Mega-Thread: Trump Focused Discussion

[DarkTZeratul]

https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-...power-struggle

A few things.

1. Why is Trump talking about "mutiny" in relation to governors?

2. Oh wait, it's in relation to a movie. Because of fucking course it is, as entertainment is his wheelhouse and all he knows.

3. Does he think anyone believes that Cuomo calls "every hour" to "beg for supplies"? Because it's been pretty clear that Cuomo, Newsom, and other governors have largely given up on the federal government and are handling everything on their own by now.

4. Again, why is Trump talking about mutiny on his official twitter account?

My absolute favorite part of that article is this:

Trump also tweeted the reference to Mutiny on the Bounty, which he said is one of his “all time favorite movies.” He compared himself with the main character, Lieutenant William Bligh, who some Twitter users pointed out was a dictatorial captain who was cruel to his own crewmen, which caused them to rebel against him.

[Zan15]

"Shirley, you can't be serial."


.

I saaaaaaaaaaaaid…..

[Breccia]

My absolute favorite part of that article is this:

Yeah...for someone who tweets himself in movie posters, you'd expect no less.

But I feel bad for missing this: who instigated the mutiny?

Acting Lieutenant Fletcher Christian.

You. Cannot. Make this shit up.

[beanman12345]

So interesting, all these governors from Washington, New York, Ohio, Maryland, California, even Kentucky are in the 75-85% approval range right now, while Trump is back down to the mid-lower 40's. Only Trump can be such an abject failure and not capitalize on crisis approval rating boosts. Those polls that gave him a boost a few weeks ago, have put him back down to size in the past week.

[TigTone]

My absolute favorite part of that article is this:

The man truly wants his life to play out like a movie.

[Thekri]

The man truly wants his life to play out like a movie.

I found it hilarious he referred to Mutiny on the Bounty as a movie. Like he has no idea where the story came from.

It is a really dumb analogy for a lot of reasons, but I am sure it is the only Mutiny he has to reference. For one thing, the Mutiny was actually extremely successful (At least relative to basically every other mutiny) with about half of the mutineers totally escaping the Royal navy, and establishing a community on Pitcairn island that is still there today. Of course there is the already mentioned problem that Bligh caused the mutiny by being a colossal ass.

Still, the comparison isn't fair to Bligh. He may have been an abusive ass (Like Trump), but the man was one hell of a sailor. Sailed a lifeboat for 47 days across the open Pacific to arrive at exactly the Island he planned to reach. So he clearly had a level of competence that Trump lacks.

[Breccia]

So as required by law whitehouse.gov has a transcript of the last attack on the press and, hoo, boy.

There is no good starting and stopping point. This is the best I could do. Feel free to click the link if you want the rest.

Q You didn’t close down until the middle of March. “Should you have closed it down earlier?” — that’s the question.

THE PRESIDENT: I closed down from China.

Q It’s not about January.

THE PRESIDENT: Excuse me, I closed it down from China. And, by the way, some people think I should have waited longer and maybe ridden it out. I disagree with them. Okay? But it was thought of. I mean, that was an alternative. You know, there are a lot of people that would have said, “Let’s ride it out.” Now, I’ll give you the good news. If I would have done that, it would have been, I think, catastrophic because their numbers are, Anthony, 1.6 to 2.2 million people would have died if we tried to do that.

And I did this last time: Cut it in half. Don’t say 2.2 million. Cut it in more than half. Say a million people died — well, that’s much more than the Civil War. Cut it in half. Take the million and cut it in half; that’s 500,000 people would have died. Now, that number we would have reached. Okay? That would have been easy to reach if we did nothing. So we did the right thing, and our timing was very good.

But here’s the one thing — and you have to say this — when you ask me, “Why didn’t you do this?” — how come when I did the ban on China and some very, very — instituted some very tough things, how come Nancy Pelosi, a month later, is in Chinatown, saying, “Let’s all march. This is not going to happen”? How come we have many of the experts from CNN and many other networks — if you call CNN a network; I don’t, personally. But we have CNN, we have many other places, and they’re all saying, “He doesn’t need to do it. He doesn’t need to do it.”

All I’m saying is this: How do you close down the greatest economy in the history of the world when, on January 17th, you have no cases and no death; when on January 21st, you have one case and no death? One case. Think of it. Now, we’re supposed to close down the country?

