take a lot of the sting out of it and make the DNC look like all that are interested in is Russia and not American voters.

Water John

Remember, those with his ear, are telling him different various things. That the way Trump always likes it. It's his own decision then, if it turns out correct. Somebody else's, if it does not.

Christy42

Leroy42 wrote: »

The thing I can't work out is why everyone around Trump seems so incompetent as well.

I get it that Trump is out of his depth, but people like Session, Paul Ryan, KA Conway, etc have been in this game for years and still comes across as totally clueless.

KAC - Alternative Facts - I mean for a PR person to say that on live TV is incredible
Paul Ryan - Trump is new at this. For the Speaker of the House to come out an call the POTUS clueless and think that is a good defence is quite staggering.
Sessions - For a man with so many years legal experience to get himself so tied up in denials and lack of evidence is amazing that he agreed to appear at all. Why put himself through that?

Take the lawyer doing the rounds yesterday, claiming that Trump wasn't under investigation despite Trump tweeting he was.

At some point someone thought it was a good idea to put him on the TV, a number of times, to try to put this line out. Within 5 minutes of each interview he had basically admitted that Trump was under investigation but that it was Comey's fault.

Whatever about the yeah or nays about it, why go on TV with such a thin defence. It can't be that they have trouble lying, that basically is a major part of all their jobs, so waht can explain why they all seem to fall to pieces.

And finally, why is it proving so hard to reign Trump in? Surely someone senior in the GOP should have taken him aside and explained exactly what is happening and how wimple it would be to defuse the situation. Simpy stop tweeting for a few weeks, stop golfing and concentrate on getting ACHA and tax bills moving. The Russian etc stuff will rumble on but getting stuff done would take a lot of the sting out of it and make the DNC look like all that are interested in is Russia and not American voters.

While I am not sure why they are all connecting themselves to Trump, Trump is making it very difficult for them to scramble effectively. With an incompetent leader you would expect them to lean more on certain staff consistently and do their best not to contradict them in an effort to get the credit from the aides ideas.

Instead Trump switches who he is listening to frequently. Then he happily contradicts his own aides and forces himself to the center of all decisions. Realistically the staff have no where to go except calling the POTUS an idiot and a liar or making themselves look bad. The only way forward is to fall on their own swords.

This is in addition to the fact that many of the aides are also incompetent and so when Trump leans on them things spiral badly.

B0jangles

Leroy42 wrote: »

The thing I can't work out is why everyone around Trump seems so incompetent as well.

I get it that Trump is out of his depth, but people like Session, Paul Ryan, KA Conway, etc have been in this game for years and still comes across as totally clueless.

KAC - Alternative Facts - I mean for a PR person to say that on live TV is incredible
Paul Ryan - Trump is new at this. For the Speaker of the House to come out an call the POTUS clueless and think that is a good defence is quite staggering.
Sessions - For a man with so many years legal experience to get himself so tied up in denials and lack of evidence is amazing that he agreed to appear at all. Why put himself through that?

Take the lawyer doing the rounds yesterday, claiming that Trump wasn't under investigation despite Trump tweeting he was.

At some point someone thought it was a good idea to put him on the TV, a number of times, to try to put this line out. Within 5 minutes of each interview he had basically admitted that Trump was under investigation but that it was Comey's fault.

Whatever about the yeah or nays about it, why go on TV with such a thin defence. It can't be that they have trouble lying, that basically is a major part of all their jobs, so waht can explain why they all seem to fall to pieces.

And finally, why is it proving so hard to reign Trump in? Surely someone senior in the GOP should have taken him aside and explained exactly what is happening and how wimple it would be to defuse the situation. Simpy stop tweeting for a few weeks, stop golfing and concentrate on getting ACHA and tax bills moving. The Russian etc stuff will rumble on but getting stuff done would take a lot of the sting out of it and make the DNC look like all that are interested in is Russia and not American voters.

At this point I think that anyone with relevant political and administrative experience and actual competence is steering very clear of the Trump Whitehouse; it would be career suicide to do so unless your eventual plan is to go and work for Breitbart/Infowars or one of the extremely conservative think-tanks.

His administrative team is having to choose from the increasingly limited pool of people who are willing to work for them.

Zubeneschamali

Leroy42 wrote: »

Paul Ryan - Trump is new at this. For the Speaker of the House to come out an call the POTUS clueless and think that is a good defence is quite staggering.

