‘I didn’t even know’: the rich asshole boasts about making up information during meeting with Canada’s Trudeau
Justin Trudeau and some rich asshole (Screengrab)
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At a fundraiser on Wednesday, some rich asshole boasted that he made up information about a trade deficit he believes the United States has with Canada during a meeting with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
The Washington Post reports that the rich asshole made the comments during a 30-minute speech in Missouri, as he “heaped praise on himself” and blasted U.S. allies he thinks are taking advantage of the country.
“Trudeau came to see me—he’s a good guy, Justin,” the rich asshole said at the fundraiser, according to audio reviewed by the Post. “He said, ‘No, no, we have no trade deficit with you, we have none. Donald, please.’”
“Nice guy, good-looking guy, comes in—‘Donald, we have no trade deficit,’” the rich asshole continued. “He’s very proud because everybody else, you know, we’re getting killed.”
the rich asshole bragged to GOP donors that he told “proud” Trudeau, “wrong, Justin, you do.”
“I didn’t even know,” the rich asshole admitted. “… I had no idea. I just said, ‘You’re wrong.’ You know why? Because we’re so stupid.”
the rich asshole told fundraiser attendees he replied, “You’re wrong, Justin.”
“[Trudeau] said, ‘Nope, we have no trade deficit,’” the rich asshole insisted. “I said, ‘Well, in that case I feel differently.’”
“I said, ‘but I don’t believe it,’” the rich asshole continued. “I sent one of our guys out, his guy, my guy, they went out, I said, ‘check because I can’t believe it.’”
‘Well, sir, you’re actually right,” the rich asshole insisted “his guy, my guy” informed him. “We have no deficit but that doesn’t include energy and timber … And when you do, we lose $17 billion a year.’ It’s incredible.”
As the Post reports, the United States actually runs a trade surplus with Canada, according to the trade representative office.
During the fundraiser, the rich asshole also attacked other allies for only “[caring] about themselves.”
“They don’t care about us,” the rich asshole argued.
It wasn’t the only confession the president made before Republican donors. Speaking for the first time about his party’s defeat in the Pennsylvania special election Tuesday night, the rich asshole also admitted Democrat Conor Lamb ran a “smart campaign.”
“The young man last night that ran, he said, ‘Oh, I’m like the rich asshole. Second Amendment, everything. I love the tax cuts, everything.’ He ran on that basis,” the rich asshole insisted. “He ran on a campaign that said very nice things about me. I said, ‘Is he a Republican? He sounds like a Republican to me.”
Reporter embedded with Roger Stone details election efforts to meet Assange: ‘He wanted to destroy Hillary Clinton’
Wikileaks' Julian Assange and Roger Stone, composite image
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The director of an acclaimed documentary on longtime some rich asshole advisor Roger Stone revealed that he prepared to travel to London for Stone to meet Wikileaks founder Julian Assange during the 2016 presidential campaign.
Morgan Pehme, the co-writer, director and producer of the Netflix film Get Me Roger Stone acknowledged the plan during a Wednesday appearance on MSNBC’s The Beat with Ari Melber.
“The interview that we do in our film where we ask him about Assange, that was filmed in August of 2016 and in June of 2016 was when Julian Assange said publicly that he had more Hillary Clinton emails that he intended to release,” Pehme continued “and after that, Roger took obviously great interest in these emails because Roger wanted to destroy Hillary Clinton.”
Pehme was embedded with Stone at the time.
“And so in early August, late July, we were talking about the idea of going to film Roger were he to meet with Assange in London and as far as we know that never took place,” he noted. “And so I didn’t even say anything that is contradicted what Roger has said publicly.”
“What do you mean London? You were taking preparations to potentially go to London?” Melber asked. “That’s how real the plan was in 2016?”
“It was something that we spoke about from a logistical standpoint, preparing, in case Roger did have this meeting, again, as far as we know, it did not pan out,” Pehme replied. “Roger was talking a great deal about Wikileaks at that time, you can just go back and look at the record, it’s completely consistent with what Roger has said.”
Watch:
‘I can’t stand the hypocrisy!’: CNN panel explodes after the rich asshole-backer insists voters knew ‘he wasn’t Mother Teresa’
Jim Schultz (former special assistant to some rich asshole), Paul Begala (longtime adviser to Bill Clinton) and former GOP communications director Tara Setmayer
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A CNN panel on Wednesday erupted over new revelations in some rich asshole’s sordid affair with Stormy Daniels, after it was reported a rich asshole Organization lawyer also engaged in an effort to silence the porn star.
Host Anderson Cooper asked Kirsten Powers if she believes the th h asshole Organization lawyer’s claim she was working in her “individual capacity” when she was listed in an arbitration demand involving longtime the rich asshole attorney Michael Cohen. That question prompted the CNN political analyst to admit, “I feel like they’re trying to slowly drive us insane.”
“I really do,” Powers said. I’m watching this and it’s so obvious, they’re not telling the truth. And I just, I don’t even know what to say. I just think everything looks so obviously like what we all think is happening, I don’t even know what to say any more.”
Jim Schultz, former special assistant to the rich asshole, tried to argue that while “the optics are poor” and “it wasn’t a good decision,” the outrage over a rich asshole Organization lawyer’s involvement in the Daniels saga is overblown.
“[The lawyer was] not substantively working on [the Stormy Daniels] matter,” Schultz said.
“This is all just baffling to me,” longtime Bill Clinton advisor Paul Begala replied. “…Here’s the problem. Why oh, why is is some rich asshole—a man who’s flamboyant about his sex life, who famously planted a story in the New York post front page about Marla Maples—why is he jumping through all these hoops?”