But here’s what happened: When, on January 31st, I instituted the ban, Joe Biden went crazy. He said, “You don’t need the ban. You…” He didn’t go crazy. Like, he has — he didn’t even know what the hell the ban was. But he — so he didn’t go crazy. But he did say —

Q Your ban bought you time.

THE PRESIDENT: He did call me xenophobic.

Q What did you do with that time?

THE PRESIDENT: Wait a minute. He called me xenophobic; he called me a racist because — he has since apologized and he said I did the right thing. So when you say, “Why didn’t you do this?” Every Democrat thought I made a mistake when I did it. I saved tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of lives, by doing that.

Q But what did you do with that time that you bought? The argument is that you bought yourself some time and you didn’t use it to prepare hospitals, you didn’t use it to ramp up testing. Right now —

THE PRESIDENT: You’re so — you’re so —

Q — nearly 20 million people are unemployed.

THE PRESIDENT: You’re so disgraceful. It’s so disgraceful the way you say that.

Q Tens of thousands of Americans are dead.

THE PRESIDENT: Let me just — listen.

Q How is this sizzle reel —

THE PRESIDENT: I just went over it.

Q — or this rant supposed to make people feel confident —

THE PRESIDENT: I just went over it.

Q — in an unprecedented crisis?

THE PRESIDENT: Nobody thought we should do it. And when I did it —

Q But what did you do with the time that you bought?

THE PRESIDENT: You know what we did?

Q The month of February. That —

THE PRESIDENT: You know what we did?

Q That video has a gap. The entire month of February.

THE PRESIDENT: What do you do — what do you do when you have no case in the whole United States when you —

Q You had cases in February.

THE PRESIDENT: Excuse me. You reported it: zero cases, zero deaths on January 17th.

Q January.

Q January, February — the entire month of February.

THE PRESIDENT: January. I said in January.

Q Your video has a complete gap: the month of February.

THE PRESIDENT: On January 30th —

Q What did your administration do in February with the time that your travel ban bought you?

THE PRESIDENT: A lot.

Q What?

THE PRESIDENT: A lot. And, in fact, we’ll give you a list — what we did. In fact, part of it was up there. We did a lot.

Q It wasn’t in the video. The video had a gap.

THE PRESIDENT: Look. Look, you know you’re a fake. You know that. Your whole network — the way you cover it — is fake. And most of you — and not all of you — but the people are wise to you. That’s why you have a lower — a lower approval rating than you’ve ever had before, times probably three.

Q Twenty million people now are unemployed.

THE PRESIDENT: And when you ask me that questions —

Q Tens of thousands of people are dead, Mr. President.

THE PRESIDENT: Let me ask you this: Why didn’t Biden — why did Biden apologize? Why did he write a letter of apology?

Q I don’t think the unemployed people right now care about why Joe Biden didn’t apologize to you, sir.

Right, so, let's recap.

1) Trump showed that campaign/propaganda video we've discussed before.
2) The video mentioned nothing in February. The reporter called him on it.
3) Trump refused to answer anything about February.
4) Instead, he attacked the press for asking important questions and challenging his lies.
5) And he deflects with Biden and Democrats (more on this in a bit)
6) And cre...that's indigo? It looks just like purple, I can't use that! Fuck it, going with pink. And credited himself for hypothetically saving millions of lives
7) And of course, that closing line.

The full spectrum of Donald "I don't take responsibility" Trump.

Now it's worth noting that Trump is doing what some of our very own posters, members of the rabid fanbase, have done: they confused criticizing Trump's Muslim travel ban, with Trump's claim that he shut down travel from China. By the way, Trump is "serial exaggerating" again:

For starters, health experts say Trump was wrong to refer to the travel restrictions as a “travel ban,” as he did in a telephone interview on March 4 with Fox News’ Sean Hannity. During a town hall on March 5, Trump said he “closed down the borders to China and to other areas that are very badly affected.” That’s not accurate.

As Azar explained when he announced the travel restrictions on Jan. 31, the policy prohibits non-U.S. citizens, other than the immediate family of U.S. citizens and permanent residents, who have traveled to China within the last two weeks from entering the U.S.

At a House subcommittee hearing on the coronavirus on Feb. 5, Ron Klain, White House Ebola response coordinator under the Obama administration, took issue with the characterization of the travel restrictions as a travel “ban.”

