The Trump Presidency

[Hawk]

ITT Hawk is gunning to be Sean Spicer's replacement as Press Secretary.

Good god, no, I'd be up there stuttering worse than Barry.

[Hawk]

you are still taking McMaster as a source ?

Matt Yglesias and Maggie Haberman weren't available.

[Hawk]

I suspect that the ****tiness of the WH press shop has more to do with the guy at the top than the personnel on the line.

Dude. When you are putting Mike Huckabee's spawn on TV you've got to be trawling the bottom of the barrel.

Spicer's all but had his dick kicked in and he's still out there spewing half-coherent sentences, so he earns props from me ... but it might be getting to the point where the baton needs to be passed.

[Julio3000]

Dude. When you are putting Mike Huckabee's spawn on TV you've got to be trawling the bottom of the barrel.

Spicer's all but had his dick kicked in and he's still out there spewing half-coherent sentences, so he earns props from me ... but it might be getting to the point where the baton needs to be passed.

So...starting on day one (largest crowd...PERIOD) they've screwed their credibility, reportedly at the behest of the boss. They've continued through the Flynn firing and two months' worth of self-inflicted harm because of the "wire-tapping." But it's the flacks' fault and not the boss's. Sure.

[Julio3000]

Oh, please. It's nothing of the sort. It is, however, a great example of continued attempts to throw random Russia related detritus at Trump with the prayer that something sticks.

Trump revealed information, in a secure (classified status) setting, to high level foreign officials, about an ongoing terrorist threat to international civil aviation. He didn't post it on Twitter. He didn't let it slip in a staff meeting.

It's been in the news for a month now (no laptops on flights from the Middle East, now potentially from Europe/Australia as well). There was a likely a discussion about the ban (or ISIS or something banal) and Trump provided additional details in that context. That's his prerogative.

I've yet to read where this disclosure directly compromised intelligence networks, assets, or operations. I've read a worse case scenario, I guess as a kind of mealy-mouthed justification to this feeding frenzy, that the Russians could have taken this information to the Iranians ... but it's not clear how that might have occurred or how that scenario might have ended.

Much ado about nothing, that, much like the other assorted crises we've had to suffer from this year, will be the title of a Margaret Mitchell book in a week's time (at the time of the next earth-shattering crisis).

Ok. Why do you suppose it leaked, then? If, as CNN has reported, the media was asked not to divulge certain information, but the President decided to do so in that context, why did somebody on his team think it was worthwhile enough to spill it to the Post? If it's actually a giant nothingburger, why the leak?

[The Chosen One]

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/16/u...=Facebook&_r=0

WASHINGTON — President Trump asked the F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, to shut down the federal investigation into Mr. Trump’s former national security adviser, Michael T. Flynn, in an Oval Office meeting in February, according to a memo Mr. Comey wrote shortly after the meeting.

“I hope you can let this go,” the president told Mr. Comey, according to the memo.

[Julio3000]

Sounds totally legit.

[chop2chip]

Somewhat feel like this is the straw that broke the camel's back for DJT.

No (R) is going to want to touch this mess. I don't think he gets impeached, but I think you'll start to see more and more Republicans distance themselves from him to clear the stink before mid-terms.

[Runnin]

http://theresurgent.com/i-know-one-of-the-sources/

Conservative pundit Erick Erickson is vouching for the reliability of a least one source who revealed to Washington Post reporters that President Donald Trump disclosed “highly classified information” while meeting with Russian officials last week.

Erickson knows one of the sources and supports their decision to go to the media, he wrote Tuesday in a blog post for his website, The Resurgent.

“This is a real problem and I treat this story very seriously because I know just how credible, competent, and serious — as well as seriously pro-Trump, at least one of the sources is,” Erickson wrote.

“You can call these sources disloyal, traitors, or whatever you want,” he added. “But please ask yourself a question — if the President, through inexperience and ignorance, is jeopardizing our national security and will not take advice or corrective action, what other means are available to get the President to listen and recognize the error of his ways?”

The President does not seem to realize or appreciate that his bragging can undermine relationships with our allies and with human intelligence sources.

Erickson wrote that people close to the president find him too insecure to take constructive criticism as anything other than a personal attack. So sources have gone to the media in the hopes that “the intense blowback” may force Trump to recognize his errors.

[Hawk]

Ok. Why do you suppose it leaked, then? If, as CNN has reported, the media was asked not to divulge certain information, but the President decided to do so in that context, why did somebody on his team think it was worthwhile enough to spill it to the Post? If it's actually a giant nothingburger, why the leak?

There are a multitude of reasons. Policy dissent. General animosity. Money. Almost all more plausible than the notion that the leak occurred for the general good of the public.

[Hawk]

So...starting on day one (largest crowd...PERIOD) they've screwed their credibility, reportedly at the behest of the boss. They've continued through the Flynn firing and two months' worth of self-inflicted harm because of the "wire-tapping." But it's the flacks' fault and not the boss's. Sure.

I don't think that this job was going to be easy for any spox given the campaign and the incessant gnashing of teeth all the way up to, and after, the inauguration. Is it Trump's fault? Sure, yeah, some of it. At the same time, I'm not about to give a free pass to media outlets which have opted to go full on Entertainment Tonight over the course of this administration.