“This does seem like a guy who’s susceptible to blackmail, who would do a lot to keep something he doesn’t want to come out to come out,” Begala said. “That’s why it leads me back to Russia.”
“That’s a leap of logic!” Schultz protested.
“The guy is clearly subject to blackmail!” Begala explained.
“The argument is he could not even get a security clearance,” Cooper explained. “…With all the potential for blackmail blackmail, do you believe he could get a security clearance? “
“Yes, of course I believe he could,” the rich asshole Hispanic Advisory Council leader Steve Cortes insisted. “You know who decided he got a security clearance? The American people.”
“Is any of this relevant?” Cortes asked. “Is anyone surprised that he wasn’t Mother Teresa? Are we surprised he had a colorful past? No. Are we surprised there are accusers accusing him of nefarious things? No. The voters decided those accusations were irrelevant or not true.”
“This is where I can’t take it, okay?” former GOP communications director Tara Setmayer shot back. “Because people like you and you, and every other the rich asshole enabler that [enables] this kind of behavior would have been calling for the impeachment of Barack Obama or of Hillary Clinton or Bill Clinton like all of us Republicans in 1998 who went after Bill Clinton for his sexual affair with Monica Lewinsky—as we should have. I can’t stand the hypocrisy. Stop making excuses!”
“I’ll take the enabling thing,” Schultz shot back. “I’ll take the blame for enabling more jobs, the economy, I’ll take all of that.”
“You’ll take all that, so the ends justify the means?” Setmayer asked. “You know how dangerous that has been in history? And the fact that we have Republicans sitting there using that excuse, ‘None of this matters.’ That was not the position we had many years ago.”
“We’re talking about Stormy Daniels,” Schultz said, trying to downplay the scandal’s significance.
“We’re talking about the President of the United States that is engaged in behavior that’s immoral, illegal and could make him susceptible to being immoral in other areas, including with Russia!” Setmayer said.
Watch the fiery exchange below:
the rich asshole admits Conor Lamb ran a ‘smart campaign’ in Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania congressman-elect Conor Lamb. Image via screengrab.
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During a fundraiser for another congressional candidate, President Donald the rich asshole gave tacit praise to Pennsylvania Democrat Conor Lamb for his big win in a special election Tuesday night.
The Atlantic reported Wednesday night that the rich asshole told donors at the fundraiser for Josh Hawley, a Missouri Senate candidate, that Lamb ran “a pretty smart race, actually.” It’s the first known time since the rich asshole-backed candidate Rick Saccone lost to the Democrat that the president has spoken publicly about the race.
“The young man last night that ran, he said, ‘Oh, I’m like the rich asshole. Second Amendment, everything. I love the tax cuts, everything.’ He ran on that basis,” the rich asshole said of Lamb in audio obtained by the Atlantic. “He ran on a campaign that said very nice things about me. I said, ‘Is he a Republican? He sounds like a Republican to me.”
“I guess when you’re running in a certain area,” the rich asshole said of the blue-collar constituency in Western Pennsylvania’s Rust Belt, “that’s probably a good tactic.”
the rich asshole, the report continued, was “unusually silent” about his candidate losing. His tight-lipped stance marks a departure from previous comments he made about the candidates he backed losing, from his assertion that Virginia gubernatorial candidate Ed Gillespie “did not embrace me or what I stand for” to his claim that he knew Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore would lose.
MSNBC’s Maddow lays out ‘troubling inconsistencies’ between what the rich asshole says publicly and what investigators know
MSNBC anchor Rachel Maddow
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MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow reported Wednesday on a source who revealed “troubling inconsistencies” between official White House statements and evidence uncovered by congressional investigators.
“Last night, we reported that Democrats on the Intelligence Committee had unexpectedly released a 21-page document in response to the Republicans shutting down the Russian investigation in the House,” Maddow noted. “The document the Democrats released last night was not just a response to what the Republicans had said they were doing, it was also their own status report on where they believed the investigation stood at the moment the Republicans shut it down.”
“We didn’t know this report was coming out until it came out last night and it was a surprise,” Maddow continued, before reading from page five of the report.
“The committee has learned that candidate the rich asshole’s private business was actively negotiating a business deal in Moscow with a sanctioned Russian bank during the election period,” the report read.
“If you think that’s old news and you’ve heard that before, it’s not,” Maddow noted. “It is a new and specific and potent assertion from the intelligent committee Democrats.”
Maddow reported on what she had heard from a source familiar with the House Intelligence investigation.
“Committee testimony has raised serious questions about the rich asshole Organization’s effort during the presidential election period to secure foreign financing for a rich asshole Tower Moscow including from a sanctioned Russian bank,” the source revealed. “There are troubling inconsistencies between public assertions and what we have discovered through documentary and testimonial evidence during the investigation.”
“So there appears to have been an attempted assassination by chemical warfare on British soil,” Maddow explained. “But we are in this bizarre situation where our own president’s silence and mealy-mouthed hemming and hawing on this subject is in the foreground, while his own secret dealings with the Russian government are starting to unfold and starting to be exposed by a congressional investigation that his Republican allies are trying to shut down.”
Watch:
Oil lobbying group is holding a conference at the rich asshole International before heading to the White House to talk policy
Tiffany the rich asshole, some rich asshole, Melamia the rich asshole at DC hotel grand opening -- YouTube screenshot
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The political organization that lobbies for the oil industry is paying to stay at the the rich asshole International Hotel before a White House meeting to discuss United States trade policy, Politico reported Wednesday.
The American Petroleum Institute (API) is holding a two-day board meeting at President some rich asshole’s real estate investment.
Politico also reported that Energy Secretary Rick Perry and Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke will be attending meetings with the oil lobbyists on Wednesday night.