“We don’t have a travel ban,” Klain said. “We have a travel Band-Aid right now. First, before it was imposed, 300,000 people came here from China in the previous month. So, the horse is out of the barn.”

So no, Trump didn't shut down travel from China. Trump is lying.

And let's all take the opportunity to remind ourselves that I gave these forums weeks to find these Democrats Trump is talking about, the ones opposing the travel ban with regard to China and the coronavirus outbreak. Nobody here was successful. One poster tried, and also made the same mistake: citing people against Trump's Muslim ban, proving they were not paying attention and subsequently shutting down the validity of any points they were trying to make, because they clearly weren't interested in actual facts or evidence. Just like Trump.

Trump was asked what he did with February, the month he would have bought himself with a travel ban if there had been one.

Trump was unable to defend his actions. Instead, he made up numbers and blamed Biden.

The United States doesn't have a President. The United States has a whiny little man-baby screeching "NO NO NO!" when caught next to the broken cookie jar and diapers so loaded with his own rancid feces, that everyone in the room could smell it.

[Frozenbeef]

https://www.thedailybeast.com/fox-ne...otal-authority

Even Fox News is pointing out that is Obama had even hinted at the levels of power Trump claims to have, conservatives would have completely lost their minds.

Though interestingly, Brit Hume did manage to find a way to criticize Trump for his outlandish claims while also blaming the media.

Trump made a "serial exaggeration" which...is a really sanitized way of saying "ignorant liar"

But it's the "media's" fault because of their "insistent focus on stuff he says, as if that is more important than what he actually does"

And because more often than not his words are bluster without any substance, the media shouldn't cover it...which I...I don't know what to say to something so mind numbingly stupid.

You must really suck at your job when the "news" organisation that will jump in front of danger to protect you no matter what, doubts your ability to lead.

Also yeah if you could do the world a favour and not elect a sociopath as your leader next time, that'd be great.

[Acidbaron]

@Breccia thanks for the transcript but the orange is really hard to read on that backdrop.

Also liking that it took reporters almost no time to figure out an entire month was missing, seems like he is digging himself a bigger hole every passing day. I wonder how much of his popularity will remain at the end of this.

[Thekri]

Also yeah if you could do the world a favour and not elect a sociopath as your leader next time, that'd be great.

I would give it about 60/40 we elect the same sociopath as our leader next time.

Trump sucks at everything but branding, but he is bizarrely good at that. The transcript Breccia posted is a perfect example of that.

He is busy reframing the issue from "I am incompetent and got thousands killed" to "I did something and saved millions". Because he created a bizarre strawman argument where 2.2 million would die if we did literally nothing, and is comparing himself to that standard. 2.2 million actually sounds about right for that, but that is comparing him to the complete absence of government at state and federal level. Which is of course patently ridiculous, Newsom is not going to let a half million Californians die no matter who the President is. And it certainly isn't comparing himself to what an actual efficient President could do(Like say, Hillary Clinton, who is an unlikable SOB, but was practically born to run something like this).

But that is the narrative he is going to drive, and for some reason the Democrats always cede him the narrative. So he is going to go into the 2020 General Election claiming to have saved millions of people, and the democrats are going to go into the 2020 election cycle complaining about the dumb shit he said on twitter that particular morning.

[Edge-]

But that is the narrative he is going to drive, and for some reason the Democrats always cede him the narrative.

Because they suck at campaigning and messaging for the most part. And they can't out-crazy him, and crazy gets you headlines which in turn gets you ownership of the narrative.

And media are complicit in this too, let's make no mistake. They're raking in the clicks and eyeballs covering this stuff and turning politics into a spectator sport. I still can't get over how debate graphics look more fitting for a god-damned WWE match more often than not. And the way they talk about it is more fitting as well, even at outlets like NPR.

Democrats unwillingness and/or inability to take control the media narrative has been a source of constant frustration since the 2016 election. They have some great members who are charismatic, good at sound bites, and are great on TV. But for one reason or another they're not sending them out there, because I know there's no network that would turn down an interview with Ted Lieu on Trump. That's a guaranteed moneymaker as they'll get returns on the segment and the "viral" clips that follow.

So he is going to go into the 2020 General Election claiming to have saved millions of people, and the democrats are going to go into the 2020 election cycle complaining about the dumb shit he said on twitter that particular morning.

There is a such a gold mine of shit to go after him for and I can't believe they're wasting time. Like, why haven't they even started talking about the judiciary yet, for fucks sake? Why aren't they already running ads about all the times Trump has been at the golf course while major events have been happening?

