‘I also talk good’: Internet mocks #stablegenius the rich asshole’s ‘grammatically challenged’ Camp David presser
some rich asshole (Photo: Gage Skidmore/Flickr)
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President some rich asshole was mocked for repeating a grammatical mistake during a midday Saturday press conference at Camp David — following a morning spent bragging about his mental acumen.
Chief of Staff John Kelly told the White House press pool that he had not seen the rich asshole’s “stable genius” tweets.
Chief of Staff John Kelly tells press at Camp David he had not seen Trump’s “stable genius” tweet or other new tweets.
(The reporters showed him, per @margarettalev.)
While the Chief of Staff may not have read the commander in chief’s tweets, but with 46 million followers on Twitter, his bragging about being a genius got around.
Here are some of the best reactions to the rich asshole’s press conference:
@realDonaldTrump To go from saying you are a brilliant, straight “A” student who went to the best schools in the country to saying “That’s what I do, I do things PROPER” (should be “properly” per basic grammar rules) is the perfect example of your hypocrisy. #NotMyPresident
"I do things proper." Um, not even grammar, Fuhrer @realDonaldTrump #hopeless #ImpeachTrump #somanylies
Trump says at Camp David presser today: "I do things proper."
Hey, @Penn, did y'all not teach adverbs in 1968? twitter.com/HallieJackson/…
"Everything that I've done is 100% proper. That is what I do, is I do things proper."- Trump
"Everything that I've done is 100 percent proper...that's what I do is I do things proper," Trump says in non-denial of @nytmikereporting on him ordering McGahn to tell Sessions not to recuse on Russia.
"That’s what I do is I do things proper." That's a genius talking there. twitter.com/keithboykin/st…
I’m a real president, I am, and I do things proper, gov’ner, always proper an’ on the up an up, ‘cause I’m a stable genius, I am. twitter.com/CBSNews/status…
Watch:
President Trump says report that he asked AG Sessions not to recuse himself is "way off," adds: "Everything that I've done is 100% proper. That is what I do, is I do things proper." cbsn.ws/2AAIWXC
Ivanka the rich asshole had contact with Russian lawyer Veselnitskaya after Don Jr.’s the rich asshole Tower meeting
First daughter Ivanka the rich asshole, image courtesy of www.IvankaTrump.com
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Special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigators are exploring Ivanka the rich asshole’s potential contacts with Russians attending a key June 9, 2016 meeting in the rich asshole Tower.
The Los Angeles Times reports that Ivanka the rich asshole, who did not attend the meeting, spoke at the elevator with Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya and Russian-American lobbyist Rinat Akhmetshin.
Mueller has recalled at least one of the meeting’s participants for further questioning.
“Even if you thought that this [meeting] was not treasonous, or unpatriotic, or bad …, and I happen to think it’s all of that, you should have called the FBI immediately,” Steve Bannon said in the new Michael Wolff book, Fire and Fury.
“The chance that Don Jr. did not walk these jumos up to his father’s office on the twenty-sixth floor is zero,” Bannon concluded.
Veselnitskaya, Akhmetshin, translator Anatoli Samochornov and Ike Kaveladze attended the meeting with Paul Manafort, some rich asshole Jr. and Jared Kushner.
“Some defense lawyers involved in the case view Mueller’s latest push as a sign that investigators are focusing on possible obstruction of justice by the rich asshole and several of his closest advisors for their statements about the politically sensitive meeting, rather than for collusion with the Russians,” the LA Times explained.
Steve Bannon just smashed the rich asshole’s Russia defense to pieces
some rich asshole Jr. (left) and some rich asshole Sr. (right).
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Steve Bannon’s caustic comments that President the rich asshole, his son and his campaign advisers engaged in a meeting with Russian government agents that was “treasonous” and “unpatriotic” has not only torched the president and his family, but disrupted the White House campaign to get rid of special prosecutor Robert Mueller. That may be why President the rich asshole erupted so angrily.
While the rich asshole, Capitol Hill Republicans, Fox News, and Breitbart News have sought for months to impugn the legitimacy of Mueller’s investigation, Bannon just confirmed it, dashing all hopes of changing the subject from the rich asshole’s embrace of Russia to Mueller’s integrity.
With his careless candor, Bannon refocused public attention on the rich asshole campaign’s deeply suspicious June 2016 meeting with Russian government officials offering “dirt” on Hillary Clinton.
“The three senior guys in the campaign thought it was a good idea to meet with a foreign government inside the rich asshole Tower in the conference room on the 25th floor—with no lawyers,” Bannon said. “They didn’t have any lawyers.”
Mueller has made the rich asshole Tower meeting a target of his investigation for the same reasons. Acting as an agent of a foreign government without registering with the U.S. government is a violation of the law. Attempting to make a secret deal with foreign agents to malign a political rival smacks of disloyalty to the country.
“Even if you thought that this was not treasonous, or unpatriotic, or bad shit—and I happen to think it’s all of that—you should have called the FBI immediately,” Bannon continued.
Thus the president’s chief propagandist endorsed liberal columnist Paul Krugman’s observation that the rich asshole Tower meeting was the “moral equivalent of treason.”
Bannon demolished the rich asshole’s claim that the charges of collusion with Russia are a “hoax” and “fake news.” To the contrary, Bannon said, the rich asshole’s actions were legally reckless, if not potentially criminal. What the rich asshole calls a hoax, Bannon describes as “bad shit.”
Amidst the rich asshole’s unprecedented campaign of vilification of the FBI, Bannon states the obvious: Mueller has every reason to investigate the rich asshole Tower meeting.
Bannon also identified the weak link in the rich asshole’s defense: his hapless son Don Jr., whom Bannon predicted will “crack like an egg” when Mueller’s team grills him. He also speculated that Don Jr. told his father about the meeting when it happened, something the White House has denied.
“The chance that Don Jr. did not walk these jumos up to his father’s office on the 26th floor is zero,” Bannon said. (“Jumos” appears to be a derogatory reference to the visiting Russians.)
No wonder the rich asshole responded by saying Bannon has “lost his mind” and is “only in it for himself,” or that the rich asshole apologists like former White House press secretary Ari Fleischer are now dutifully trashing Bannon, saying the rich asshole’s criticism is “like a two-by-four to the head.”
In an “emperor has no clothes” moment, the Trumpian cult of personality requires that followers not only affirm the naked leader is clad in the finest garb but insist anyone who says anything to the contrary should be physically punished.
But Fleischer’s slavish support from below cannot hide the rot from above. the rich asshole has now turned on two of the men who helped him win the White House—Bannon and former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn—and they are returning the favor.
Bannon, whom the rich asshole called a “tough and smart new voice” four months ago, is now a man who wants to “burn down the country.” Flynn, a “terrific guy” in 2016, is now a “liar,” because he is cooperating with Mueller’s investigation.
Under pressure from law enforcement, the rich asshole administration is cracking up.
Is this the real reason the billionaire Mercers cut off Steve Bannon?
Far-right Republican mega-donors Robert and Rebekah Mercer (Screen capture)
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On Thursday, Rebekah Mercer, the reclusive daughter of right-wing billionaire Robert Mercer, issued her first-ever public statement, in which she attempted to distance herself from former White House strategist, current Breitbart chair and future pariah Steve Bannon. “I support President the rich asshole and the platform upon which he was elected,” the statement read. “My family and I have not communicated with Steve Bannon in many months and have provided no financial support to his political agenda, nor do we support his recent actions and statements.”