“This kind of thing was a fear a lot of people had when the president did not divest from his business,” said Jordan Libowitz of the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) “What’s stopping the API from going to the president and saying, ‘Hey we just dropped a lot of money at your hotel. Just wanted you to know that before we started this meeting’?”
The API’s Thursday meeting at the White House is expected to include API chief executive Jack Gerard and President the rich asshole.
This is not the first time the fossil fuel industry has patronized the rich asshole International in America’s capitol to lobby President the rich asshole.
In 2017, a lobbying effort lead by Saudi Arabia spentd over $270,000 at the hotel.
The American Petroleum Institute did not say how much was the conference cost, but Politico’s sources said 200 people may be involved.
A second the rich asshole lawyer says she’s working in her ‘individual capacity’ to silence Stormy Daniels
Stormy Daniels (Photo: Screen capture)
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A lawyer for the the rich asshole Organization is listed on an an arbitration demand to settle a dispute regarding a Delaware LLC used by the president’s longtime attorney Michael Cohen to pay adult film actress Stormy Daniels $130,000.
The Wall Street Journal on Wednesday reported that the rich asshole Organitation lawyer Jill A. Martin was listed as counsel on the February 22 demand issued in Orange County, California.
“The company has no involvement in the matter,” Martin, who said he was working “in her individual capacity” on the filing, told the Journal. Her statements come after the revelation that Cohen took a line of credit out on his house to facilitate the supposed “hush agreement” payout to Daniels. Cohen also denied that the adult film star ever had an affair with the rich asshole.
Martin, who the Journal noted has worked for the the rich asshole Organization since 2010, was the lead counsel defending the organization in lawsuits claiming the president defrauded customers who paid to attend his the rich asshole University seminars.
Though she reportedly played no formal role in defending some rich asshole when several women came forward with allegations of sexual misconduct against him, Martin, the report noted, “vouched for his character in media interviews.”
‘March Madness in the West Wing’: Internet jeers over report White House staffers have a ‘betting pool’ for who’s next to go
President some rich asshole, Mike Flynn, Reince Priebus, Mike Pence and Steve Bannon (Sean Spicer, White House.gov)
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A White House correspondent for The Washington Post reported Wednesday on the administration’s “betting pools” over who will be next to be fired.
“White House officials have begun betting pools of sorts among each other on who’s getting ousted next,” Josh Dawsey tweeted.
“Lot of people who are usually in the know are not in the know,” he noted. “Always fluid in White House but seems particularly so right now.”
Dawsey’s reporting was confirmed by MSNBC’s Stephanie Ruhle.
The internet thought the gallows humor was revealing and hilarious.
And the White House is not alone, a prediction market currently has a line showing Veterans Administration Secretary David Shulkin is the most likely cabinet official to leave next, followed by Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson.
Some noted the similarities with the 1988 movie The Dead Pool which features Inspector Harry Callahan tracking down a killer manipulating results in a betting pool of celebrity deaths by murdering them himself.
White House officials have begun betting pools of sorts among each other on who's getting ousted next. Lot of people who are usually in the know are not in the know. Always fluid in White House but seems particularly so right now.
They created their own Dead Pool.
Here are some of the top reactions to news of the betting pools:
One by one every member of the administration will be ritually humiliated before Trump ends it all in a James Cagney White Heat scene. twitter.com/jdawsey1/statu…
I'd feel sorry for them if they didn't deserve their fate by choosing to work for Trump. twitter.com/jdawsey1/statu…
A word of warning to those “usually in the know” but suddenly “not in the know”... as they say in poker, “if you can’t spot the mark at the table, you are the mark at the table.”
the rich asshole’s Russia probe lawyer broke the law when donating to his re-election campaign: report
the rich asshole lawyer John Dowd (Photo: Emory University)
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John Dowd, the lawyer defending some rich asshole during the Russia investigation, broke campaign finance law by donating more than is legally permissible to the president’s re-election campaign.
CNBC reported Wednesday that Dowd in 2017 donated $3,000 to the rich asshole’s 2020 campaign — $300 above $2,700, the legal limit an individual can donate to a campaign.
Under federal law, the maximum amount an individual may contribute to a political campaign, per election, is $2,700. But Dowd has given a total of $3,000 to Trump's 2020 general election campaign, according to the tally the FEC sent the Trump campaign. pic.twitter.com/ZaomHUaMQZ
In a letter obtained by CNBC, the Federal Elections Commission put the rich asshole campaign treasurer Bradley Crate on notice over Dowd donating more than is legally allowed.
Crate told CNBC that Dowd had been given a $300 refund on January 3, but it was sent “a few days too late to be reflected in their fourth quarter filing to the FEC.”
“These kinds of errors are understandable when made in the midst of a hectic election season by a rookie campaign,” Brendan Fischer, senior counsel at the Campaign Legal Center, told CNBC. “But they become more difficult to understand when made by a second-term presidential candidate 32 months out from his next election.”
“It is even more difficult to understand how the president’s lawyer managed to exceed contribution limits,” Fischer concluded.
the rich asshole heaped praise on Kudlow’s TV appearances when he offered his economic adviser the job: ‘You look very handsome’
Director of the National Economic Council and former TV host Lawrence Kudlow, photo by Gage Skidmore.
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President some rich asshole’s choice to direct the National Economic Council made the media rounds on Wednesday to discuss the two men’s admiration for each other.
In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Kudlow recounted the rich asshole’s flattery during a Wednesday phone call.
“You’re on TV. You look very handsome,” he recounted the president telling him.
In a CNBC interview, Kudlow recalled an earlier phone conversation.