Ryan doesn't care about Trump. If Trump goes down, he'll deal with Pence. he just wants his tax cuts for the rich passed.

Manic Moran

Leroy42 wrote: »

The thing I can't work out is why everyone around Trump seems so incompetent as well.

Only some of them. The National Security Team under McMasters is considered to be one of the best in quite a long time. SecDef has transformed the atmosphere and morale of the DoD, you can even buy a variety of Mattis T-Shirts now, and is heavily memed. When was the last time a SecDef (or any cabinet politician, for that matter) achieved that level of support within the organisation they run? Zinke, the Interior Secretary (Incidentally also a former SEAL), has received approval from the Native American community (Bureau of Indian Affairs falls under Dept of Interior) for his work with them, and has even been adopted by the Assiniboine Sioux Nation. Environmentalists aren't too happy with him, mind, but he enjoys fairly wide support, getting more Democrat support during confirmation than many of Trump's picks.

Certainly there are some folks of questionable competence (and even more questionable policy position, what's DeVos doing these days anyway?) surrounding Trump, but you can't tarnish the entire government with it.

In any case, public balls-ups aside, what I'm paying more attention to isn't the PR side of the house, but what legislation and policies are actually being passed and enacted. After all, the latter affects me far more. Fortunately, for all the hoopla in the news media, the country seems to be generally ticking along well so far, and my retirement savings have been making excellent gains this year.

JRant

Manic Moran wrote: »

Only some of them. The National Security Team under McMasters is considered to be one of the best in quite a long time. SecDef has transformed the atmosphere and morale of the DoD, you can even buy a variety of Mattis T-Shirts now, and is heavily memed. When was the last time a SecDef (or any cabinet politician, for that matter) achieved that level of support within the organisation they run? Zinke, the Interior Secretary (Incidentally also a former SEAL), has received approval from the Native American community (Bureau of Indian Affairs falls under Dept of Interior) for his work with them, and has even been adopted by the Assiniboine Sioux Nation. Environmentalists aren't too happy with him, mind, but he enjoys fairly wide support, getting more Democrat support during confirmation than many of Trump's picks.

Certainly there are some folks of questionable competence (and even more questionable policy position, what's DeVos doing these days anyway?) surrounding Trump, but you can't tarnish the entire government with it.

In any case, public balls-ups aside, what I'm paying more attention to isn't the PR side of the house, but what legislation and policies are actually being passed and enacted. After all, the latter affects me far more. Fortunately, for all the hoopla in the news media, the country seems to be generally ticking along well so far, and my retirement savings have been making excellent gains this year.

The markets certainly haven't minded Trump being President at all.

There is a fear that interest rates will be rising soon, especially after this period of historic low rates, which may put a damper on things. All things considered it's not too bad for the ordinary punter at the moment.

Overheal

Manic Moran wrote: »

In any case, public balls-ups aside, what I'm paying more attention to isn't the PR side of the house, but what legislation and policies are actually being passed and enacted.

Well,

http://www.military.com/daily-news/2017/06/15/mattis-gets-authority-afghanistan-trump-remains-engaged.html

Mattis appears to want to create Surge 3.0 because the others worked so well. We're really getting our mileage out of the AUMF.

aloyisious

Overheal wrote: »

Well,

http://www.military.com/daily-news/2017/06/15/mattis-gets-authority-afghanistan-trump-remains-engaged.html

Mattis appears to want to create Surge 3.0 because the others worked so well. We're really getting our mileage out of the AUMF.

Is the March 2017 AUMF active yet or is this the 2001 version?

Do I detect a gentle touch of sarcasm or "TG it's not Don" getting the mileage? . Personally I'm glad it's not some suited and booted person as not all of them know their limitations., but that's a whole other matter.

aloyisious

In all the excitations I missed this bit of activity at Don's 1st cabinet meeting a week ago.... The video is so funny.

https://www.google.ie/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=3&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwiEp_W_-MrUAhUlKMAKHa9mBZwQFggqMAI&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.vox.com%2Fpolicy-and-politics%2F2017%2F6%2F12%2F15784894%2Ftrump-cabinet-meeting-praise&usg=AFQjCNHBaKW2NUcs6W6GmrI9bHt6ERbpvA

Timberrrrrrrr

aloyisious wrote: »

In all the excitations I missed this bit of activity at Don's 1st cabinet meeting a week ago.... The video is so funny.

https://www.google.ie/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=3&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwiEp_W_-MrUAhUlKMAKHa9mBZwQFggqMAI&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.vox.com%2Fpolicy-and-politics%2F2017%2F6%2F12%2F15784894%2Ftrump-cabinet-meeting-praise&usg=AFQjCNHBaKW2NUcs6W6GmrI9bHt6ERbpvA

What a cringe inducing video, if that was taken in North Korea and it was a bunch of generals praising Kin we would have people saying they were forced to say nice things yet the same folk will not see anything wrong with this because it's Trump.