As Buzzfeed reporters Tarini Parti and Joseph Bernstein noted, the statement “left a lot to the imagination about when and where her family stopped being a benefactor to Bannon’s efforts.”
Now we have something approaching an answer.
According to Jane Mayer, who chronicled the Mercers’ grip on right-wing politics in her book “Dark Money,” the Republican donors actually severed ties with Bannon months ago over his proposal to create a top income-tax rate of 44 percent for Americans earning more than $5 million annually—a proposal that would have directly impacted the Mercer family.
Relations between Bannon and the Mercers weren’t always contentious. Shortly after his ouster from the White House in August, Bannon huddled with Robert Mercer for five days at the Mercers’ estate on Long Island, where the two plotted election strategy for 2017 and beyond. (Bannon ultimately lent his support to Roy Moore, who defeated fellow Republican Luther Strange only to lose his Senate seat to Democrat Doug Jones.) Mercer has since donated $350,000 to Kelli Ward in Arizona and $50,000 to Chris McDaniel in Mississippi, two far-right candidates Bannon has groomed for Senate runs.
Indeed, the Mercers have been one of Breitbart’s most generous patrons, underwriting its star blogger Milo Yiannopoulos’ short-lived entertainment venture, Milo Inc., and even providing Bannon’s personal security detail. Robert Mercer ultimately pulled his financing for Yiannopoulos and sold his shares in the far-right news outlet, but Rebekah remains a part-owner.
“Of the many mischaracterizations made of me by the press, the most repugnant to me, have been the intimations that I am a white supremacist or a member of some other noxious group,” Robert Mercer wrote at the time. “A society founded on the basis of the individual freedom that flourishes under a limited federal government has no place for discrimination….Discrimination on the basis of race, ethnicity, gender, creed, or anything of that sort is abhorrent to me. But more than that, it is ignorant.”
His daughter’s statement reads no less hollow.
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On Thursday, Rebekah Mercer, the reclusive daughter of right-wing billionaire Robert Mercer, issued her first-ever public statement, in which she attempted to distance herself from former White House strategist, current Breitbart chair and future pariah Steve Bannon. “I support President the rich asshole and the platform upon which he was elected,” the statement read. “My family and I have not communicated with Steve Bannon in many months and have provided no financial support to his political agenda, nor do we support his recent actions and statements.”
As Buzzfeed reporters Tarini Parti and Joseph Bernstein noted, the statement “left a lot to the imagination about when and where her family stopped being a benefactor to Bannon’s efforts.”
Now we have something approaching an answer.
According to Jane Mayer, who chronicled the Mercers’ grip on right-wing politics in her book “Dark Money,” the Republican donors actually severed ties with Bannon months ago over his proposal to create a top income-tax rate of 44 percent for Americans earning more than $5 million annually—a proposal that would have directly impacted the Mercer family.
Relations between Bannon and the Mercers weren’t always contentious. Shortly after his ouster from the White House in August, Bannon huddled with Robert Mercer for five days at the Mercers’ estate on Long Island, where the two plotted election strategy for 2017 and beyond. (Bannon ultimately lent his support to Roy Moore, who defeated fellow Republican Luther Strange only to lose his Senate seat to Democrat Doug Jones.) Mercer has since donated $350,000 to Kelli Ward in Arizona and $50,000 to Chris McDaniel in Mississippi, two far-right candidates Bannon has groomed for Senate runs.
Indeed, the Mercers have been one of Breitbart’s most generous patrons, underwriting its star blogger Milo Yiannopoulos’ short-lived entertainment venture, Milo Inc., and even providing Bannon’s personal security detail. Robert Mercer ultimately pulled his financing for Yiannopoulos and sold his shares in the far-right news outlet, but Rebekah remains a part-owner.
“Of the many mischaracterizations made of me by the press, the most repugnant to me, have been the intimations that I am a white supremacist or a member of some other noxious group,” Robert Mercer wrote at the time. “A society founded on the basis of the individual freedom that flourishes under a limited federal government has no place for discrimination….Discrimination on the basis of race, ethnicity, gender, creed, or anything of that sort is abhorrent to me. But more than that, it is ignorant.”
His daughter’s statement reads no less hollow.
January 5, 2018
Halim Shebaya
Posted with permission from Al Jazeera
This is not a whataboutery piece. As such, the intent is by no means to belittle or discredit what is taking place in Iran by asking "what about Palestine". The Iranian people - like most of their Arab counterparts - live under an oppressive regime that severely restricts the right to dissent, "arresting and imprisoning" according to Amnesty International, "peaceful critics and others after grossly unfair trials before Revolutionary Courts".
This is not a matter of contention among morally serious analysts given the abundance of documentation of human rights violations by rights organisations and the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Iran.Similarly, it is also a matter of consensus among morally serious individuals that the Palestinian people have been suffering for decades under an oppressive Zionist regime and occupation that couldn't care less about international law and the human rights of the Palestinian people.
Trump: a "morally serious" president?
I am using the term "morally serious" here for two reasons. First, it was used in reference to Donald Trump. The US president's reckless Jerusalem decision and recent support for the Iranian protests earned him the title of a "morally serious president" in a recent Haaretz op-ed by Jonathan Tobin. The second reason is that, despite the ludicrous nature of such a proposition, thinking politically within the framework of "moral seriousness" can be a beneficial approach to assess Trump's - and any individual's - views. Obviously, what can be described as "morally serious" depends on the moral system we ascribe to. And while the notion of "universal human rights" as a value-system upon which the world order ought to be driven by will sound superfluous, naive and even delusional, it nonetheless provides us with a useful framework whereby political decisions can be measured based on what is commonly referred to as "international human rights standards" - standards that should, in principle, govern the relations of UN member states with their citizens.
Let us then try to think within this rubric about Trump's positions and give him the benefit of the doubt. Is he really a morally serious president?
"The world is watching"
Take the human right to freedom of expression and assembly as a starting point.
Since the outset of the recent Iranian protests, Trump offered his unequivocal support to the "great Iranian people" and he defended their human rights, including their "right to express themselves". Now it is reasonable to presume that a morally serious president would extend that same support to the Palestinian people. However, Trump has shown that he doesn't care about human rights violations if the perpetrator is a leadership he supports.When it comes to Palestine, Trump not only declared Jerusalem Israel's capital with no regard for Palestinians' view on the matter, but he also implemented a policy of bullying and blackmail at the United Nations, without once being bothered by Palestinian protesters' legitimate grievances and frustrations.
Not even the killing of a double-amputee prompted him to denounce Israeli violence or send a tweet-in-support of oppressed Palestinians. Nor the fact that 77 children were arrested following his Jerusalem decision (between December 6 and 9). Or that an Israeli "journalist", Ben Caspit, was widely seen to be insinuating violent revenge on a child - Ahed Tamimi - in detention: "In the case of the girls, we should exact a price at some other opportunity, in the dark, without witnesses and cameras". It is almost as if Palestinians do not exist in Trump's world view - except, of course, for being recipients of orders regarding what "peace plan" they should or should not accept, accompanied with threats to cut funding. Even though - in the case of UNRWA - this is something that could lead to a "humanitarian catastrophe".
Whereas Trump was quick to say that "the world is watching" Iran's protests because he considers the Iranian regime a foe (spurring debate among commentators whether he should speak up or be quiet), little did he care for the mother of the first teen killed by Israel in 2018 who said: "No one is listening to us - no one feels the pain that we're going through. The world is just silently watching." If this is presidential moral seriousness, we might be better off forgetting the concept of morality in its entirety.
