The last time anyone paid attention to Steve Bannon, he was stage-managing the senate run of a Republican pedophile hobgoblin in Alabama. The hobgoblin lost, and so no one should care what Steve Bannon has to say about anything right? I mean, this is a guy who openly admires Adolf Hitler and Darth Vader. AND he’s bad at his job. I’ve always been on Team Let’s Ignore Him. But people keep paying attention to him, which is how Michael Wolff ended up interviewing Bannon for his new book, Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House (I guess Bigly Mein Kampf would have been too “on the nose”). Anyway, Wolff spoke to Bannon, and Bannon talked about that meeting at Trump Tower between Jared Kushner, Don Jr. and the Russian intelligence operatives. From the Guardian’s exclusive:
Bannon is particularly scathing about a June 2016 meeting involving Trump’s son Donald Jr, son-in-law Jared Kushner, then campaign chairman Paul Manafort and Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya at Trump Tower in New York. A trusted intermediary had promised documents that would “incriminate” rival Hillary Clinton but instead of alerting the FBI to a potential assault on American democracy by a foreign power, Trump Jr replied in an email: “I love it.”
The meeting was revealed by the New York Times in July last year, prompting Trump Jr to say no consequential material was produced. Soon after, Wolff writes, Bannon remarked mockingly: “The three senior guys in the campaign thought it was a good idea to meet with a foreign government inside Trump Tower in the conference room on the 25th floor – with no lawyers. They didn’t have any lawyers. Even if you thought that this was not treasonous, or unpatriotic, or bad sh-t, and I happen to think it’s all of that, you should have called the FBI immediately.”
Bannon went on, Wolff writes, to say that if any such meeting had to take place, it should have been set up “in a Holiday Inn in Manchester, New Hampshire, with your lawyers who meet with these people”. Any information, he said, could then be “dump[ed] … down to Breitbart or something like that, or maybe some other more legitimate publication”. Bannon added: “You never see it, you never know it, because you don’t need to … But that’s the brain trust that they had.”
Bannon also speculated that Trump Jr had involved his father in the meeting. “The chance that Don Jr did not walk these jumos up to his father’s office on the twenty-sixth floor is zero.”
I mean… is Bannon wrong? No, of course he’s not wrong. But he doesn’t get a f–king cookie for burning down the house months after he moved out. He knew all about the meeting at the time, and he continued to work for Trump and do all of this hideous dirty work for months. Oh, and Bannon went on to discuss Bob Mueller’s investigation, and how he knows Mueller is going to put all the pieces together, saying:
“You realise where this is going. This is all about money laundering. Mueller chose [senior prosecutor Andrew] Weissmann first and he is a money-laundering guy. Their path to f–king Trump goes right through Paul Manafort, Don Jr and Jared Kushner … It’s as plain as a hair on your face. It goes through Deutsche Bank and all the Kushner sh-t. The Kushner sh-t is greasy. They’re going to go right through that. They’re going to roll those two guys up and say play me or trade me.”
I believe that money laundering is part of this too. But I can believe that without resorting to anti-Semitic dog whistles. Anyway, Donald Bigly Buttons is dumping-in-his-diapers mad about Bannon. Wednesday afternoon, Trump issued this statement about Bannon:
“Steve Bannon has nothing to do with me or my Presidency. When he was fired, he not only lost his job, he lost his mind. Steve was a staffer who worked for me after I had already won the nomination by defeating 17 candidates, often described as the most talented field ever assembled in the Republican party.”
According to the Daily Beast, Trump “personally dictated” this statement to his Communications team (including ever-faithful Hope Hicks), wanting to ensure that the personal insults made it into the final draft. The Daily Beast also says that the fallout from the book is going to get even worse in the days and weeks ahead, because apparently everybody was badmouthing Trump and his not-so-bigly intelligence. Rupert Murdoch called him a “f–king idiot,” Gary Cohn, Trump’s top economic adviser, regards Trump as “dumb as sh-t.” H.R. McMaster called him a “dope.” Again, no cookies to any of these motherf–kers. Just because these a–holes say a few true things, doesn’t make them heroes.