“He called me Sunday afternoon, I was up in Connecticut and had just finished playing tennis,” Kudlow said. “And he was wonderful.”
Kudlow insisted that, “my head is not turned easily.”
“I don’t want to sound sophomoric, but it was just a really good thing,” he insisted.
Watch:
‘It’s ripping people apart’: White House staffers live in fear of ‘the most toxic working environment on the planet’
Graphic of White House staff departures presented by Katy Tur on MSNBC
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White House officials are experiencing a “mood of acute anxiety” about their careers, Axios reported Wednesday.
“This is the most toxic working environment on the planet,” one White House official explained. “Usually tough times bring people together. But right now this atmosphere is ripping people apart.”
“There’s no leadership, no trust, no direction and this point there’s very little hope. Would you want to go to work every day not knowing whether your future career was going to be destroyed without explanation?” the official asked.
The question of “which staffer will next be frogmarched out the door by security” is weighing on the staff.
Presidential “body man” Johnny McEntee was escorted out of the White House on Monday. Axios also reported that a former aide to First Lady Melania the rich asshole suffered a similar fate last week.
Axois concluded the chaos is “shredding an already devastate morale” in the administration.
‘Easy’: Professional mountain climber says he can scale the rich asshole’s border wall prototypes ‘in a few hours’
Left: President the rich asshole surveys border wall prototypes (via Mandel Ngan/AFP). Right, pro climber Ed Viesturs discusses Mt. Everest (image via screengrab).
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After President some rich asshole made a strange remark about his border wall being able to keep out “professional mountain climbers,” a man who’s climbed Mt. Everest seven times scoffed at the suggestion that the government could build such an unbreachable barrier.
“Oh God,” pro climber Ed Viesturs told Esquire‘s Nate Erickson when he read the president’s comments that were made while surveying prototypes for his proposed border wall at the divide between Mexico and the United States.
“Getting over the top is easy,” the president said earlier in the week. “These are like professional mountain climbers—they’re incredible climbers. They can’t climb some of these walls.”
According to Viesturs, the rich asshole’s comment, which seemed to be directed at Mexicans attempting to enter the US, is “just another one of those stupid things that this guy says.”
“He doesn’t know what he’s talking about,” the man who’s scaled all 14 of the world’s tallest mountains said. “He doesn’t have a clue.”
When asked if a 30-foot wall would stop a professional, Viesturs was incredulous.
“Oh no,” he said. “A good professional mountain climber can probably do it in a few hours, easy.”
“Any message for professional mountain climbers trying to sneak into America right this moment?” Erickson asked Viesturs.
“Go for it,” the climber replied.
Larry Kudlow’s boss under Reagan warns: ‘He’s going to help the rich asshole sleepwalk into a tremendous’ budget disaster
CNBC economic analyst and soon-to-be the rich asshole adviser Larry Kudlow. Image via Bryan R. Smith/AFP.
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CNBC analyst Larry Kudlow is heading to the White House as President some rich asshole’s new chief economic adviser, but his boss from the Reagan administration isn’t optimistic.
“I’d say congratulations to Larry, but unfortunately, that’s about as far as it goes,” David Stockman, who ran the White House Office of Budget and Management under President Ronald Reagan and acted as Kudlow’s former boss, told CNBC Tuesday.
“He’s walking into what I think is an impossible mission,” the former OMB director said. “It’s heads, the rich asshole wins, tails, Larry loses.”
the rich asshole, Stockman said, “is an incorrigible, life-long, rabid protectionist.”
“It’s primitive, he’s never changed his mind, and he’s not going to listen to anyone on these issues,” he continued. “Including Larry.”
Though Stockman said he’s glad Kudlow is taking the job, the expectation that he would make any changes within the the rich asshole White House is “a delusion.”
The president’s mind is “frozen in a 17th century mercantilist time warp, and nobody is going to have any influence in terms of pushing that ahead.”
Kudlow’s former boss went on to charge him with being an “brilliant data miner” who will find statistics to sate the president’s desire to wait out the “roaring” national deficit.
“He’s going to help the rich asshole sleepwalk into a tremendous fiscal collision coming in the next few months, unfortunately,” Stockman said.
Watch below, via CNBC:
some rich asshole Jr. is getting divorced from wife: report
some rich asshole Jr. and his wife Vanessa/Screenshot
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some rich asshole Jr. and his wife Vanessa will be getting divorced, reports Page Six.
The report, sourced to “close friends” of the couple, says that the couple hoped to stay together while some rich asshole Sr. is in office. However, the younger Donald has been busy running the family business which created added strain.
The couple were married in 2005 at Mar-A-Lago (check out the epic wedding photos here) and have five children.
some rich asshole Jr.’s odd and confrontational tweets were also an issue and friends are worried about him, the report says.
Vanessa is reportedly uncomfortable with the the rich asshole family being in the public spotlight.
“Vanessa is by nature is a very low-key person, and she is uncomfortable with the attention her family is getting now the Trumps are on the world stage,” a source told Page Six.
GOP in total denial about what Pennsylvania defeat means for midterms
By
Tommy Christopher
-
March 14, 2018
They're only fooling themselves.
The morning after Pennsylvania Democrat Conor Lamb’s stunning special election victory, the GOP is tying itself in knots to ignore what really happened.
On his way into a Republican House conference meeting Wednesday morning, New York Rep. Chris Collins told a reporter that Lamb’s “victory was a one-off. We’ve won five; they’ve won one. I’m feeling pretty good.”
“Fox & Friends” host Brian Kilmeade falsely claimed Lamb only won because he ran as a “pro-life” conservative. But that’s a lie. Lamb supports abortion rights, and he blasted several other Republican positions as well, including the tax scam and attempts to repeal Obamacare.