Trump loves yet bans Iranians
Trump also spoke in support of the Iranian people whose bravery he applauded and whose best interests he claimed to have at heart. Yet, by denying Iranian citizens the right to enter the US, Trump is at the same time "playing games" with human lives. His Muslim Ban was widely denounced as a daily reminder of Trump's discrimination, prejudice and bigotry.
As the ACLU commented, it "takes away the ability of US citizens and green card holders to live with, or even be visited by, spouses, parents, children, grandparents, and other family members ... it will exclude friends and family from weddings, graduations, and funerals; prevent grandparents, uncles, and aunts from holding and caring for newborns; deny final visits to ailing relatives ..." Another important point is that some Iranians living in the US are unable to go home for various reasons, including the risk of arrest or imprisonment should they return. The ban prevents their family members entry to the US, and adds further hurdles and costs in their already-precarious lives.
Trump is Khamenei's "useful enemy"
Trump's double standards and hypocrisy in dealing with internal and foreign policy issues leaves him desperately failing when it comes to his declared goal of restoring American leadership and respect on the world stage. In fact, Trump is in many ways Ayatollah Khamenei's ideal foe. He is a "useful enemy" in that he offers Iran's leaders an easy way out of addressing legitimate grievances, and from having to answer for their human rights violations. For example, Iranian President Rouhani's Chief of Office Mahmoud Vaezi referenced Trump's policies as evidence of the US' insincere support for the Iranian people.
Furthermore, Iran has been under increasing pressure since Trump took office, with increasing sanctions and efforts to annul the Nuclear Deal - an agreement that was welcomed by the Iranian people and seen to be a harbinger of better economic times.Trump's appropriation of Israel and Saudi Arabia's obsession with Iran creates a regional environment of increased polarisation and tension, as we have seen during the Qatar crisis, and in Lebanon during Hariri's "Riyadh resignation". The appointment of the "Dark Prince" or "Ayatollah Mike" (Michael D'Andrea) to run the CIA's Iran operations was also interpreted as the onset of "a more muscular approach" by the US.
All this has created or solidified a state of anticipation for war - one that suits repressive regimes who use external threats to avoid discussing domestic affairs and to justify their policies and foreign-policy choices. If indeed "the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice", there is much reason to be optimistic for a better future for Palestine, for the Iranian people, and for the Arab world more generally.
However, Trump's policies in the US and the Middle East have made the road longer, and harder, as he recklessly "plays games" with people's lives.
the rich asshole calls ‘Fire and Fury’ author Michael Wolff a ‘loser’ — and says Bannon cried when he was fired
Alexander Nazaryan
Posted with permission from Newsweek
President Trump continued his extraordinary feud with author Michael Wolff with a Friday night tweet that will likely only boost sales of Fire and Fury, Wolff’s irresistibly salacious account of the Trump administration.
Michael Wolff is a total loser who made up stories in order to sell this really boring and untruthful book. He used Sloppy Steve Bannon, who cried when he got fired and begged for his job. Now Sloppy Steve has been dumped like a dog by almost everyone. Too bad! twitter.com/gop/status/949…
The tweet comes as Trump prepares for a weekend of political strategizing at Camp David with congressional Republicans ahead of the 2018 midterm elections. A photo released by the White House earlier in the evening showed Trump dining with several members of Congress and his administration. He was flanked, at the table, by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky, and House Speaker Paul D. Ryan, Republican of Wisconsin.
It was Trump’s fourth tweet about the book, whose publication dominated the news this week. Celebratory discussion of the massive tax cut signed into law last month was virtually nonexistent. Infrastructure was forgotten. And the looming fight over control of Congress was supplanted by the deliciously deadly drip of details from Woolf’s book, which was excerpted in The Hollywood Reporter, British GQ and The Guardian.
Trump’s tweet also included a link to an earlier tweet, from the Republican National Committee. That tweet included a mock advertisement for Woolf’s book, only instead of blurbs, it included doubts about Woolf’s reporting that had been voiced by prominent journalists, including Maggie Haberman of The New York Times, generally considered the most reliable reporter on the West Wing’s goings-on.
Some have, indeed, taken issue with a number of Wolff’s quotes and descriptions; the accuracy of Wolff’s reporting has been a longstanding matter of discussion in the Manhattan media world, with many assuming (whether fairly or not) that he took creative license beyond what journalistic propriety allowed. But for the most part, his description of a bumbling president and a chaotic administration in Fire and Fury has not been contested.
Among those quoted in the book is Sam Nunberg, an aide who reportedly called Trump an “idiot.” Wolff writes that Trump quickly grew bored when, during the presidential campaign, Nunberg attempted to explain the U.S. Constitution to the candidate.
Confronted earlier this week with the portions of Fire and Fury that relate to him, Nunberg made no denial. “Yes, but out of context and/or I don’t remember those quotes verbatim,” he said in a text message. The president’s former chief political strategist, Stephen K. Bannon, has also not denied or apologized for his many incendiary statements to Trump, which include deeming Ivanka Trump, the president’s favorite child, “dumb as a brick.”
If Trump is hoping that his tweets depress sales of Fire and Fury, he is likely to be disappointed. The book is currently Amazon’s top seller, while bookstores in Washington, D.C., quickly sold-out of physical copies. The San Francisco Public Library, meanwhile, said that Fire and Fury was the most demanded item in the system’s history, “with more than 900 hold requests,” according to the San Francisco Chronicle.
The previous record was held by Frozen.
Yale forensic psychiatrist: the rich asshole could wipe out the entire human species
January 6, 2018
Kate Sheridan
Posted with permission from Newsweek
President Donald Trump’s mental health might lead to the extinction of the human species, the Yale psychiatrist briefing lawmakers on the president's psychological state told Newsweek on Friday.
If it were possible, Dr. Bandy Lee said, "we would be declaring a public health emergency that needs to be responded to as quickly as possible.”
“As more time passes, we come closer to the greatest risk of danger, one that could even mean the extinction of the human species,” she said. “This is not hyperbole. This is the reality.”
After a series of tweets from Trump that appeared to threaten North Korea with nuclear war, Lee and hundreds of her colleagues at the National Coalition of Concerned Mental Health Experts issued a statement calling into question his mental health and psychological fitness for the presidency.
“Would someone from [North Korean Leader Kim Jong-un's] depleted and food starved regime please inform him that I too have a Nuclear Button, but it is a much bigger & more powerful one than his, and my Button works!" the president tweeted on Tuesday night.
North Korean Leader Kim Jong Un just stated that the “Nuclear Button is on his desk at all times.” Will someone from his depleted and food starved regime please inform him that I too have a Nuclear Button, but it is a much bigger & more powerful one than his, and my Button works!
A number of mental health experts have voiced concerns about Trump’s mental health for months; Lee even edited a book of 27 essays on the president’s mental status, The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump, which was published in October. (In that book, noted linguist and activist Noam Chomsky also made comments regarding the nuclear threat Trump may pose to the human species’ survival.)
Lee said that she and the other contributors to the book believe their writing doesn’t violate the American Psychiatric Association’s Goldwater Rule, which bars members from commenting on the psychological health of someone they haven’t actually examined. Lee stopped herself short of confirming a specific diagnosis to Newsweek; however, not everyone has done the same.
