Foxmulder
Superstar
No I saw you with Pompeo you’re disgusting.
General Trump Administration F**kery Thread (2017-2021)
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No I saw you with Pompeo you’re disgusting.
88m3
Fast Money & Foreign Objects
88m3
Fast Money & Foreign Objects
So what. He tried and you by the book dems could learn something about leadership here.
nytimes.com
Book on Trump Describes General's Efforts to Reassure China
Michael S. Schmidt
8-11 minutes
Fears That Trump Might Launch a Strike Prompted General to Reassure China, Book Says
In a sign of his concerns, the nation’s highest-ranking military officer also gathered commanders to remind them of the safeguards in the nuclear launch procedures.
Credit...Sarahbeth Maney/The New York Times
Sept. 14, 2021, 12:01 p.m. ET
WASHINGTON — The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff twice called his Chinese counterpart in the final months of the Trump administration to reassure him that Donald J. Trump had no plans to attack China in an effort to remain in power and that the United States was not collapsing, according to “Peril,” a new book by the Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Robert Costa.
“Things may look unsteady,” the chairman, Gen. Mark A. Milley, told Gen. Li Zuocheng of China on Jan. 8, two days after Mr. Trump’s supporters stormed the Capitol to try to stop the certification of his election loss and in the second of two such calls. “But that’s the nature of democracy, General Li. We are 100 percent steady. Everything’s fine. But democracy can be sloppy sometimes.”
Yet despite his assurances, General Milley was so concerned about Mr. Trump that later that day he convened a meeting with top commanders to remind them that the procedures for launching a nuclear weapon called for his involvement in such a decision.
The book also reveals how Vice President Mike Pence struggled more than was publicly known over how to navigate Mr. Trump’s demands that he upend the election certification. Speaking privately to former Vice President Dan Quayle, who oversaw the certification of the 1992 election in which he was on the losing ticket, Mr. Pence appeared open to going along with Mr. Trump’s plan, pushed the false claim that Arizona’s voting results were wrong and asked whether there was any way he could delay certification.
“Peril,” which is scheduled to be released next Tuesday, says its accounts are based on contemporaneous notes, documents and interviews with unnamed firsthand participants and witnesses. The New York Times obtained a copy of it.
Similar to other media reports and books released since Mr. Trump left office, the book details how Mr. Trump’s presidency essentially collapsed in his final months in office, particularly after his election loss and the start of his campaign to deny the results. Top aides — including General Milley, Defense Secretary Mark Esper and Attorney General William P. Barr — became convinced that they needed to take drastic measures to stop him from trampling on American democracy or setting off an international conflict, and General Milley thought that Mr. Trump had declined mentally in the aftermath of the election, according to the book.
A little less than half of the book also covers the first several months of Joseph R. Biden’s administration, as the new president grappled with the pandemic, a faltering economy, Congress and the military’s withdrawal from Afghanistan.
“If the mission is to preserve the Ghani government, I would not send my own son,” Mr. Biden is quoted as telling aides in his first few months in office during the discussions about the withdrawal, referring to President Ashraf Ghani, who at the time was trying to repel the Taliban from taking over the country.
But it is the book’s details about the Trump administration that are likely to garner the most attention.
In the days leading up to the 2020 election, the book reveals, American intelligence showed that the Chinese believed that Mr. Trump planned to launch a military strike to create an international crisis that he could claim to solve as a last-ditch effort to beat Joseph R. Biden Jr.
General Milley, who had become increasingly concerned about China’s growing military power and the potential for one misread move to set off combat between the world superpowers, first called General Li around that time on a secret backchannel. He wanted to assure General Li and President Xi Jinping that the United States was not planning to attack China.
On the Jan. 8 call, General Li suggested that Chinese leaders feared that the United States government was unstable. He pressed General Milley over the course of an hour and a half about whether the military was going to take action.
Image
Credit...Erin Schaff/The New York Times
Despite General Milley’s reassurances, he feared that Mr. Trump might be trying to find a moment that he could seize on to remain in power, similar to Hitler’s exploitation in 1933 of an arson fire at the German Reichstag to help institute emergency powers, the book said.
But even after the call, General Milley concluded that the situation was “grave” and General Li “remained unusually rattled,” the book reports.
Mr. Trump, General Milley had concluded, did not want a war but might order the launch of some sort of military strike that would set off a chain reaction and lead to war.
“I continually reminded him,” General Milley is quoted as saying, “depending on where and what you strike, you could find yourself at war.”
Later that day, General Milley spoke to Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who was growing increasing concerned Mr. Trump would lash out and use military force.
“This is bad, but who knows what he might do?” Ms. Pelosi said. “He’s crazy. You know he’s crazy. He’s been crazy for a long time. So don’t say you don’t know what his state of mind is.”
“Madam Speaker,” General Milley said, “I agree with you on everything.”