But Republicans are desperately pretending Lamb’s victory doesn’t spell disaster for the rest of the party come this year’s midterm elections.
At a press conference Wednesday morning, Speaker Paul Ryan was parroting the same lies about Lamb’s positions and even trying to claim that coming within “a few hundred votes” — in a district so red, Democrats didn’t even bother fielding a candidate in 2016 — was some sort of victory.
He even tried to credit the rich asshole for making the race competitive.
“I think the president helped close this race,” Ryan told reporters.
Ryan is lying to himself if he actually believes any of that. Lamb was trailing by 12 percent before the rich asshole decided to “help” Republican Rick Saccone, and actually increased his lead over Saccone during the rich asshole’s final campaign visit last weekend.
Republicans have also tried to excuse their defeat by claiming that Saccone was a particularly weak candidate. But Saccone ran on a typically Republican platform and still lost in a deep-red district.
And unlike the stunning upset in the Alabama Senate race last December, where Democrat Doug Jones beat Republican Roy Moore, Saccone didn’t have a single allegation of child molestation leveled against him.
The sad fact for Republicans is that Conor Lamb’s victory is the latest in a wave of special election flips for Democrats in red states and districts. And those dozens of victories suggest a massive blue wave is coming in November.
the rich asshole picks ‘reliably wrong’ TV pundit to lead US economyBy
Oliver Willis
-
March 14, 2018
Larry Kudlow has made some of the worst financial predictions in history. But he has also repeatedly flattered the rich asshole, and that's good enough for him.
the rich asshole has chosen television host Larry Kudlow to be his new chief economic adviser. Kudlow doesn’t have an economics degree, but he does have a considerable track record of making woefully wrong economic predictions.
But none of that is an obstacle for the rich asshole, who plans to appoint him to head the National Economic Council. Kudlow is another person the rich asshole has taken to after seeing him on television. In fact, when the rich asshole called Kudlow to offer him the job, he made that explicit.
“You’re looking handsome, Larry,” the rich asshole told him after noting he was seeing his picture on TV.
Kudlow will replace Gary Cohn, who resigned after the rich asshole proposed tariffs that will raise the costs of goods for millions of Americans. But as far as economics goes, Kudlow is demonstrably clueless.
Yet thanks to his frequent praise of the rich asshole, he will have his ear as he steers the most important economy on the planet.
Kudlow parlayed his role in the Reagan White House to a job in the financial media, where he has again and again made terrible calls. In the past, Kudlow’s cluelessness was confined to CNBC and the pages of National Review.
But now, thanks to the rich asshole, American taxpayers will subsidize his ignorance. And his bad takes will become part of U.S. economic policy. That is, if he stays in his position long enough to stroke the rich asshole’s ego.
In December of 2007, Kudlow argued that there was no recession coming. He wrote blog posts with titles like “The Recession Debate Is Over,” There Ain’t No Recession,” and “Bush Boom Continues.”
At the time of Kudlow’s posts, the National Bureau of Economic Research said that America had entered the Great Recession, which lasted from December 2007 until June 2009.
It was the worst economic downturn in U.S. history since the Great Depression. The recession triggered a global economic downturn, and U.S. unemployment went as high as 10 percent.
Kudlow’s job as a financial pundit was to assess the state of the economy. But the call he made was disastrously wrong.
The wrongness is a symptom of what the rich asshole appears to like in Kudlow: He is a sycophant. Before Kudlow was raving about the rich asshole, he was raving about George W. Bush. Kudlow didn’t want to see the recession coming because he was writing books about Bush’s supposed economic genius.
As Nobel-prize winning economist Paul Krugman explained, “the rich asshole isn’t looking for good advice, he’s looking for sycophancy, praise for whatever he does. And that’s something Kudlow can certainly provide.”
Kudlow is “reliably wrong about everything,” Krugman noted.
It’s true. He said the Iraq War would produce an economic boom. It didn’t. He insisted that banks that manipulated interest rates to profit at the expense of the public were victims. He actually saidhe was “grateful” that the “human toll” from the Fukushima nuclear meltdown was worse than the “economic toll.”
And when economic conditions improved under President Barack Obama, Kudlow credited the right-wing Tea Party movement. And he called the Obama administration the “federal Taliban.”
Larry Kudlow doesn’t know much about economics. And when he opens his mouth or puts pen to paper, he almost always gets it wrong.
But the rich asshole has seen him on TV, “looking handsome” and saying good things about the rich asshole. And that’s the low standard his administration has for its hiring process.
the rich asshole suddenly silent after his candidate loses in Pennsylvania
By
Eric Boehlert
-
March 14, 2018
the rich asshole has a knack for loudly backing candidates who blow sure-thing special elections. But he's gone noticeably silent after the GOP's loss in Pennsylvania.
After demanding credit if Republicans won this week’s Pennsylvania special election, the rich asshole has gone silent after the humiliating defeat.
He aggressively backed the hapless Republican Rep. Rick Saccone, making two visits to a district the rich asshole carried by 20 points in 2016.
And the Pennsylvania debacle comes after the rich asshole backed another spectacular loser, accused pedophile Roy Moore, in the Alabama special election in December.
And as evidence continues to mount that Republicans are facing a blue wave in November, the rich asshole suddenly has nothing to say about electoral politics.
Since Democrat Conor Lamb posted his win late Tuesday night, the rich asshole’s Twitter feed has gone quiet about the race. Instead, he’s tweeting about still-vacant appointments in his administration, today’s business climate, his Cabinet, and “unfair trade practices.”