What Lee would say is that a history of violence—like Trump’s “verbal aggressiveness, history of boasting about sexual assault, history of inciting violence at his rallies, and history of endorsing violence in his key public speeches”—is the best predictor of future violence. “He has also shown an attraction to violence and powerful weapons," she said, including nuclear weapons. "He has also repeatedly taunted a hostile nation."
Lee said she’d received death threats since hosting a conference in April on the ethics of warning the public about dangers posed by mentally ill public figures. "I notified campus police and I changed my means of getting around," she said.
There have been additional concerning signs oustide the president's social media activity, she said, including the interview Trump did with New York Times reporter Michael Schmidt in late December. Trump’s speech patterns, Lee said, may illuminate the state of the president's cognitive abilities. “He cannot seem to finish sentences, he derails from his line of thinking, he has loose associations and he jumps from one topic or another,” she said. These things could indicate a psychiatric or medical condition, she said.
The Trump administration has disagreed with assessments that the president is psychologically unwell. White House spokesperson Sarah Huckabee Sanders called the suggestion "disgraceful and laughable" during Thursday's press briefing. Trump also tweeted on Saturday morning that "throughout my life, my two greatest assets have been mental stability and being, like, really smart."
....Actually, throughout my life, my two greatest assets have been mental stability and being, like, really smart. Crooked Hillary Clinton also played these cards very hard and, as everyone knows, went down in flames. I went from VERY successful businessman, to top T.V. Star.....
Assuming Sanders was echoing the president’s own thoughts when she said that, that statement could be yet another sign of impairment, Lee said. “Deflecting or projecting are often concerning signs,” she said. “Usually, as someone becomes mentally impaired, they lose the ability to consider the possibility that something could be wrong.” Vehement denial is almost a sure sign of illness, she said.
“That’s why forcible commitment is permitted—because it is their illness speaking, not their own healthy decision making.”
A spokesperson for Yale said that while the university would not restrict faculty member’s free speech, Dr. Lee’s opinions were her own and that the university “does not take positions or issue statements regarding the health or medical condition of public officials.”
Though Lee and her colleagues are making their own plans—including putting together a list of D.C.-area psychiatrists who would be willing to respond in the event of a mental health emergency at the White House—most of the possible reactions to a president's mental health issues are in the hands of lawmakers. Discussions about Trump's psychological fitness for the presidency almost invariably wind up involving the 25th Amendment of the Constitution, which lays out the presidential line of succession should the President die, resign, be temporarily unable to perform his duties or be removed from office. Alan Dershowitz, a former Harvard Law professor, told Politico that removing Trump from the presidency in this way “would require, for mental incapacity, a major psychotic break.”
One other option that Congress might have is to set up a committee to evaluate the president's health. Rep. Jamie Raskin, a Democrat from Maryland, has introduced a bill—which currently has 56 co-sponsors—that would set up a commission to determine if a president is physically and mentally able to serve. (Lee will also be speaking at one of Raskin's town halls.)
But that bill is far from becoming law. In the meantime, Lee would settle for an evaluation called a "capacity examination" done by a specialist. This kind of exam can be adapted for different professions; for a president, such an exam might look specifically at his decision-making ability as well as his ability to weigh consequences "and make choices that are fact- and reality-based," she said.
"It needs to happen as soon as possible," she said, but noted it was unlikely to be part of Trump's nearest annual physical exam, scheduled for January 12.
If the idea of Trump starting a species-ending nuclear war doesn't make you all that concerned, don't worry—that's normal. "Many people will be numbed," Lee said. "That's a normal human response to such a monumental risk of danger that is before us."
‘Take a shower, Steve’: ‘Fire and Fury’ claims the rich asshole taunted Steve Bannon by saying he looked ‘homeless’
January 6, 2018
Tom Porter
Posted with permission from Newsweek
President Donald Trump taunted his former chief strategist Steve Bannon for having poor hygiene, according to new extracts from Michael Wolff’s bombshell new book Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House.
According to extracts published Saturday in London’s The Times newspaper, Trump maligned his dishevelled adviser at every given opportunity.
“If there was anything wrong with his White House, it was Steve Bannon. Maligning Bannon was Trump’s idea of fun,” writes Wolff.
“When it came to Bannon, Trump rose to something like high analysis: “Steve Bannon’s problem is PR. He doesn’t understand it. Everybody hates him. Because . . . look at him. His bad PR rubs off on other people," writes Wolff.
“The president had assembled a wide jury to weigh Bannon’s fate, putting before it, in an insulting Borscht Belt style, a long list of Bannon’s annoyances: “Guy looks homeless. Take a shower, Steve. You’ve worn those pants for six days. He says he’s made money, I don’t believe it.” (The president, notably, never much took issue with Bannon’s policy views.) The Trump administration was hardly two months old, yet every media outlet was predicting Bannon’s coming defenestration.”
Bannon was formerly one of the president’s closest confidantes, but his relationship with the president has collapsed since the first extracts of the book were published last Wednesday. Bannon told Wolff that he believed that Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr., had committed treason when he met with a Russian lawyer touting negative information about Hillary Clinton in June, 2016, and described Trump’s eldest daughter and adviser, Ivanka, as “dumb as a brick.”
Bannon also told Wolff he believed that Trump could be removed under the 25th Amendment—under which presidents deemed mentally unfit can forced to step aside—after Trump suggested that “both sides” were to blame for the violence by white supremacists in Charlottesville, Virginia, in August that left an anti-racism activist dead.
According to reports, Trump bridled in early 2016 at reports claiming that Bannon was the mastermind behind the populist insurgency that led to Trump’s election, and in particular at a February, 2017, Time magazine cover story that labelled Bannon the "second most powerful man in the world."
Wolff, meanwhile, predicted in an interview Friday that his book would spell the end of the Trump presidency.
"I think one of the interesting effects of the book so far is a very clear emperor-has-no-clothes effect," Wolff said in a BBC interview broadcast Saturday.
"The story that I have told seems to present this presidency in such a way that it says he can't do his job," Wolff said.
"Suddenly everywhere people are going 'oh my God, it's true, he has no clothes'. That's the background to the perception and the understanding that will finally end ... this presidency."
In a tweet late Friday, Trump lashed out again at Bannon, who was removed from his position in August, and at Wolff, whom he described as a “total loser” who “made up stories in order to sell this really boring and untruthful book.”
“He used Sloppy Steve Bannon, who cried when he got fired and begged for his job. Now Sloppy Steve has been dumped like a dog by almost everyone. Too bad!”
In his book, Wolff writes of Bannon’s struggles to adapt to life in the White House—and the sense of mission that motivated him to stay.
“As an antisocial, maladjusted, post-middle-aged man, he had to make a supreme effort to get along with others, an effort that often did not go well. Most especially, he was miserable because of Donald Trump, whose cruelties, always great even when they were casual, were unbearable when he truly turned against you.”
“I hated being on the campaign, I hated the transition, I hate being here in the White House,” said Bannon, as quoted by Wolff.
“But Bannon was, he believed, here for a reason. And it was his firm belief — a belief he was unable to keep to himself, thus continually undermining his standing with the president — that his efforts had brought everybody else here.
“The idea of a split electorate — of blue and red states, of two opposing currents of values, of globalists and nationalists, of an establishment and populist revolt — was media shorthand for cultural angst and politically roiled times, and, to a large degree, for business as usual. But Bannon believed the split was literal," the book goes on.