Photos courtesy of Getty.
Amen. The title of this post is already in competition for headline of the year.
Agree. Emperor baby fists/biggly buttons or any combination of said names is hilarious.
I can’t trust Bannon. Even if he is coming forward and calling out Trump, everything Bannon does seems like a play in a much larger game with a sinister goal in mind, so his statements just feel like he’s moving his chess pieces forward.
I think Bannon unfairly gets credit for being a “mastermind”. His recent endorsements of losing candidates, including Trump, shows me he is not as smart as he gets credit for, he does not think moves ahead but looks for the easiest way to make chaos in the moment. He likes the instant gratification of the mess but is not thinking longterm. At least, that’s the way I’ve come to view him.
Exactly. Bannon gets a giggle from creating chaos, but he’s not a mastermind. Evil? Yes, but not as smart as he wants everyone to think.
When interviewed he is boring, disjointed and sooo desperate to be seen as an intellectual, annotating every sentence with some fake footnote from a learned text that is taken out of context.
He saw how stupid diaper dumpster (thanks Kaiser) baby fists is and jumped on board in search of relevance. Bannon is horribly despicable just like his ex-buddy. But then baby fists attracted a lot of evil opportunists.
@ Indiana Joanna—good point. His methods remind me of Littlefinger from Game of Thrones whose driving force was “chaos is a ladder.” Bannon stokes the flames of chaos and then climbs up the mayhem.
I can’t trust Bannon or Trump. Bannon says that he still supports DJT, as recently as this morning. I see this more as B seeking revenge on Kushner, whom he hates. Chris Christie also hates Kush. It’s all very Real Housewives, except instead of throwing drinks they’re lobbing nukes. Speaking of drinks, I already need one and it’s not even 8 am 🤦🏼♀️
I trust Bannon with the truth more than I trust the dotard saying anything truthful. Bannon is no fool he’s smarter than the dotard although I have no use for him or anyone in the whitehouse. Bannon know it’s going down and mr Mueller is going to get the dotard. He Bannon has said from the beginning that he was burning the Republican Party down and I guess he just got started. Btw, I noticed 45 has not tweeted about what Bannon said, instead he asked his lawyer to send him a letter to cease and dissent. The best he could do is saying Bannon lost his mind, 😞. I would like to ask the dotard supporters if they are tired of winning yet. I’m exhausted, lol.
While I don’t think he’s a mastermind I do think that whatever he is doing is not as straightforward as it appears. No idea what his agenda could be anymore. Also I’m not sure how much of this book I believe when I see a supposed quote from him referring to a new outlet as “more legitimate” than Breitbart.
All I know is I feel like I should be happy they’re turning on each other but instead I’m just suspicious and skeptical.
Your last sentence mirrors my thoughts. My one hope is that the rats sense a sinking ship, and are now scurrying for self-preservation.
Though I am skeptical, the various insults to Semi-Literate, Dumb as a Brick, Entitled Baby and Cracked Egg Junior are scathing.
I trust Bannon with the truth more than I trust the dotard saying anything truthful. Bannon is no fool he’s smarter than the dotard although I have no use for him or anyone in the whitehouse. Bannon know it’s going down and mr Mueller is going to get the dotard. He Bannon has said from the beginning that he was burning the Republican Party down and I guess he just got started. Btw, I noticed 45 has not tweeted about what Bannon said, instead he asked his lawyer to send him a letter to cease and dissent. The best he could do is saying Bannon lost his mind, 😞. I would like to ask the dotard supporters if they are tired of winning yet. I’m exhausted, lol.
As amusing as this $hitshow is, unfortunately the real winner here is Mitch and the “traditional” Republicans. The Deplorables will follow The Orange One rather than any Bannon candidate at primaries. No split, no “bad” Republican candidates. That means the Dems are going to have quite the battle come November.
