From Axios’ Jonathan Swan: When a frustrated adviser once tried to convince President Trump to consider a strategic plan, the president launched into a story about his friend Mike Tyson, the former world heavyweight boxing champion. What he’s saying: “Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth,” Trump said, echoing a famous Tyson quote. I had asked the adviser whether … Read More
Country REALLY Divided on Day 26 of Shutdown
From Gallup today, the country is more divided on Trump than with any other president in polling history. The average 79-percentage-point difference between Republicans’ and Democrats’ job approval ratings of President Donald Trump during his second year in office is the largest Gallup has measured in any presidential year to date. But Trump still polls at historical lows. Overall, an … Read More
Exhausting Futility Continues
Shutdown Day Number 23 and there is no sign of movement. Trump apparently has little to do but tweet all day — childish attacks on Elizabeth Warren (racist attacks there) and on Jeff Bezo’s personal life. But that is kind of the point that Trump wants to make — he’s ready to work on a deal and Dems are off … Read More
The Buck Stops With Everybody
Impasse. Government is shut down. Nobody is budging. At a meeting yesterday with Pelosi and Schumer, Trump asked if they would fund his wall. He specifically said “wall” and NOT “border security” (he lied in a later tweet about this). Pelosi said no, and Trump said (verbatim) “Bye bye” and left. At present, he seems to have rallied the Republicans … Read More
The Non-Crisis Ploy
Flop sweat for Donald Trump. As the government shutdown enters its third week, and there is no movement on funding Trump’s wall, Trump is looking and acting desperate. Tonight, he will go on primetime television and, everyone expects, he will declare some sort of emergency and then try to get his wall funded by the military. Basically, the administration is trying … Read More
Why Should Democrats Negotiate When Team Trump Can’t Even Agree On What A “Wall” Means?
In an interview published Sunday in the Los Angeles Times, Kelly was quoted saying that the current White House plan for a barrier is “not a wall.” “The president still says ‘wall’ — oftentimes, frankly, he’ll say ‘barrier’ or ‘fencing.’ Now he’s tended toward steel slats,” Kelly said. “But we left a solid concrete wall early on in the administration … Read More
Government Shutdown Watch
Last night, the House passed a continuing resolution bill that included the $5 billion for a border wall, which Trump wanted. but the bill is DOA in the Senate and, we’re told, has no chance of passing. Trump is unchained. Mattis resigned yesterday after Trump’s decision, contra his advisers and, well, everyone, to pull out of Syria leaving a huge … Read More
Trump’s New Positions On The Wall And Syria Has Some Conservatives In An Uproar
Let;s start with the wall and note how sad Trump has become. He used to have so much vision: Oct. 3, 2015“We’re going to build a wall, and it’s going to be impenetrable, it will be a real wall.” — Jan. 16, 2016“China built a wall that’s 13,000 miles long 2,000 years ago. My ambition is for ours to be … Read More
Trump On A Twitter Tear This Morning
He rants about the investigations, Cohen, the wall…. in a largely fact-free tirade. This is creative accounting at best. I don’t know how much the US benefits from the NAFTA 2.0 Trade Agreement (i.e., the USMCA), but by most accounts, it’s not that different from the original NAFTA. And anyway, the benefits go to manufacturers, farmers, etc. — not the … Read More
Trump Says He Will Be Happy To Shut Down Government Over Border Wall
I guess Trump thought it would be a good idea to bring in cameras as he talked with Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer about immigration reform and in particular, his border wall. But it just made him look silly. Prior to his meeting with Rep. Nancy Pelosi and Sen. Chuck Schumer, Trump brought reporters into the Oval Office and — … Read More
Trump <> Obama
Pres. Trump: “Obama had a separation policy; we all had the same policy” Reporter: “You did not” Pres. Trump: “I tried to do it differently, but Obama had a separation policy” Reporter: “Sir, it was different — you decided to prosecute everyone at the border" pic.twitter.com/KOdgXWGLQN — NBC News (@NBCNews) November 26, 2018 Remarkable exchange. It’s remarkable in that Trump … Read More
Federal Judge Blocks Trump’s Asylum Ban
A federal judge is once again standing in the way of Donald Trump’s illegal orders—this time his proclamation blocking people who cross the southern border between ports of entry from applying for asylum: “Whatever the scope of the president’s authority, he may not rewrite the immigration laws to impose a condition that Congress has expressly forbidden,” Tigar wrote in his opinion. … Read More
What The New Dem-Controlled House Should Do Out Of The Gate
Dear Dem-Controlled House and Nancy Pelosi: Don’t let Trump bait you into go whole hog on investigations of him. That’ll come in time. No talk of impeachment. And let Mueller do his thing. In the meantime, act for the American people. The new Democratic House majority should devote its first 100 days to passing five pieces of legislation, then dare … Read More
Everyone Is Pulling Trump’s Racist Ad
CNN: Facebook has stopped the Trump campaign from running its racist anti-immigration commercial as an ad on the site. “This ad violates Facebook’s advertising policy against sensational content so we are rejecting it. While the video is allowed to be posted on Facebook, it cannot receive paid distribution,” Facebook said in a statement Monday afternoon. The move came shortly after NBC … Read More
Document Dump – Military Response To Migrant “Invasion”
Unclassified documents obtained from two Defense Department officials by Newsweek support the conclusion that the sitting president’s plan to deploy troops to the southern border to repel refugees is “a waste of time” for which there is no evidence of need: The U.S. intelligence community assessed that the “most likely course of action” was a dwindling of migrants as it reached the … Read More