“The United States had become a country of two hostile peoples. One would necessarily win and the other lose. Or one would dominate while the other would become marginal. This was modern civil war — Bannon’s war.”
the rich asshole aides felt free to talk candidly in front of Wolff because they thought ‘Fire and Fury’ wouldn’t come out until ‘next year’
FILE PHOTO: - U.S. President some rich asshole (L-R), joined by Chief of Staff Reince Priebus, Vice President Mike Pence, senior advisor Steve Bannon, Communications Director Sean Spicer and then National Security Advisor Michael Flynn, speaks by phone with Russia's President Vladimir Putin in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, U.S. on January 28, 2017. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst/File Photo
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Journalist Michael Wolff’s bombshell new Fire and Fury explained how some rich asshole, his campaign, and even his wife, did not expect to win the 2016 presidential election.
In an interview published Saturday by The Hollywood Reporter, Wolff explains how the short-sightedness of the rich asshole campaign allowed him unscrutinized West Wing access.
“I literally think you go in there and say, ‘I’m writing a book,’ and they go, ‘Oh. A book.’ It’s like a cloak of invisibility. And then also they would do this thing that would be like, ‘Oh, this is off the record.’ And I would say, ‘I would like to use it for the book.’ And they would say, ‘Well, when does that come out?’ And I would say, ‘Next year.’ ‘Oh, oh, yeah, OK, fine,'” Wolff recounted.
Wolff explained a similar experience when he wrote a biography on Fox News owner Rupert Murdoch.
“The distinct feeling that you have when you say that you’re writing a book is that these guys don’t care about you. You’re a kind of non-entity. ‘A book.’ the rich asshole is not getting excited about somebody writing a book,” Wolff explained. “I remember when the Murdoch book came out and Murdoch’s guy [former News Corp. marketing and corporate affairs exec] Gary Ginsberg, called me, furious, and said, ‘What is this? The book is all about him!’ I said, ‘It’s a biography.’ And Ginsberg says, ‘But it’s so personal.’ That’s when I realized, these guys don’t just not read books — they don’t know what books are.”
The short-sightedness of the White House echoes the short-sightedness of the rich asshole campaign described in the book.
“Not only did the rich asshole disregard the potential conflicts of his business deals and real estate holdings, he audaciously refused to release his tax returns. Why should he if he wasn’t going to win?” page 18 of the book asks.
Wolff also told The Hollywood Reporter what he had heard from White House sources since publication of the bestseller.
“I hear that the president is very angry, or, let me be precise: I hear that he is truly bouncing off the walls,” Wolff said of the Oval Office reaction.
In a second Saturday interview, Wolff told the BBC that the book was likely to bring down the rich asshole administration.
Ex-the rich asshole aide who called president an ‘idiot’ doubles down: ‘He’s a complete pain in the ass to work for’
Former the rich asshole campaign adviser Sam Nunberg speaks to MSNBC. Image via screengrab.
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Sam Nunberg, a former campaign adviser to some rich asshole, not only reiterated his concession that he “probably” called the president an “idiot” — he also doubled down on his insults while also, bizarrely, defending him.
MSNBC host Joy Ann Reid, in for Chris Hayes, came to her interview with Nunberg prepared with quotes from Michael Wolff’s stunning tell-all book Fire and Fury: Inside the rich asshole White House.
Nunberg was quoted in Wolff’s book saying, among other insults, that the rich asshole is “an effing fool” — a quote Reid threw back into the former aide’s face.
“It’s not that he doesn’t know what he doesn’t know,” Nunberg said. “It’s that he knows what he doesn’t know but he doesn’t care.”
Discussing the now-infamous anecdote where Nunberg tried to teach then-candidate the rich asshole the constitution only to have him get bored by the Fourth Amendment, the former aide tried to blast Wolff’s writing — but only ended up making the president look worse.
“[the rich asshole] has a granular level of the Constitution,” he said, claiming he was able to get through “gotcha” questions on the nation’s founding document with the candidate.
When asked about his insults on the president’s intelligence, the former adviser doubled down.
“I probably did call him an idiot,” Nunberg said once again. “By the way, Joy, he’s probably called me much worse.”
“You’re not the president of the United States, Sam,” she retorted.
After a back-and-forth with Reid where he both disparaged the rich asshole and Wolff while also claiming to not criticize them and, in some instances, praise them, Nunberg cut the host off to interject a telling statement.
“Joy, he’s a complete pain in the ass to work for,” the former aide said. “Joy, he’s terrible to work for.”
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Sam Nunberg, a former campaign adviser to some rich asshole, not only reiterated his concession that he “probably” called the president an “idiot” — he also doubled down on his insults while also, bizarrely, defending him.
MSNBC host Joy Ann Reid, in for Chris Hayes, came to her interview with Nunberg prepared with quotes from Michael Wolff’s stunning tell-all book Fire and Fury: Inside the rich asshole White House.
Nunberg was quoted in Wolff’s book saying, among other insults, that the rich asshole is “an effing fool” — a quote Reid threw back into the former aide’s face.
“It’s not that he doesn’t know what he doesn’t know,” Nunberg said. “It’s that he knows what he doesn’t know but he doesn’t care.”
Discussing the now-infamous anecdote where Nunberg tried to teach then-candidate the rich asshole the constitution only to have him get bored by the Fourth Amendment, the former aide tried to blast Wolff’s writing — but only ended up making the president look worse.
“[the rich asshole] has a granular level of the Constitution,” he said, claiming he was able to get through “gotcha” questions on the nation’s founding document with the candidate.
When asked about his insults on the president’s intelligence, the former adviser doubled down.
“I probably did call him an idiot,” Nunberg said once again. “By the way, Joy, he’s probably called me much worse.”
“You’re not the president of the United States, Sam,” she retorted.
After a back-and-forth with Reid where he both disparaged the rich asshole and Wolff while also claiming to not criticize them and, in some instances, praise them, Nunberg cut the host off to interject a telling statement.
“Joy, he’s a complete pain in the ass to work for,” the former aide said. “Joy, he’s terrible to work for.”
some rich asshole claims ‘Sloppy Steve’ Bannon cried when he was fired
Steve Bannon and some rich asshole (Composite / RawStory)
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In another late-night Twitter storm Friday, President some rich asshole attacked former top aide Steve Bannon and the author of the recently released expose on the White House.
“Michael Wolff is a total loser who made up stories in order to sell this really boring and untruthful book,” the rich asshole said. “He used Sloppy Steve Bannon, who cried when he got fired and begged for his job. Now Sloppy Steve has been dumped like a dog by almost everyone. Too bad!”
Michael Wolff is a total loser who made up stories in order to sell this really boring and untruthful book. He used Sloppy Steve Bannon, who cried when he got fired and begged for his job. Now Sloppy Steve has been dumped like a dog by almost everyone. Too bad! twitter.com/gop/status/949…
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In another late-night Twitter storm Friday, President some rich asshole attacked former top aide Steve Bannon and the author of the recently released expose on the White House.
“Michael Wolff is a total loser who made up stories in order to sell this really boring and untruthful book,” the rich asshole said. “He used Sloppy Steve Bannon, who cried when he got fired and begged for his job. Now Sloppy Steve has been dumped like a dog by almost everyone. Too bad!”
Michael Wolff is a total loser who made up stories in order to sell this really boring and untruthful book. He used Sloppy Steve Bannon, who cried when he got fired and begged for his job. Now Sloppy Steve has been dumped like a dog by almost everyone. Too bad! twitter.com/gop/status/949…
MSNBC hosts wondered if the rich asshole was un-accompanied while at Camp David with the other GOP leaders.
some rich asshole tweeted transgender military ban after 10 minutes thought
January 5, 2018
Christianna Silva
Posted with permission from Newsweek
President Donald Trump has spent the past six months attempting to ban transgender personnel from the military, after apparently spending just ten minutes on the decision, according to a new tell-all book by Michael Wolff.