Peregrinus

Timberrrrrrrr wrote: »

What a cringe inducing video, if that was taken in North Korea and it was a bunch of generals praising Kin we would have people saying they were forced to say nice things yet the same folk will not see anything wrong with this because it's Trump.

Many people have seen things wrong with it; it has been the subject of much ridicule and parody, and I haven't seen anybody attempt to defend or justify it. Even Trump's admirers seem to prefer, whenever it is mentioned, to discuss the weather. Or prospects for the Curragh Derby. Or anything, really.

aloyisious

From the Atlanta Journal-Constitution..... ATLANTA - Tuesday is the day voters will decide who wins the tight, hard-fought race to replace Tom Price in Georgia's 6th Congressional District.

According to the latest WSB, Landmark Communications poll of 500 likely voters, the race between Republican Karen Handel and Democrat Jon Ossoff is tighter than ever. Ossoff leads Handel 49.0 percent to 48.9 percent, with 2.1 percent undecided and a 4.4% margin of error.

Approx 140,000 voters got their votes in early before the actual day. Things reportedly got heated locally with threatening letters being put in Handels mailbox and her neighbours mailboxes. I take that to mean house mailboxes.

The info above is timed 7.07PM yesterday.

News channels are reporting the closeness is down to a 0.1 percent between the candidates. overall vote estimate 49.0 to Ossoff & 48.9 to Handel. Report says republican voters turn out in larger numbers than democrats on voting day.

aloyisious

Sean Spicer taking a back seat away from the briefing podium and press secretary job and will have a larger job within the W/House communications set-up. The reporters are waiting for Dons tweets on the news, as Don was aware that Sean "was getting his butt kicked out there".

Professor Moriarty

aloyisious wrote: »

From the Atlanta Journal-Constitution..... ATLANTA - Tuesday is the day voters will decide who wins the tight, hard-fought race to replace Tom Price in Georgia's 6th Congressional District.

According to the latest WSB, Landmark Communications poll of 500 likely voters, the race between Republican Karen Handel and Democrat Jon Ossoff is tighter than ever. Ossoff leads Handel 49.0 percent to 48.9 percent, with 2.1 percent undecided and a 4.4% margin of error.

Approx 140,000 voters got their votes in early before the actual day. Things reportedly got heated locally with threatening letters being put in Handels mailbox and her neighbours mailboxes. I take that to mean house mailboxes.

The info above is timed 7.07PM yesterday.

News channels are reporting the closeness is down to a 0.1 percent between the candidates. overall vote estimate 49.0 to Ossoff & 48.9 to Handel. Report says republican voters turn out in larger numbers than democrats on voting day.

If Dem voters haven't learnt their lesson by now then they never will.

Leroy42

Jim Acosta (CNN) WH correspondent and part of the press pool for the daily WH briefings is reporting at the audio and video recording equipment is being barred from WH briefing. My take was that it was on certain subjects rather than a blanket.

Acosta was incredulous on CNN last night, said the WH was stonewalling the news media.

Seems the WH, according to Acosta, are not prepared to answer questions whilst being recorded, only written notes can be taken. Of course this means they can easily retract/refute them at a later date.

Leroy42

aloyisious wrote: »

....... Report says republican voters turn out in larger numbers than democrats on voting day.

I love the way this line is trotted out everywhere.

Another way to say this is that more people vote republican than Democrat.

How can you be a democratic voter if you don't vote? Doesn't that mean you are just not a voter!

aloyisious

Leroy42 wrote: »

Jim Acosta (CNN) WH correspondent and part of the press pool for the daily WH briefings is reporting at the audio and video recording equipment is being barred from WH briefing. My take was that it was on certain subjects rather than a blanket.

Acosta was incredulous on CNN last night, said the WH was stonewalling the news media.