Your last sentence: EXACTLY.
He’s not someone anybody should trust. He’s manipulative and has his own agenda. Wouldn’t be surprised if this was an agreement between Dump and him to fake a public feud to create the illusion of distance/strife between them. As I’m typing this I’m keenly aware of how paranoid and conspiracy theory-ish I sound but I simply don’t trust any of these f*ckers.
Kitten,
In this world, it’s doesn’t sound paranoid at all. I think the same about the public boy-beefing between the d*ck swinging despots and their “nuclear buttons.” I think it’s a staged public distraction, and I have no problem believing this is too. It all adds to this feeling I have that something massive and possibly Mueller-flavored is coming, and in the words of the great Rubeus Hagrid, “We’d all best be ready when it does.”
Exactly. Things are usually not what they appear to be under this administration.
I first met Steve Bannon eight years ago and I can honestly say he is the most arrogant, narcissistic and misogynistic man I have ever encountered. He’s a user and a climber. I watched him cultivate a friendship with Andrew Breitbart and use that connection to get where he is today.
Steve Bannon only cares about Steve Bannon and furthering Steve Bannon’s interests. He has ruined Breitbart. Andrew Breitbart truly cared about this country and the truth. Andrew was friends with Arianna Huffington, he worked with her and she helped him get Breitbart started. Since his death, Bannon has turned Breitbart into a propaganda machine for the looney right.
I’m sure he loved that people thought he was another Karl Rove. He is not. He’s just a narcissistic opportunist.
I believe you. Bannon’s in it for Bannon.
Bannon is just as horrible as Trump and Bannon has a scary agenda and actually believes the stuff he spouts off. He thought he found a really great puppet in Dump, but is obviously mad that Jared and Don Jr (who are obviously both incompetent and should not have had any hand in that election) will probably be the ones to bring it all down through their stupidity.
Bannon hates Javanka and I’m sure he wants them to go down and is more than willing to provide evidence to ensure that happens; I was, however, a little surprised that he seemed equally willing to sell junior out
And Bannon’s already claiming nothing’s wrong between them. He’s either crawling on his lowlife belly to the Mercers and Trump or he’s managed to mollify or mislead them yet again. Like Trump, he’s a tough talking blowhard.
Sure, he can play both sides and claim to be misquoted. The right will eagerly lap up the claim that it’s fake news, and Javanka and Con Jr’s names are soiled at no inconvenience to Bannon.
Well, this explains some of the rapid-fire unhinged tweets this week. I was hoping the jingling of handcuffs inspired the meltdowns, not name calling by complicit a-holes.
I wonder who will strike a deal first to avoid a lengthy prison sentence? Jared or Donald Jr? My money is on Junior, he just comes across as wanting to get dad’s approval. But also jealous of the fact Ivanka is clearly the favorite. He wants to see sister dearest taken down a peg or two.
The sharks smell blood in the water . This is not going to be pretty
There was one smart analyst yesterday who said Trump wouldn’t care about Bannon’s negative comments about Trump Jr. because he essentially “emasculates his son’s in public all the time”. Anything negative Bannon said about Ivanka would be what would get to Empire Bigly. According to the book Comey was fired because Ivanka and Jared were paranoid that he would start looking into “Kushner family money”. So the final vote to fire Comey was from Javanka.
Trump is currently protecting Jr. only because he carries his name. But he would throw him under the bus for Ivanka and thus Jared who is Ivanka’s sole mate. I think Muller is saving Ivanka until he has all his ducks in a row. Like at the end of this year. He knows that’s the day Trump will lose all his marbles and either start a nuclear war or fire him.
I’m now 100% sure Trump is going to start a war this year to change the subject.
I was thinking the same thing. The war of words with the leader of NK and the unrest happening in Iran makes me think something is in the works.
Don Jr would get thrown under the bus in a hot second if Senior thought it could save him (and Ivanka). Don Jr is also really, really stupid and it probably infuriates people like Bannon that his and Kushners slip ups could be the thing the ends this whole MAGA regime.