Wolff’s book, In Fire and Fury, alleges that President Trump attended a meeting in which his advisors presented him “with four different options related to the military’s transgender policy.”
Wolff doesn’t say what the four different options were, but that the presentation was “meant to frame an ongoing discussion,” not to land with a final decision that day. But, instead of consulting with more advisors, or the Pentagon, or the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Trump took immediate action to move back an Obama-era policy which allowed transgender troops to serve openly in the military.
“But ten minutes after receiving the discussion points, and without further consultation, Trump tweeted his transgender ban,” Wolff wrote.
Trump was frustrated that day, according to the book. It followed his speech to the Boy Scouts of America that prompted the group to apologize to its members, their parents, and the entire country. The following morning, when the meeting took place, Wolff described Trump as “seething” when he wrote in a string of tweets:
“After consultation with my Generals and military experts, please be advised that the United States Government will not accept or allow Transgender individuals to serve in any capacity in the U.S. Military. Our military must be focused on decisive and overwhelming victory and cannot be burdened with the tremendous medical costs and disruption that transgender in the military would entail. Thank you.”
After consultation with my Generals and military experts, please be advised that the United States Government will not accept or allow......
....Transgender individuals to serve in any capacity in the U.S. Military. Our military must be focused on decisive and overwhelming.....
....victory and cannot be burdened with the tremendous medical costs and disruption that transgender in the military would entail. Thank you
In August, Trump signed a presidential memo that followed through on his tweets: it prohibited transgender people from enlisting in the military, and stopped all funds going toward paying for gender transition-related surgery. Despite the administration's best efforts, and multiple legal battles, transgender people continued enlisting in the military in January 2018.
Trump has already called Wolff’s book, which hit bookstores Friday, false in a tweet.
“Well, now that collusion with Russia is proving to be a total hoax and the only collusion is with Hillary Clinton and the FBI/Russia, the Fake News Media (Mainstream) and this phony new book are hitting out at every new front imaginable. They should try winning an election. Sad!”
Well, now that collusion with Russia is proving to be a total hoax and the only collusion is with Hillary Clinton and the FBI/Russia, the Fake News Media (Mainstream) and this phony new book are hitting out at every new front imaginable. They should try winning an election. Sad!
‘Like herding cats’: Internet beats up on ex-the rich asshole aide Sam Nunberg for appearing intoxicated during interview
MSNBC host Joy Ann Reid (left) and former the rich asshole campaign aide Sam Nunberg (right). Images via screengrab.
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Though former some rich asshole campaign aide Sam Nunberg made some brash confessions during his Friday night interview with MSNBC’s Joy Ann Reid, it was his bizarre behavior that got Twitter talking.
Throughout the interview, Nunberg interrupted the host repeatedly, making off-handed comments “informing” her audience that she’d read Michael Wolff’s Fire and Fury: Inside the rich asshole White House.
Even his admissions in general — that the president was a “complete pain in the ass” to work for on the campaign trail and that he only has a “granular” understanding of the Constitution — seemed a bit off.
To some, that appeared to be evidence that he was inebriated.
“Holy Crap,” one user tweeted, “how many shots did Sam Nunberg have before he went on All In tonight?”
Another claimed Nunberg was “absolutely drunk,” and that the host was “so obviously pissed her guest is loaded!”
sam nunberg is absolutely drunk with Joy Reid on @allinwithchris .
He just called Trump a fool and Joy is so obviously pissed her guest is loaded!
MAGA!
Even the host noted that Nunberg appeared to be in “an interesting mood” during their interview.
I'm watching this Sam Nunberg interview with Joy Reid and the fact that Trump was surrounded entirely by low-end boobs, goons, and blabbermouths should no longer be shocking but...WOW.
Emmy to @JoyAnnReid for her delivery of the line "Sam Nunberg, who was in an...interesting mood tonight..."
Check out the best responses below.
@JoyAnnReid trying to contain drunk or stoned Sam Nunberg is like herding cats. #inners
He was on MSNBC earlier...shady as always, but lucid. Dumb to get lit before a prime time appearance.
Hopefully Sam Nunberg has a designated driver, he won’t be able to reach the steering wheel with his foot lodged in his mouth! #inners
I think that Sam Nunberg is either drunk or stoned...how could the producers let him on tv?...he is talking so loud and laughing inappropriately...@JoyAnnReid is trying to rein him in....weird.
You thought you could outsmart @JoyAnnReid with your giggling and condescending tone towards her?
Were you drunk? #smh #TrumpMentality #SamNunberg
@JoyAnnReid Great show tonight but I have one question... Do you think Sam Nunberg had maybe had a few 
with dinner? Compared to his interview earlier today... He was... let's say different!!! 
Was Sam Nunberg drunk when @JoyAnnReid interviewed him?? Sure sounded like it. Enjoy your 15 minutes, Sam.
#SamNunberg ...Friends don't let friends drink & interview! @JoyAnnReid handled it well.msnbc.com/all-in/watch/f…twitter.com/tuckerjs1/stat…
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Though former some rich asshole campaign aide Sam Nunberg made some brash confessions during his Friday night interview with MSNBC’s Joy Ann Reid, it was his bizarre behavior that got Twitter talking.
Throughout the interview, Nunberg interrupted the host repeatedly, making off-handed comments “informing” her audience that she’d read Michael Wolff’s Fire and Fury: Inside the rich asshole White House.
Even his admissions in general — that the president was a “complete pain in the ass” to work for on the campaign trail and that he only has a “granular” understanding of the Constitution — seemed a bit off.
To some, that appeared to be evidence that he was inebriated.
“Holy Crap,” one user tweeted, “how many shots did Sam Nunberg have before he went on All In tonight?”
Another claimed Nunberg was “absolutely drunk,” and that the host was “so obviously pissed her guest is loaded!”
sam nunberg is absolutely drunk with Joy Reid on @allinwithchris .
He just called Trump a fool and Joy is so obviously pissed her guest is loaded!
MAGA!
Even the host noted that Nunberg appeared to be in “an interesting mood” during their interview.
I'm watching this Sam Nunberg interview with Joy Reid and the fact that Trump was surrounded entirely by low-end boobs, goons, and blabbermouths should no longer be shocking but...WOW.
Emmy to @JoyAnnReid for her delivery of the line "Sam Nunberg, who was in an...interesting mood tonight..."
Check out the best responses below.
@JoyAnnReid trying to contain drunk or stoned Sam Nunberg is like herding cats. #inners
He was on MSNBC earlier...shady as always, but lucid. Dumb to get lit before a prime time appearance.
Hopefully Sam Nunberg has a designated driver, he won’t be able to reach the steering wheel with his foot lodged in his mouth! #inners
I think that Sam Nunberg is either drunk or stoned...how could the producers let him on tv?...he is talking so loud and laughing inappropriately...@JoyAnnReid is trying to rein him in....weird.
You thought you could outsmart @JoyAnnReid with your giggling and condescending tone towards her?
Were you drunk? #smh #TrumpMentality #SamNunberg
Terriaki
@JoyAnnReid Great show tonight but I have one question... Do you think Sam Nunberg had maybe had a few
Was Sam Nunberg drunk when @JoyAnnReid interviewed him?? Sure sounded like it. Enjoy your 15 minutes, Sam.