General Milley, who as the president’s top military adviser is not in the chain of command, tried to reassure Ms. Pelosi that he could stop Mr. Trump.
“The one thing I can guarantee is that as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, I want you to know that — I want you to know this in you heart of hearts, I can guarantee you 110 percent that the military, use of military power, whether it’s nuclear or a strike in a foreign country of any kind, we’re not going to do anything illegal or crazy,” he said.
“Well,” Ms. Pelosi said, “what do you mean, illegal or crazy?”
“I can give you my word,” General Milley said. “The best I can do is give you my word and I’m going to prevent anything like that in the United States military.”
After speaking to Ms. Pelosi, General Milley convened a meeting in a war room at the Pentagon with the military’s top commanders, telling them that he wanted to go over the longstanding procedures for launching a nuclear weapon. The general reminded the commanders that only the president could order such a strike and that General Milley needed to be directly involved.
“If you get calls,” General Milley said, “no matter who they’re from, there’s a process here, there’s a procedure. No matter what you’re told, you do the procedure. You do the process. And I’m part of that procedure. You’ve got to make sure that the right people are on the net.”
The general added: “The strict procedures are explicitly designed to avoid inadvertent mistakes or accident or nefarious, unintentional, illegal, immoral, unethical launching of the world’s most dangerous weapons.”
Then, he went around the room and asked each officer to confirm that they understood what he was saying.
Twelve days later, General Milley said, he thought he may be one of the happiest people at Mr. Biden’s inauguration because Mr. Trump had finally left office.
“We know what you went through,” Mr. Biden told General Milley shortly before the inauguration. “We know what you did.”
While much had been reported about General Milley’s views of Mr. Trump, the book’s depiction of Mr. Pence revealed for the first time the depths that the vice president went to as his fealty to toward Mr. Trump collided with calculations about his political future and the counsel of his aides and advisers to follow the Constitution.
In the days leading up to Jan. 6, Mr. Pence called Mr. Quayle, the only living Republican vice president forced to certify an election in which he was on the losing ticket.
Mr. Pence told him that the president was convinced that Mr. Pence could throw out the election results in order to keep himself in power.
“Mike, you have no flexibility on this,” Mr. Quayle told Mr. Pence. “None. Zero. Forget it. Put it away.”
“I know, that’s what I’ve been trying to tell Trump,” Mr. Pence said. “But he really thinks he can. And there are other guys in there saying I’ve got this power.”
Mr. Pence then echoed Mr. Trump’s false claims of election fraud. “Well, there’s some stuff out in Arizona,” Mr. Pence said.
“Mike, I live in Arizona,” Mr. Quayle said. “There’s nothing out here.”
Matthew Cullen contributed research.
Michael S. Schmidt is a Washington correspondent covering national security and federal investigations. He was part of two teams that won Pulitzer Prizes in 2018 — one for reporting on workplace sexual harassment and the other for coverage of President Trump and his campaign’s ties to Russia. @NYTMike
Spidey Man
Superstar
Donald told Pence he wouldn't be his friend anymore if Pence didn't overturn the election. What a fukking child
He should have stated that publicly after the insurrection. At that point distancing himself for trump would have been the best move if he planned on having a political career
I hope we do, but I have doubts that we ever recover from his presidency.
I'm not typically a nihilist, and it may be because I live in Texas with some of the most racist, illogical, selfish, stupid people that makes me feel this way.
I'm not typically a nihilist, and it may be because I live in Texas with some of the most racist, illogical, selfish, stupid people that makes me feel this way.
storyteller
Superstar
That story is insane. Some of the direct quotes here are just...wow!
And then you've got Pence acting like an absolute tool on the side. That dude's got the most embarrassing legacy of a political figure in a long time which is bugged out to me having grown up with the likes of Palin running around.
And then you've got Pence acting like an absolute tool on the side. That dude's got the most embarrassing legacy of a political figure in a long time which is bugged out to me having grown up with the likes of Palin running around.
theguardian.com
New book says Trump told Putin: I’ll act tough with you – for the cameras
Martin Pengelly
3-4 minutes
Donald Trump told Vladimir Putin he had to act tough next to the Russian president for the cameras, according to the former White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham.
“OK, I’m going to act a little tougher with you for a few minutes,” Grisham says she heard Trump tell his Russian counterpart in Osaka in 2019. “But it’s for the cameras, and after they leave, we’ll talk. You understand.”
Grisham makes the claim in a new book, I’ll Take Your Questions Now, which will be published next week. The Washington Post obtained a copy.
Trump’s presidency was dogged by his relationship with Putin, the focus of the special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of Russian election interference and links between Trump and Moscow.
Mueller did not establish a conspiracy but stressed that he did not exonerate Trump of seeking to obstruct justice. Speculation over the two leaders’ relationship remained rampant, particularly over a meeting alone save for interpreters in Helsinki in 2018.