Don Jr’s wife seems smarter than Jared and Eric’s wife by largely staying out of this. She didn’t use this as an opportunity to get a new career (like Jared and Eric’s wife whose name I don’t even care enough to look up) and doesn’t seem to post much on social media except family pictures. She can truly take her kids and walk away if need be.
I’m just gonna sit back with my coffee for a while and watch these idiots tear each other apart. Hopefully the Republicans will step in to do something now. I know….. crickets. SMH. Hurry up, Mr. Mueller.
This book is Bannon covering his ass and getting back at Trump – these 2 were always going to end up doing this media war. Neither are as powerful as they think they are.
Emperor Zero is just pissed that he never got to chuck Bannon under the bus first – he got played and is having a tantrum about it.
Team No One.
These bloated, treasonous assholes deserves each other and pretty much the only thing that surprises me is that either of them thought the other had a shred of loyalty or honor because I’m pretty sure they thought they were going to ride this train together all the way to the end.
As usual, despite what 45 says, there are boatloads of evidence that he thought Bannon was great, even of he didn’t always listen to him. Bannon’s biggest crime in his eyes is getting more press and attention than he did. I have no problem believing that Bannon thought 45 was a moron, because that’s one of the reasons he got behind him – he saw a foolish, easily manipulated man baby who could be directed with little effort. Unfortunately, Bannon’s ego is as bloated as his boss’s and he overstepped his boundary.
Probably what Bannon says is all true and what appears in the book is probably all true as well. It certainly matches up with everything we’ve seen so far. But Bannon doesn’t get an award for helping to engineer the election of one of the worst human beings on the planet just because a book reveals that he supposedly warned against some of the things that people were doing behind the scenes. He is a bad person and no one should be lauding him for anything.
I love that Trump’s “statement” said “Steve Bannon has nothing to do with me or my presidency”. It is a classic break up line “You never meant anything to me, NEVER! So how could I possibly care about what you DO or SAY? I NEVER LOVED YOU!!!”
Jeez, I know break ups are hard but let’s try to be civilised here, boys …….
“You were nothing but a volunteer coffee boy!”
Lol. This is perfect.
Some of the comments I’ve seen are hilarious. Talking about his sad it is to see two lovers breaking up, what are the kids going to do now that mom and dad are divorcing, trump only hires the best people. I was laughing my ass off
I really like that despite trying to come off as all “Bannon who?” he consistently refers to him throughout the statement as “Steve.” First name basis all the way, yet he supposedly hardly ever spoke to him and barely knows who he is.
Nothing will happen.
The whole bloody lot are in it.
With this administration, I always feel like they are showing you one hand, telling you, Hey look this way, while the other hand is gutting the constitution.
As a Canadian, I gotta ask: does Bannon have some ultimate goal here, or is this just an exercise in pettiness?
I think he has some agenda. I said above I don’t think he’s a mastermind but something about all this doesn’t add up to me. Unless he really believe he thinks this will somehow exonerate him from any criminal charges, maybe.
My dad thinks that Bannon is incredibly dangerous, and that he’s trying to acquire followers among the hard right anti-establishment militia-type people in the states. To what end remains to be seen.
When you were a kid, did you ever play a board game with another kid and when they lost, they would knock over the board. That is the goal.
I believe this is the real reason. The media has been trying to figure out Trump and people like him for over a year, when in fact most of their actions are surely not logical nor intelligent.
They said on the news this morning that Herr Bannon wants to run for president in 2020 if “Trump doesn’t.” If Bigly is impeached, Steve has a clear run with the Deplorables behind him.
But Bannon’s statements have really pissed a lot of Trump’s supporters off. Did he really think that they’d turn against Trump and come flocking to him?
I think he’s mistaken if he thinks the deplorables will back him. At best he’d spilt their vote. And with most of the rest of the US wanting nothing to do with him, I’m not sure why he would think he has any chance whatsoever.
I don’t believe that for a second.