#SamNunberg ...Friends don't let friends drink & interview! @JoyAnnReid handled it well.msnbc.com/all-in/watch/f…twitter.com/tuckerjs1/stat…
Fmr. Trump advisor who called Trump an idiot defends remarks
Is anyone else watching @JoyAnnReid attempt to interview a thoroughly sh*t-faced & belligerent Sam Nunberg???
Thanks for tuning in this week to @allinwithchris while @chrislhayes spends some quality time with his adorable new family addition. See you tomorrow morning for #AMJoy! Heading home to finish the last bit of #fireandfury and listening to @maddow on SXM.
#inners Ok. We survived another week. Now if you’ll excuse me,I’m gonna open up the vodka and try and do my best Sam Nunberg impersonation.
Was #SamNunberg sloshed while he was talking to @JoyAnnReid on @allinwithchris? That was embarrassing.
Who needs New Years Eve as an excuse to be drunk AF on live tv. Stay thirsty Sam Nunberg. #ALLIN @JoyRupert
Is anyone else watching @JoyAnnReid attempt to interview a thoroughly sh*t-faced & belligerent Sam Nunberg???
Thanks for tuning in this week to @allinwithchris while @chrislhayes spends some quality time with his adorable new family addition. See you tomorrow morning for #AMJoy! Heading home to finish the last bit of #fireandfury and listening to @maddow on SXM.
#inners Ok. We survived another week. Now if you’ll excuse me,I’m gonna open up the vodka and try and do my best Sam Nunberg impersonation.
Was #SamNunberg sloshed while he was talking to @JoyAnnReid on @allinwithchris? That was embarrassing.
Who needs New Years Eve as an excuse to be drunk AF on live tv. Stay thirsty Sam Nunberg. #ALLIN @JoyRupert
This historian compared the rich asshole and Lincoln. The result is both terrifying and hilarious
some rich asshole speaking at the Iowa Republican Party's 2015 Lincoln Dinner at the Iowa Events Center in Des Moines, Iowa. (Gage Skidmore/Flickr)
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the rich asshole: says, “I can be more presidential than all past presidents except Lincoln.” Another whopper, or what?
On July 26, 2017 in Youngstown, Ohio, six months into his presidency, some rich asshole made the startling statement, “With the exception of the late, great Abraham Lincoln, I can be more presidential than any president that’s ever held this office.” During the election campaign in 2016 he told a reporter from the Washington Post the same thing.
What does this mean? To the rich asshole it means he tops forty-three other presidents in presidentiality. Here, then, are all the past presidents whom he overleaps, together with what his thoughts, comments, and quotes might be as he soars past each cluster of chief magistrates and lands finally beside Lincoln—ranked one and two.
First (going in reverse from the latest to the earliest), the rich asshole leapfrogs every recent president from Obama to Truman—both Bushes, Clinton, Reagan, Carter, Ford, Nixon, L. Johnson. Kennedy, and Eisenhower. “All Lightweights,” he might say.
Then the two Roosevelts. FDR, he might say, should have been arrested for all that New Deal welfare legislation he strong-armed through at the expense of business—crimes against capitalism. As for Teddy, he was nothing but a rough rider. Since he is the second best presidential president, the rich asshole might believe his own stone face instead of Teddy’s ought to be on Mount Rushmore—along with Lincoln and those other two guys.
the rich asshole speedily hurdles the five presidents between the Roosevelts—Hoover, Coolidge, Harding, Wilson, and Taft—five “nobodies.”
He overleaps the gang of presidents of the last half of the nineteenth century between Teddy and Lincoln—McKinley, Cleveland (two different times), B. Harrison, Arthur, Garfield, Hayes, Grant (so unpresidential, a tanner’s son who only knew how to whisper to horses and wage war), and A. Johnson (a tailor in real life, almost thrown out of office). “Total losers.”
Of the sixteen presidents before Lincoln, the rich asshole tops in presidentiality all five Founding Fathers –Washington, J. Adams, Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe—five “has-beens.“
The others who preceded Lincoln were J. Q. Adams, Jackson (best at fighting duels, very unpresidental), Van Buren, W. Harrison, Tyler, Polk, Taylor, Fillmore, Pierce, and Buchanan. the rich asshole shoots past them all—the worst run of presidents in the history of the world, the rich asshole might say, who couldn’t stop the Civil War from coming. Yet it was a war so simple to prevent. Just strike a deal. “Sad.”
So that leaves us with just the two most presidential of presidents, Lincoln and the rich asshole. It offers an occasion, therefore, to compare their presidentialities.
Lincoln: He was known widely as “Honest Abe.” He didn’t lie.
the rich asshole: He lies all the time. It is his management style. The Washington Post counted the number of “false and misleading claims” he issued in his first 263 days in office. They numbered 1,318. If true, it is an average of five lies a day in only his first eight and a half months in office. He has doubtless already obliterated the record for presidential falsehoods. He has very likely told more lies already than Lincoln and all the other presidents combined.
Lincoln: He was noted for his compassion and kindness.
the rich asshole: He has a reputation as a hater, defamer, and a bombastic bully.
Lincoln: He was a thinker, taking his time to ponder a problem from all sides, its consequences and ramifications, before acting.
the rich asshole: He is a fast-draw hip-shooter, making important decisions giving little thought to the consequences, and lobbing startling salvos at people from his twitter account at three in the morning.
Lincoln: He showed respect for his political adversaries, naming all three of his chief rivals for the Republican presidential nomination to his cabinet—Seward, secretary of state; Chase, secretary of the treasury; and Bates, attorney general. Stanton, his most outspoken critic, who had called him a kangaroo and a gorilla, Lincoln appointed secretary of war, based on his ability, not his insults.
the rich asshole: He thinks his adversaries should be thrown in jail (i.e. Hillary Clinton).
Lincoln: He learned early in his political career—challenged to a duel for it—that insulting and deriding others personally is not only unkind and mean spirited, but counter-productive. Hence he stopped doing it.
the rich asshole: He fires off personal invective and belittling insults regularly in his late night-early morning twitters, which the New York Times wrote, “he uses like a Gatling Gun.”
Lincoln: He was liked and admired by leaders of virtually every foreign nation.
the rich asshole: His insults, name-calling, threats, and refusal to work with other nations on such world-endangering crises as global warming has puzzled and alienated many world leaders.
Lincoln: He admired women, and was never known to have groped one. He proposed, decades before it happened, that women be given the vote. Besides, Mary Lincoln would have thrown an unsurvivable hissy fit if he ever groped one and she found out about it.
the rich asshole: He is said to have groped many attractive young women, insulted, and bullied them, perhaps because he thought it was his right as a powerful, rich, famous, and successful male.
Lincoln: As a policy of government, he believed that if there must be a choice between man and money, it must be for the man every time.
the rich asshole: He and his party believe the opposite, choosing the money every time—at the sacrifice of the man if necessary.
Lincoln: Also as a policy, he believed that the government’s proper role is to care for persons who cannot help themselves, or help themselves so well as the government can.
the rich asshole: Also with his party, he believes the opposite, favoring a lowering of taxes on the rich so they can be richer, and cutting back on services for the needy to make up the deficit.
Lincoln: He believed in tearing down walls between people and nations.
the rich asshole: He is building a wall between Mexico and the United States to keep immigrants out.