Seems the WH, according to Acosta, are not prepared to answer questions whilst being recorded, only written notes can be taken. Of course this means they can easily retract/refute them at a later date.

Well, there's always Dons recording system to fall back on

Peregrinus

Leroy42 wrote: »

Jim Acosta (CNN) WH correspondent and part of the press pool for the daily WH briefings is reporting at the audio and video recording equipment is being barred from WH briefing. My take was that it was on certain subjects rather than a blanket.

Acosta was incredulous on CNN last night, said the WH was stonewalling the news media.

Seems the WH, according to Acosta, are not prepared to answer questions whilst being recorded, only written notes can be taken. Of course this means they can easily retract/refute them at a later date.

There has been an increasing trend of Trump spokespeople being willing to explain/discuss/defend the President's saying and doings off the record, but not on the record. This is because they are afraid that anything they may say on the record will be contradicted or torpedoed by a subsequent presidential tweet. I suspect this new convention for White House briefings has the same underlying cause.

StringerBell

aloyisious wrote: »

Sean Spicer taking a back seat away from the briefing podium and press secretary job and will have a larger job within the W/House communications set-up. The reporters are waiting for Dons tweets on the news, as Don was aware that Sean "was getting his butt kicked out there".

Got to be better for his mental health tbh, he has had some very poor moments, some very odd ones too(hiding on the media etc)

Peregrinus

Leroy42 wrote: »

I love the way this line is trotted out everywhere.

Another way to say this is that more people vote republican than Democrat.

How can you be a democratic voter if you don't vote? Doesn't that mean you are just not a voter!

The don't say that more republican voters turn out than democratic voters; just that more Republicans turn out than Democrats.

In most US states, when you go on the electoral roll you register yourself as a Republican, or as a Democrat (or as neither). This is pretty much the only form of party affiliation there is in the US; the Republican and Democratic parties are not membership-based, and you cannot "join" them in the way that you can join Fianna Fail or Fine Gael.

The claim is that people who are registered as Republicans have a higher propensity actually to turn out and vote than people who are registered as Democrats.

Leroy42

Peregrinus wrote: »

There has been an increasing trend of Trump spokespeople being willing to explain/discuss/defend the President's saying and doings off the record, but not on the record. This is because they are afraid that anything they may say on the record will be contradicted or torpedoed by a subsequent presidential tweet. I suspect this new convention for White House briefings has the same underlying cause.

It wasn't something that I had considered too much during the election though, just how much Trump was going to be a danger to the very nature of politics itself.

Of course, this isn't limited to Trump, all governments are constantly trying to either reduce the press impact or alternatively control the press.

I was worried about his lack of experience, thin skin etc etc, but we are always told that that there are controls in place to limit his scope.

In terms of the neutralisation of the press, there seems to be little actuals controls. Certainly the 1st amendment seems to be worth less than the paper it is written on. It seems that freedom of the press is entirely a subjective matter.

I do think that at some point the 'MSM' needs to stand up for itself as a profession (ie FOX, CNN, MSNBC together). At the moment of course Fox thinks its all great as they have direct access to Trump and Ivanka and all his spokespeople but that could well change at the next election and they will then be crying. The press should stage a few walkouts/sit-ins.

It always amazes me that reporter A will ask a question and get a nothing answer and then reporter B ask another, completely different, question and an entirely different topic allowing Spicer etc to simply bat away any questions. Why not agree a list of questions beforehand (obv from the same left/right leaning companies) and join together to ram it home.

They all get the same answers anyway so who actually asks it is largely irrelevant

StringerBell

Goes back to Trumps comments about only responding in writing in future rather then having briefings.

Leroy42

Peregrinus wrote: »

The don't say that more republican voters turn out than democratic voters; just that more Republicans turn out than Democrats.

In most US states, when you go on the electoral roll you register yourself as a Republican, or as a Democrat (or as neither). This is pretty much the only form of party affiliation there is in the US; the Republican and Democratic parties are not membership-based, and you cannot "join" them in the way that you can join Fianna Fail or Fine Gael.

The claim is that people who are registered as Republicans have a higher propensity actually to turn out and vote than people who are registered as Democrats.

Yes, I get all of that. I understand what they are saying but when you look at it it just seems odd.

I mean what is the point trying to be made? One can only assume that that they are saying that if only more democratic voters turned up they would do better. Well, yeah, thats the point of the whole thing.