They really need to hire some Republican strategists to teach them how to play mean and play dirty, because they fucking suck at it. And they're now up against a group of assholes who are even better than Republican strategists at playing mean and dirty.

[akris15]

So Trump is now blaming all this mess on WHO and cutting off all funding...

This is getting unreal

[Edge-]

So Trump is now blaming all this mess on WHO and cutting off all funding...

This is getting unreal

https://www.washingtonpost.com/polit...911_story.html

Sauce. Doesn't seem to be much info yet, just that he's given the order to stop direct payments.

[Breccia]

Doesn't seem to be much info yet, just that he's given the order to stop direct payments.

Trump is trying to destroy every alliance the US has. At this point, why would China go through with Phase One? Why not just let him sit there and lose, then make a deal with Biden?

[akris15]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/polit...911_story.html

Sauce. Doesn't seem to be much info yet, just that he's given the order to stop direct payments.

Just the press conference he was blaming everyone (WHO, China, Governors) but himself. Hes halting all payments but during the press conference he was making it seem like they were cutting the funding "per review" (which you know his administration will find Trump right).

[Edge-]

Just the press conference he was blaming everyone (WHO, China, Governors) but himself.

But of course, and we know why.



This should be in every single anti-Trump ad leading into the election. Every. Single. One.

[Breccia]

Before we get started:

Our Ruling

Bloomberg said Trump is hampered in the fight against coronavirus because "No. 1, he fired the pandemic team two years ago. No. 2, he's been defunding Centers for Disease Control."

On the first point, it’s hard to pin down whether the National Security Council staffers were "fired" in 2018, but they certainly left abruptly and have not been replaced, though other leaders in the coronavirus fight have been named in recent days.

On the second point — funding — there’s no question that the Trump administration sought to cut key CDC budget categories that would be involved in emerging infections like coronavirus. But Bloomberg overlooks that, thanks to Congress, that funding was restored and even increased in bills that were ultimately signed by Trump.

The statement is partially accurate but leaves out important details, so we rate it Half True.

If anyone can think of a reason that these NSC staffers all left unexpectedly that doesn't look badly on Trump, feel free to say so. But whether they were all fired, or all quit in unison, there's little wiggle room to work with. Good luck.

Anyhow, my point: we all know Trump said this, on purpose, on live TV, on this topic:

I'm a businessperson. I don't like having thousands of people around when you don't need them. When we need them, we can get them back very quickly.

So Trump supporters: any of you who have not used your gun in six months, you must now sell it or otherwise get rid of it. Otherwise, you are calling Trump a liar.

"But I need my gun!"

You haven't used it in six months? Than no, you don't need it.

"But I might die if I can't protect myself with my gun!"

And people are dying because Trump didn't protect us from the outbreak, with a tool designed to protect us from outbreaks. Sorry. "I might need it, I might die" are not acceptable excuses -- we're seeing that in excess, right now.

"But it's a Constitutional right?"

Before, or after, Trump saying he had the authority to re-open the country? Sorry, the Constitution cannot be used to defend this, when the person you're supporting does not follow the Constitution.

Don't worry. If you really need a gun, you can get it back very quickly. In fact, how about you wait to get your gun back, for as long as it took Trump to get those doctors back? Let's see, how about...from the first case in the US, to the time Trump put Pence in charge?

"That's over a month".

Sounds good to me!

[PhaelixWW]

Oh, good news.

Trump is "authorizing each individual governor of each individual state to implement a reopening" in their respective states.

There's not an eyeroll emoji big enough...

[Edge-]

Oh, good news.

Trump is "authorizing each individual governor of each individual state to implement a reopening" in their respective states.

There's not an eyeroll emoji big enough...

And his devoted followers, not bothering to learn that he doesn't have any authority over the governors in this area, will fawn over how generous he is and how he totally doesn't want a big bad government and he's just so wonderful!

I'm seriously re-evaluating my stance on poll tests.

[akris15]

And his devoted followers, not bothering to learn that he doesn't have any authority over the governors in this area, will fawn over how generous he is and how he totally doesn't want a big bad government and he's just so wonderful!

I'm seriously re-evaluating my stance on poll tests.

I am really thinking if American citizens want to vote they need to pass the Citizenship test to do so. This is getting out of hand and everything always comes back to that 30% base.