Lincoln: He was a humble man, who often thought another could better lead the country safely through a terrible bloody fratricidal war than he, and who told jokes at his own expense.
the rich asshole: He is an evident narcissist, who admires himself and speaks of himself as the one man to “make America great again.”
the rich asshole, moreover, said he is more presidential than any other president but Lincoln. It looks as if it might have been just another whopper to meet his quota for the day.
John C. Waugh is the author of Reelecting Lincoln: The Battle for the 1864 Presidency.
This article was originally published at History News Network
It's Been an Open Secret All Along
The scandal of Michael Wolff’s new book isn’t its salacious details—it’s that everyone in Washington has known its key themes, and refused to act.
JAMES FALLOWS JAN 4, 2018
Three months ago, when Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey of The New York Times unloaded their first big report about Harvey Weinstein’s pattern of sexual aggressiveness and abuse, the depth of detail made the story unforgettable—and as it turned out, historic. Real women went on the record, using their real names, giving specific dates and times and circumstances of what Weinstein had said or done to them.
Of the reactions that flowed from this and parallel accounts—about Roger Ailes and Bill O’Reilly in the Fox empire, or Matt Lauer and Charlie Rose in mainstream TV, or Kevin Spacey and Louis CK in the film world, or Michael Oreskes and John Hockenberry in public radio, or Mark Halperin and Leon Weiseltier in print and political media, and down the rest of the list—one response was particularly revealing. It was that the behavior in question had been an “open secret.”
In the very short term, a few people reflexively offered “open secret” as an explanation, even a rationalization. Of course everybody knew that Harvey/Roger/Kevin was this way (the reasoning went). If you were smart, you kept your distance, and you’d never take the bait of going for “a meeting” up in the hotel room. Want to give, or get, a “massage”? No way!
But you rarely hear rationalizations of that sort anymore. Now the open-secret premise usually leads to a follow-up question. If “everyone” knew what was going on, why didn’t anyone do more to stop it? And this in turn has led to institutional and personal self-examinations.
In the best circumstances, organizations have asked: How could we have failed that badly? What should we do differently? Individuals have asked: What should I have known, that I merely suspected (or willfully ignored)? What more could I have done, based on what I actually knew? For powerful illustrations in this last category from members of the Atlantic family, involving episodes at The New Republic, see this by Michelle Cottle, this by Peter Beinart, and this by Franklin Foer.
In the worst circumstances, details have piled up about organizations that made deals, payoffs, or threats to keep ugly specifics of what they knew from getting in the way of their business plans. Thus the tens of millions of dollars in harassment settlements while Bill O’Reilly was still a Fox cash cow; thus the payoffs and investigations by the Weinstein organization to placate or intimidate women who might otherwise go public with their complaints against Harvey Weinstein.
In all these cases, the malefactor remains most to blame. But “it was an open secret” now properly seems a broadened indictment, of all those who quietly let him get away with it, rather than an excuse.
***
The details in Michael Wolff’s new book Fire and Fury make it unforgettable, and potentially historic. We’ll see how many of them fully stand up, and in what particulars, but even at a heavy discount, it’s a remarkable tale.
But what Wolff is describing is an open secret.
Based on the excerpts now available, Fire and Fury presents a man in the White House who is profoundly ignorant of politics, policy, and anything resembling the substance of perhaps the world’s most demanding job. He is temperamentally unstable. Most of what he says in public is at odds with provable fact, from “biggest inaugural crowd in history” onward. Whether he is aware of it or not, much of what he asserts is a lie. His functional vocabulary is markedly smaller than it was 20 years ago; the oldest person ever to begin service in the White House, he is increasingly prone to repeat anecdotes and phrases. He is a swirl in foreign and financial complications. He has ignored countless norms of modern governance, from the expectation of financial disclosure to the importance of remaining separate from law-enforcement activities. He relies on immediate family members to an unusual degree; he has an exceptionally thin roster of experienced advisers and assistants; his White House staff operations have more in common with an episode of The Apprentice than with any real-world counterpart. He has a shallower reserve of historical or functional information than previous presidents, and a more restricted supply of ongoing information than many citizens. He views all events through the prism of whether they make him look strong and famous, and thus he is laughably susceptible to flattering treatment from the likes of Putin and Xi Jinping abroad or courtiers at home.
And, as Wolff emphasizes, everyone around him considers him unfit for the duties of this office. From the account in The Hollywood Reporter:
Hoping for the best, with their personal futures as well as the country's future depending on it, my indelible impression of talking to them and observing them through much of the first year of his presidency, is that they all—100 percent—came to believe he was incapable of functioning in his job.
This is “news,” in its detail, just as the specifics of Weinstein’s marauding were real, hard-won news. But it also is an open secret. This is the man who offered himself to the public over the past two-and-a-half years.
* * *
I feel this way because I believe I chronicled signs of every one of these traits through the campaign cycle, in The Atlantic’s 162-installment “the rich asshole Time Capsule” series. But practically anyone else in political journalism can make a similar claim. Who and what the rich asshole is has been an open secret.
It was because of this open secret that nearly 11 million more Americans voted against the rich asshole last year than for him, including the three million more who voted for Hillary Clinton. (The rest were for Gary Johnson, who got nearly 4.5 million; Jill Stein, with nearly 1.5 million; Evan McMullin, with about 700,000; and a million-plus write-ins.) It was because of this open secret that virtually every journalistic endorsement in the country went against him, including from publications (like The Dallas Morning News or The Arizona Republic) that are ordinarily rock-ribbed Republican, and others (like USA Today) that had not offered endorsements before or (like The Atlantic) generally did so only once per century. It was because of this that his party’s previous nominee, Mitt Romney, publicly denounced him—and that most of the political establishment, Democratic and Republican alike, assumed that no person like him could ever reach the White House.
(The shared certainty that the rich asshole would fall short, which Wolff demonstrates extended to every part of the rich asshole campaign as well, may explain one of the major journalistic failures of the campaign: the disproportionate harping on Hillary Clinton’s email “problems,” as if this objectively third-tier failing were on a par with the rich asshole’s grossly disqualifying traits. Most of the press assumed she would soon be in office; this was a warm-up for the kind of inspection real presidents should be prepared to undergo.)
***
Who is also in on this open secret? Virtually everyone in a position to do something about it, which at the moment means members of the Republican majority in Congress.
They know what is wrong with some rich asshole. They know why it’s dangerous. They understand—or most of them do—the damage he can do to a system of governance that relies to a surprising degree on norms rather than rules, and whose vulnerability has been newly exposed. They know—or should—about the ways the rich asshole’s vanity and avarice are harming American interests relative to competitors like Russia and China, and partners and allies in North America, Europe, and the Pacific.
They know. They could do something: hearings, investigations, demands for financial or health documents, subpoenas. Even the tool they used against the 42nd president, for failings one percent as grave as those of the 45th: impeachment.
They know. They could act. And they don’t. The failure of responsibility starts with Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan, but it doesn’t end with them. Every member of a bloc-voting majority shares responsibility for not acting on their version of the open secret. “Independent” Republicans like Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski share it. “Thoughtful” ones, like Ben Sasse and Jeff Flake. Those (in addition to Flake) who have nothing to lose electorally, from Bob Corker to Orrin Hatch. When they vote as a majority against strong investigations, against subpoenas, against requirements for financial disclosure, and most of all against protecting Robert Mueller and his investigation, they share complicity in the open secret.
We are watching the political equivalent of the Weinstein board paying off the objects of his abuse. We are watching Fox pay out its tens of millions to O’Reilly’s victims. But we’re watching it in real time, with the secret shared worldwide, and the stakes immeasurably higher.
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