In front of the media at the G20 summit in Osaka in 2019, with Grisham sitting nearby, Trump joked with Putin that they should both “get rid” of journalists who published “fake news”, saying: “You don’t have this problem in Russia.”
Putin said: “Yes, yes, we have too, the same.”
Trump later smirked, pointed at Putin and said: “Don’t meddle in the election.”
Grisham was Trump’s third press secretary, an unhappy reign in which she did not hold a single White House briefing. Her book has been extensively trailed, titbits including a comparison of Melania Trump to Marie Antoinette.
A spokeswoman for Donald Trump has called the book “another pitiful attempt to cash in on the president’s strength and sell lies about the Trump family”.
Melania Trump has also dismissed the book. Grisham was working for the first lady when she resigned on 6 January this year, the day of the deadly attack on the US Capitol by Trump supporters.
According to the Post, Grisham says Donald Trump “was too wrapped up in his own ego and his own delusions about his invincibility” to deal properly with the coronavirus pandemic.
Discussing notorious events including “Sharpiegate”, involving a crudely doctored hurricane map, and the porn star Stormy Daniels’ claim that Trump’s penis was small and shaped like a mushroom, Grisham writes about White House incompetence extending to how staff lied to Trump to stop him losing his temper.
One such instance, Grisham says, came in 2018, when Air Force One was customarily made available to carry the casket and service dog of former president George HW Bush, the deceased patriarch of a family Trump loathed.
“We knew he wouldn’t be OK with that, even for a brief trip,” Grisham writes. “Dead bodies, death, sickness – those things really seemed to creep him out.”
Grisham is heavily critical of Melania Trump, who she says began to break with her husband over the Stormy Daniels affair.
Writing about how Melania was criticised for not standing with her husband on election night, as Jill Biden did with Joe Biden, Grisham says Melania said: “I don’t stand next to him because I don’t need to hold him up like she does. Can you imagine?”
“That made me laugh,” Grisham admits.
New book says Trump told Putin: I’ll act tough with you – for the cameras
Martin Pengelly
3-4 minutes
Donald Trump told Vladimir Putin he had to act tough next to the Russian president for the cameras, according to the former White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham.
“OK, I’m going to act a little tougher with you for a few minutes,” Grisham says she heard Trump tell his Russian counterpart in Osaka in 2019. “But it’s for the cameras, and after they leave, we’ll talk. You understand.”
Grisham makes the claim in a new book, I’ll Take Your Questions Now, which will be published next week. The Washington Post obtained a copy.
Trump’s presidency was dogged by his relationship with Putin, the focus of the special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of Russian election interference and links between Trump and Moscow.
Mueller did not establish a conspiracy but stressed that he did not exonerate Trump of seeking to obstruct justice. Speculation over the two leaders’ relationship remained rampant, particularly over a meeting alone save for interpreters in Helsinki in 2018.
In front of the media at the G20 summit in Osaka in 2019, with Grisham sitting nearby, Trump joked with Putin that they should both “get rid” of journalists who published “fake news”, saying: “You don’t have this problem in Russia.”
Putin said: “Yes, yes, we have too, the same.”
Trump later smirked, pointed at Putin and said: “Don’t meddle in the election.”
Grisham was Trump’s third press secretary, an unhappy reign in which she did not hold a single White House briefing. Her book has been extensively trailed, titbits including a comparison of Melania Trump to Marie Antoinette.
A spokeswoman for Donald Trump has called the book “another pitiful attempt to cash in on the president’s strength and sell lies about the Trump family”.
Melania Trump has also dismissed the book. Grisham was working for the first lady when she resigned on 6 January this year, the day of the deadly attack on the US Capitol by Trump supporters.
According to the Post, Grisham says Donald Trump “was too wrapped up in his own ego and his own delusions about his invincibility” to deal properly with the coronavirus pandemic.
Discussing notorious events including “Sharpiegate”, involving a crudely doctored hurricane map, and the porn star Stormy Daniels’ claim that Trump’s penis was small and shaped like a mushroom, Grisham writes about White House incompetence extending to how staff lied to Trump to stop him losing his temper.
One such instance, Grisham says, came in 2018, when Air Force One was customarily made available to carry the casket and service dog of former president George HW Bush, the deceased patriarch of a family Trump loathed.
“We knew he wouldn’t be OK with that, even for a brief trip,” Grisham writes. “Dead bodies, death, sickness – those things really seemed to creep him out.”
Grisham is heavily critical of Melania Trump, who she says began to break with her husband over the Stormy Daniels affair.
Writing about how Melania was criticised for not standing with her husband on election night, as Jill Biden did with Joe Biden, Grisham says Melania said: “I don’t stand next to him because I don’t need to hold him up like she does. Can you imagine?”
“That made me laugh,” Grisham admits.
Hood Critic
The Power Circle