[Hawk]

Somewhat feel like this is the straw that broke the camel's back for DJT.

No (R) is going to want to touch this mess. I don't think he gets impeached, but I think you'll start to see more and more Republicans distance themselves from him to clear the stink before mid-terms.

You mean the same ones that stood by him during Pussygate? Trump has never enjoyed a cozy relationship with Congressional Republicans.

[Julio3000]

Dude. When you are putting Mike Huckabee's spawn on TV you've got to be trawling the bottom of the barrel.

Spicer's all but had his dick kicked in and he's still out there spewing half-coherent sentences, so he earns props from me ... but it might be getting to the point where the baton needs to be passed.

I mean, don't get me wrong...the people suck, too. But that's also a reflection of the boss.

So, sure, they can hire more skilled flacks. More to the point, they could hire somebody to run the thing who could actually instill message discipline across the board . . . but the biggest message discipline issue has been the fact that the president himself has consistently ****ed the comm team's messaging.

It doesn't matter who they hire. It's the clay, not the sculptor.

[Hawk]

Ah, the same Erick Erickson who uninvited Trump from RedState.

Yeah, no bad blood there.

[Runnin]

Oh, please. It's nothing of the sort. It is, however, a great example of continued attempts to throw random Russia related detritus at Trump with the prayer that something sticks.

Trump revealed information, in a secure (classified status) setting, to high level foreign officials, about an ongoing terrorist threat to international civil aviation. He didn't post it on Twitter. He didn't let it slip in a staff meeting.

It's been in the news for a month now (no laptops on flights from the Middle East, now potentially from Europe/Australia as well). There was a likely a discussion about the ban (or ISIS or something banal) and Trump provided additional details in that context. That's his prerogative.

I've yet to read where this disclosure directly compromised intelligence networks, assets, or operations. I've read a worse case scenario, I guess as a kind of mealy-mouthed justification to this feeding frenzy, that the Russians could have taken this information to the Iranians ... but it's not clear how that might have occurred or how that scenario might have ended.

Much ado about nothing, that, much like the other assorted crises we've had to suffer from this year, will be the title of a Margaret Mitchell book in a week's time (at the time of the next earth-shattering crisis).

The entire world knows Trup was just doing his puffed up self-important routine. That's the ONLY tune he knows. Any serious information should not have been passed in such a silly, ostentatious way. If it was, it only shows what an incompetent fool he is, which of course is old news.

Regardless of any information he may have used as a prop, this was all about our President flaunting his power to the Dems, the media, the Russians and the world and the fact that it happened juxtaposed to the Comey firing was not a coincidence.

[Julio3000]

I don't think that this job was going to be easy for any spox given the campaign and the incessant gnashing of teeth all the way up to, and after, the inauguration. Is it Trump's fault? Sure, yeah, some of it. At the same time, I'm not about to give a free pass to media outlets which have opted to go full on Entertainment Tonight over the course of this administration.

You're way too charitable. The guy is a ****heel, and his tenure so far reflects it. But, yannow, shoot the messenger.

[Julio3000]

Ah, the same Erick Erickson who uninvited Trump from RedState.

Yeah, no bad blood there.

Jeez, dude. Call it what it is. The President daily lights himself on fire and then sprays himself in the face with a firehose in an attempt to put it out the fire, and you blame the people who write about it.

Short answer: why is the WH so leaky?

[Hawk]

I mean, don't get me wrong...the people suck, too. But that's also a reflection of the boss.

So, sure, they can hire more skilled flacks. More to the point, they could hire somebody to run the thing who could actually instill message discipline across the board . . . but the biggest message discipline issue has been the fact that the president himself has consistently ****ed the comm team's messaging.

It doesn't matter who they hire. It's the clay, not the sculptor.

Personally, given Trump, I would spend less time channeling Sam Seaborn and more time 'letting Trump be Trump' ... let's face the music, it's 2017, and the art of the cohesive political message is (unfortunately) essentially dead.

Trump went respectable with Spicer and Priebus when he should have gone full-on tawdry with the Laura Ingraham's and Giuliani's and Christie's.

He's never going to curry real favor with the press, their bread and butter is antagonization. He's got to go full bore down the path his administration has been tip-toeing around.

[Julio3000]

I don't think that this job was going to be easy for any spox given the campaign and the incessant gnashing of teeth all the way up to, and after, the inauguration. Is it Trump's fault? Sure, yeah, some of it. At the same time, I'm not about to give a free pass to media outlets which have opted to go full on Entertainment Tonight over the course of this administration.

Who sent Spicer out to insist on the yugeness of the inaugural crowd?

Who hired Mike Flynn, then fired him after an uncomfortable interval once his prevarication came to light?

Who fired the FBI director, then stepped all over his peoples' rationale for why it was done?

The media did that, I guess.

[Hawk]

Any serious information should not have been passed in such a silly, ostentatious way.

In a secure room, with clearanced policy advisors, security experts, and state level diplomats?

What do you mean?