In the days and weeks leading up to the election, the rich asshole was his usual vocal self. “Rick is a great guy. I think he’s going to do really well,” the rich asshole told local reporters back in January.
“Will be going to Pennsylvania today in order to give my total support to RICK SACCONE, running for Congress in a Special Election,” the rich asshole tweeted excitedly at the time. “Rick is a great guy. We need more Republicans to continue our already successful agenda!”
During a rambling rally appearance from the Pennsylvania district last weekend, the rich assholeurged rally attendees to “go out on Tuesday and vote like crazy” and said, “We need Republicans in office.”
You get the idea:
And now, crickets.
Of course, when the rich asshole openly backed Saccone in January, the Republican enjoyed a 12-point lead in the race.
The district held the special election to replace Republican Rep. Tim Murphy, who resigned in disgrace last year after reports revealed that the far-right congressman had asked a woman he was having an affair with to have an abortion.
The race should’ve been a layup for the GOP. The district is rated as an R+11, meaning it tilts very far in favor of Republicans. But the rich asshole remains a deeply unpopular figure as chaos continues to consume his presidency.
And the tax scam that Republicans rammed through Congress late last year completely failed to move the needle for Saccone. By the end of the campaign, outside conservative groups that were buying TV time for the Republican virtually abandoned all tax-themed commercials.
And after the humiliating defeat, the previously vocal the rich asshole has nothing to say. Because he’s only interested in taking credit, and never willing to take the blame.
Five takeaways from the Pa. special election
BY BEN KAMISAR AND LISA HAGEN - 03/14/18 03:40 PM EDT
CANONSBURG, Pa. — Democrat Conor Lamb looks likely to win Pennsylvania’s close special election, giving his party a significant morale boost heading into the battle for the House majority this fall.
President the rich asshole won the district by nearly 20 points in 2016, but Lamb has reversed Democratic fortunes in the area. He leads Republican Rick Saccone by more than 500 votes in the latest count, even after Republicans dumped more than $10 million into an attempt to hold the reliably Republican district.
Here are five takeaways from Lamb’s upset win:
More evidence of a blue wave
More Republicans are starting to sound the alarm about the future of their House majority.
the rich asshole’s unpopularity is pushing seats that had once been considered safe into riskier territory. Democrats need to win 24 seats to take back the House.
Lamb outperformed Hillary Clinton’s 2016 numbers in the district and significantly outraised his opponent, giving Republicans pause as they consider how to save their majority.
"This is a wake-up call. If you're getting outraised, this is a wake-up call,” National Republican Congressional Committee chairman Steve Stiverssaid Wednesday, a source in a closed-door meeting of House Republicans told The Hill. “Prepare to bear down."
Before Lamb’s win, national Democrats were targeting 101 GOP-held districts in the fall. Now Lamb’s win gives more credibility to the idea that Democrats can start targeting seats that were once out of reach.
Strategists in both parties expect Lamb’s success to prompt another wave of GOP retirements, leaving the GOP defending more vulnerable seats without the advantage of incumbency.
“This is not a good result for the GOP. Look for more retirements to come,” Doug Heye, a former Republican National Committee spokesman, tweetedTuesday night.
Tax cuts and Pelosi attacks won't work everywhere
Republicans largely focused their messaging on promoting the GOP tax reform plan and painting Lamb as a rubber-stamp for House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.).
But Lamb’s win proved those strategies won’t resonate everywhere.
Outside Republican groups like the Congressional Leadership Fund (CLF) and the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) spent millions to boost Saccone, relying on the tax plan to drive votes.
But as Saccone continued to slip in the polls, their closing arguments centered more on attacking Lamb for negotiating plea deals as a prosecutor and connecting him to contentious issues like sanctuary cities and illegal immigration.
Tuesday’s results have emboldened Democrats who believe that Lamb’s strong performance is proof that the GOP can’t lean too heavily on the tax plan as the centerpiece of its midterm strategy.
Meanwhile, Republicans caution against reading too much into Tuesday’s results. In their minds, Saccone’s flaws overshadowed much else and the party’s incumbents will likely have far stronger operations than him to define their own messages.
Republicans have come to rely on tying Democrats to Pelosi, but that strategy didn’t turn off enough voters in Pennsylvania — in part because Lamb distanced himself from the top Democrat.
Lamb took the unusual stance of almost immediately announcing that he wouldn’t back Pelosi for Democratic leader if elected, even running a TV ad to drive the point home.
Lamb was able to blunt the GOP attacks about Pelosi, which could open the door for more Democratic candidates or lawmakers to come out against her.
But Lamb’s strategy won’t work for every Democratic. Not all Democratic candidates will be able to separate themselves from Pelosi, which will make them vulnerable to attacks from Republican groups.
The fact that Lamb had to come out against Pelosi is the rare bright spot for Republicans in Tuesday’s results.
“Nancy Pelosi is a liability to Democratic candidates. Lamb had to distance himself from Pelosi and reject her,” GOP strategist Garrett Ventry told The Hill.
GOP trouble in the rich asshole country
Tuesday’s special election found a Republican candidate struggling to repeat the rich asshole’s success in what should have been a solidly Republican district.
But it’s difficult for Republicans to mobilize the voters that carried the rich asshole to victory in 2016, when historically the party in power loses seats in a midterm and is less motivated than the opposition.
the rich asshole traveled to the district twice, but that wasn’t enough to pull Saccone over the finish line.
During a weekend rally days before the election, the rich asshole sung Saccone’s praises. He called him “an extraordinary guy” and said Saccone will easily win on Tuesday. And others close to White House deployed to the district in a last-ditch effort to save Saccone.