Anyway, its a side point and just something that I find strange. Kind of like when a politician tries to absolve themselves of a bad election/poll by stating that the message is great it just isn't getting the message out to enough people. Yeah maybe, or maybe you have and the people just dont like it!

aloyisious

Cool water time while waiting for the 7.30PM first results announcement. also in the US replacement elections:

What about South Carolina?

Lost in all the focus on Georgia's special election is the race for South Carolina's fifth congressional district between Republican real estate developer Ralph Norman and Democrat Archie Parnell, a former Goldman Sachs business manager.

There has been less national attention on that race because Norman is widely considered a heavy favorite. If Parnell were to pull off an upset, it would be a clear signal that Trump and congressional Republicans have reason to be concerned about 2018.

How have the special elections gone so far this year?

Greg Gianforte showed no signs of an anti-Republican swing, winning Montana's May 25 special election to fill its own open House seat despite assaulting a reporter on the eve of the election. Gianforte's win came on the heels of fellow Republican Ron Estes' April 11 win to fill Kansas' House seat left open by the appointment of CIA Director Mike Pompeo.

How many seats do Democrats need?

Even if Ossoff and Parnell were to win, the Democrats would still be far short of the seats needed to win control of the House. Going into Tuesday's elections, the Democrats were 24 seats short of a majority.

EDIT: the link with the above incl and after [what about South Carolina is....... https://www.google.ie/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=4&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwi16J3dl8zUAhWmDMAKHYS5DA4QFggzMAM&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.usatoday.com%2Fstory%2Fnews%2Fpolitics%2Fonpolitics%2F2017%2F06%2F19%2Fgeorgia-special-election-ossoff-handel-polls-time-date%2F103011346%2F&usg=AFQjCNFHP6Dd7SlhBe5bgteqIfs6Ga8Qww

Professor Moriarty

An interesting point from this article on today's election:

According to the Cook Political Report's Partisan Voter Index, there are 71 Republican-held districts that have less GOP-leaning electorates than Georgia's sixth district.

Zubeneschamali

aloyisious wrote: »

Greg Gianforte showed no signs of an anti-Republican swing, winning Montana's May 25 special election to fill its own open House seat despite assaulting a reporter on the eve of the election.

Gianforte only won by 49.9 to 43.8.

Trump won Montana by 20 points, 55-35.

Zinke, the previous R, won 56.2 to 40.6.

Professor Moriarty

Zubeneschamali wrote: »

Gianforte only won by 49.9 to 43.8.

Trump won Montana by 20 points, 55-35.

Zinke, the previous R, won 56.2 to 40.6.

It's obviously a very simplistic comparison, but it looks like the senate vote gap dropped from 16% to 6%. If Trump's vote was the benchmark (again simplistic) it would be a drop 0f 20% to 6%. If those numbers were to play out across the board, it would be an appalling vista for the GOP.

Billy86

Leroy42 wrote: »

It always amazes me that reporter A will ask a question and get a nothing answer and then reporter B ask another, completely different, question and an entirely different topic allowing Spicer etc to simply bat away any questions. Why not agree a list of questions beforehand (obv from the same left/right leaning companies) and join together to ram it home.

They all get the same answers anyway so who actually asks it is largely irrelevant

Couldn't agree more, the interviews with Trump's lawyer were a great example - in a press conference it would have never come to that as he wouldn't have been asked more than one follow up question. It's just selfish journalism, everyone chasing the soundbite or quote rather than doing a collective Jeremy Paxman and asking over and over and over. I remember when Trump was in Germany, American reporters were absolutely mind-blown about the press there not letting them off the hook by moving on when told to. It's remarkably lazy, selfish and even cowardly in my opinion.

Christy42

Professor Moriarty wrote: »

It's obviously a very simplistic comparison, but it looks like the senate vote gap dropped from 16% to 6%. If Trump's vote was the benchmark (again simplistic) it would be a drop 0f 20% to 6%. If those numbers were to play out across the board, it would be an appalling vista for the GOP.

They have also appeared in the other special elections. Just none have been particularly close races. Georgia 6 is the first one but Dems don't look like beating the election by 13% there. Trump won it by 1.5% so it was about 3.5% more Republican than the national average. Having said that it is a weird one in the Obama got beaten badly there against Romney while winning the popular vote and it is historically a lot more Republican.

That is why Carolina is interesting to see if the Dems can keep the loss to single figures.