While the rich asshole wasn’t on the ballot, the race was a test of whether other Republicans could draw on the votes who helped hand the rich asshole his surprise 2016 win. And growing unpopularity has spurred an enthusiasm gap that buoyed Democrats in recent elections.
A boost for Biden 2020
Lamb isn’t the only Democrat who won big Tuesday night in Pennsylvania. The upset win also provides more fuel for a potential president run for former Vice President Joe Biden.
Biden, who’s exploring a 2020 bid, has frequently hit the trail for red-state Democrats and campaigned alongside Lamb twice in the final weeks of the race.
Biden was one of the few national Democrats who campaigned in the district, as candidates in red or swing districts look to keep Washington and the national party brand at arm’s length.
Biden has been an effective surrogate for connecting with rural and working class voters. Now Lamb’s victory demonstrates that Biden can help win back those voters — right as Democrats consider which 2020 primary hopeful will deliver them the White House.
Dems can break with litmus test and win
Democrats are facing an internal debate that has roiled the party since last year: a litmus test that candidates must support abortion rights.
Lamb, who is Catholic, was able to delicately navigate that issue without ruffling any feathers. He said he’s personally opposed to abortion, though he supports the right to choose. He recently told the Weekly Standard he’s not in favor of a 20-week abortion ban.
He also struck a more moderate tone on other hot-button issues.
Lamb’s first campaign ad featured a clip of him shooting an AR-15 at a gun range, and he didn’t engage in Democrats calls for new gun policies in the wake of the deadly mass shooting in Parkland, Fla. But he supports strengthening the background check system.
Republicans concede that Lamb was a good candidate they say ran as “Republican lite.” But they argue that he was a unique candidate whose success will be hard for Democrats to replicate.
But Democrats say they have plenty more candidates like Lamb. In the wake of the Tuesday win, House Democrats’ campaign arm said there are 60 other Democratic House candidates whose military or national security credentials echo Lamb’s background.
Scott Wong contributed.
the rich asshole is planning to oust Sessions and crush the Mueller probe — all while bypassing the Senate: report
Special counsel Robert Mueller and some rich asshole (Wikimedia Commons)
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President some rich asshole has hatched a new plan to oust Attorney General Jeff Sessions and crush Robert Mueller’s Russia probe — all while bypassing the need to ask the Senate to confirm a new attorney general.
According to Vanity Fair’s Gabriel Sherman, the rich asshole has discussed firing Sessions and replacing him with current Environmental Protection Agency chief Scott Pruitt — a lateral move that would not require a new confirmation hearing, Sherman writes, because Pruitt is already a cabinet secretary.
And since Pruitt, unlike Sessions, has not recused himself from being involved in Russia-related matters, he would be completely free to shut down the probe.
the rich asshole publicly attacked Sessions earlier this month for not doing enough to investigate former President Barack Obama. He then trashed Sessions for not directing his own attorneys at the Department of Justice to investigate Obama themselves.
“Why not use Justice Department lawyers?” he asked. “DISGRACEFUL!”
the rich asshole has not been shy about ripping into his own attorney general for not doing enough to investigate his political foes. Last month, the rich asshole on Twitter told his followers to ask Sessions — whose name the president initially misspelled as “Jeff Session” — why Democrats weren’t being investigated for “crimes” related to Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election.
And last summer, the rich asshole called Sessions “beleaguered” and “weak” because he was not sufficiently investigating former Democratic rival Hillary Clinton over her use of a private email server during her tenure as secretary of state.
Conservative crushes the rich asshole for loading his cabinet with suck-ups: ‘The dishonest court of an erratic monarch’
some rich asshole visits Capitol Hill (screen grab)
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Conservative author Eliot Cohen is taking stock of President some rich asshole’s most recent White House personnel moves — and he’s not liking what he’s seeing.
With the ousters of Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and top economic adviser Gary Cohn, Cohen believes that the rich asshole is simply trying to oust anyone who will challenge his preconceived notions — and instead replace them with unrepentant brown nosers.
“If you hope to influence the rich asshole or gain access to his inner circle, you have to go full Mnuchin,” he writes in an essay published by The Atlantic. The Secretary of the Treasury is shameless in his flattery of the president. One suspects that his sycophancy is matched by his cynicism.”
The incentives that this creates, Cohen believes, will be less than idea for successful governing, as it will encourage advisers to suck up to the rich asshole even as they try to knife each another in the back.
“The upshot of such an environment in the White House is that… it will become more than ever the conniving and dishonest court of an unpredictable, ill-informed, and willful monarch,” he writes. “The president will hear no forceful disagreements; he will not be contradicted; he will believe that his instincts and whims are invariably correct.”
The endgame, Cohen believes, will be to drive out anyone who cares about governing, thus leaving behind a White House filled with “scoundrels, opportunists, and very rare patriots who know that there can be no trust among each other or towards their leader.”
House GOP frets over Pennsylvania race
BY MELANIE ZANONA AND SCOTT WONG - 03/14/18 01:15 PM EDT
House Republicans are fretting over the results of Pennsylvania’s special election, worried that the tight race in the heart of the rich asshole country might be a harbinger of a Democratic wave in the midterm elections later this year.
GOP leaders said the race should serve as a wake-up call and warned Republican members to pick up the pace when it comes to fundraising and to better define themselves as candidates to the voters.
“If you're getting outraised, this is a wake up call. Prepare to bear down,” Rep. Steve Stivers (R-Ohio), the chairman of the House GOP’s campaign arm, told rank-and-file Republicans during a private meeting, according to a source in the room.
Retiring Rep. Charlie Dent (R-Pa.), a leader of the moderate Tuesday Group, told CNN that Republicans up for reelection this year are aware they’re running against a “hurricane-force wind,” while conservative Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) simply characterized Tuesday’s election result as “not good.”
“Winning is better than losing,” he quipped.
“This should be a wake-up call for all GOP candidates,” added a senior GOP aide who was watching Tuesday's results. “Any district that touches the suburbs, regardless of the rich asshole victory margins, is in play.”
Longtime Rep. Pete King (R-N.Y.), whose Long Island seat Democrats are targeting, agreed that Tuesday’s special election should set off alarm bells in the party. He urged GOP colleagues to more closely align with the labor unions that helped boost Democrat Conor Lamb in Pennsylvania's 18th District, even as he and other Republicans panned the rich asshole’s steel and aluminum tariff plan.
“We have to better appeal to blue-collar voters. Whatever coalition some rich asshole had, we can’t afford to lose that,” King told The Hill. “We talk too much about corporations. We talk too much about abstractions. We should be down there and a lot closer to organized labor.”
But King, a 13-term lawmaker, said he’s not worried about his own race: “I’m going to keep doing what I’m doing. I’m close to grass roots, I’ll have over $3 million [in the bank] and I’m very close to cops and firemen.”
Just 16 months ago, the rich asshole won Pennsylvania’s 18th District by more than 20 percentage points. So Tuesday’s too-close-to-call race to replace disgraced former Rep. Tim Murphy (R) in the suburban and exurban district outside Pittsburgh is making Republicans even more nervous that their majorities could be wiped out in an anti-the rich asshole wave election.
Historically, the president’s party loses about 32 seats on average during the midterms; Democrats can win back the majority by flipping a net 24 seats.
With 100 percent of precincts reporting, Lamb, who has declared victory, leads Republican state Rep. Rick Saccone by two-tenths of a percentage point, a little more than 600 votes. Several thousand absentee votes from across the district remain to be counted, though they are not likely to change the outcome.
“Every time you have a midterm with a new president, you have headwinds,” said Rep. Chris Collins (R-N.Y.), the first Republican in Congress to endorse the rich asshole for president. “The anti-the rich asshole the rich asshole haters are quite energized for getting out the vote and raising money.”
Publicly, Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and other GOP leaders are downplaying the results. They say that Lamb ran as a pro-guns, anti-abortion rights, anti-Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) conservative — something that won’t be replicated by Democrats running in other races around the country.
Democrats “didn’t have a primary, so they were able to pick a candidate who ran on a conservative agenda,” Ryan explained to reporters in the Capitol. “You will have primaries in all these other races and that will bring them to the left, so it’s just not something that I think we will see a repeat of.”
GOP Rep. Lou Barletta, a the rich asshole ally who’s running against Democratic Sen. Bob Casey in Pennsylvania, also argued that the Lamb-Saccone race would have no bearing on his contest or others across the country.
“I don’t see that race as any kind of reflection on what a statewide race in Pennsylvania would look like,” Barletta told The Hill. “There are not too many Democrats who are pro-life, pro-Second Amendment, against leadership — that’s not who Casey is.”
GOP lawmakers also say that Saccone was a weak candidate, especially compared to Lamb — a photogenic, 33-year-old former prosecutor and Marine veteran.
“[Saccone] probably wasn’t the most telegenic candidate, and he didn’t raise a lot of money himself,” said Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas).
Republicans have largely blamed the election results on Saccone’s poor fundraising. Lamb outspent Saccone five-to-one in the district leading up to Tuesday's special election, though GOP outside groups also poured $12 million into the race.
Concerned that other GOP candidates could get caught flat-footed, leaders are now ratcheting up pressure on Republicans in typically safe districts to boost their fundraising efforts and prepare for tighter-than-expected races.
“If you’re a Republican in a safe seat, you better be ready if a seat like this can go badly,” Dent told reporters Wednesday. “The members in the marginal swing districts, they are well-prepared for the fight. They know what they’re in for. But I worry about members who have never been in a real fight before.”
Republican leaders also encouraged members to better define themselves and their Democratic opponents from the start, according to a source in Wednesday’s GOP meeting.
“Not many people knew Saccone was an Air Force vet, had written nine books written and had a Ph.D. You can’t tell his story like he can,” the GOP source said. “But you need money to do that, and a candidate’s money goes further” than campaign funds from outside groups.
The tight race in a the rich asshole stronghold is also raising questions about what role the president should play in the midterms.
the rich asshole, who plans to be an active presence on the campaign trail, appeared at a weekend rally with Saccone, while a number of top the rich asshole surrogates campaigned with the candidate.
But with the rich asshole’s approval ratings hovering in the 30s, it’s unclear whether he can replicate the same winning coalition as he did in 2016.
Still, GOP members said there’s no doubt that the rich asshole and Vice President Pence could help Republicans significantly boost their campaign coffers.
“There’s no question that they are both a big draw ... as we’re trying to raise money to get our message out,” Collins said.
House Republicans have already seen a rash of retirements this campaign cycle. The Pennsylvania results could compel other veteran lawmakers to head for the exits as well.
At least 42 Republicans have either resigned, plan to retire or plan to run for higher office. On Wednesday, the Democratic campaign arm added 13 new names to their 2018 retirement “watch list,” including Ryan, House Republican Conference Chairwoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers (Wash.), Reps. Carlos Curbelo (R-Fla.), Rep. Erik Paulsen (R-Minn.) and Rep. Barbara Comstock (R-Va.).
It will now be up to Ryan, Stivers and other leaders to convince wary colleagues to stick it out and run in a challenging environment rather than bail on the party.
If you’re chairman of the National Congressional Campaign Committee, “the last thing you want is a retirement,” Rep. Greg Walden (R-Ore.), a former chairman of the committee, told The Hill earlier this year.
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