Bannon has never wanted any part of the establishment politics of Washington. Even when he got hired by Trump, he said on Day One that he didn’t think he’d last a year and that was fine with him.
He has Seinfeld money and a captive audience for his insane ideology with Breitbart- why would he trade that for a difficult and thankless job like being POTUS?
Bannon has never pretended to care about the complex intricacies of legislating; all he cares about is destroying the establishment, which is something he can do far more effectively via his pet propaganda machine Breitbart.
I can’t imagine who would make such an asinine statement. Bannon is a behind the scenes guys, a flamethrower, he has no interest in being up there in front of the American people. Can you imagine him glad handing in Iowa? No way.
In the book Bannon also said that Ivanka wants to run for President after her father. Supposedly Jared and Ivanka were debating which one will run next and Ivanka said she will. Saying *she* not HRC will be the first female president. A trump dynasty. I know he hates Javanka but his gossip and leaks about them have been true so far. But yeah he is just as egotistical as Trump inc.
Trump was a puppet for quite a few puppet masters (Bannon, the Mercers). I think Bannon is incredibly salty that Kushner made such missteps (and I think being an anti Semite has something to do with his hatred for Jared- no winners here).
My take on this is that he can’t believe that Trump let his dumb son in law and even dumber son do something so careless.
Optics wise, Trump has to defend Don Jr. and Jared right now. Crazy and inflated ego wise, Trump could never in a million years acknowledge Bannon’s role in his election.
Bannon has always, clearly, stated that his goal is to “deconstruct” our government – something that was clear in the choices of people hell-bent on destroying agencies being appointed to lead them and other agencies being handed over to people they knew were as incompetent & unqualified for their roles as mango mussolini is for his
I haven’t heard Trump or the Whitehouse deny anything Bannon said yet. He/they are just criticizing Bannon, trying to divert attention from the substance of the issue. You know, Donald’s usual sideshow.
They’ve tried to minimise Bannon’s importance like they did with Papadopoulous & Manafort, but this was a guy who was given an equal position to Reince Preibus in the WH and a seat on the National Security Council!
They also tried to argue that Trump couldn’t have asked who John Boener was as he had tweeted about him before, but then Trump is the sundowning dementia patient who thought he’d bombed Iraq (actually Syria) and failed to notice his wife by his side or a limousine smack dab in front of him…..
Michael Wolff claims he has tapes of the interviews. LMAO
Well, that may minimize the predicted critiques of how he got these quotes. Some talking heads this morning were saying there would likely be a lot of questioning the accuracy of his material within the coming days.
Having tapes is journalism 101, so good for him for getting that out there ASAP.
I figured he’d HAVE to have the receipts, so I’m glad to see this.
The problem is if you continue to ignore guys like him, guys like Donald Trump get elected and we all are still complaining a year later about it. You can either continue to ignore Steve Bannon or you can start to fight his batsh*t message. I hoped Trump was going to lose the election and thought Hilary was going to win but I haven’t lost my mind like many people have over the election. It’s because I hold on to hope that as a whole that we will pull together. I don’t know I have hope though. We fight amongst ourselves on here on some rather silly stuff, read into each other posts things that are just not there and holy cow some of you need celeb rehab lol. What Steve Bannon is saying here is important and honestly I don’t care how late it is. No one is saying he deserves a cookie. Of course, it’s self serving. He’s a jerk. But at this point…I will take this information if it helps to sink Trump’s presidency. Of course we have to wonder why Bannon is revealing this now..
I think plenty of people have been trying to fight his bats%it message, since long before the election. Hell no one sounded the alarm more loudly than Hillary. With Brietbart, though, the genie is already out of the bottle. Not sure what you’re saying/expecting as far as us here needing to do more on that front.
And I don’t think he’s saying anything that anyone didn’t already know, or at least suspect. That’s why I’m skeptical this will help get Trump out of the WH.
I still remember people like his long-time female executive and ghostwriter from years ago, on TV, painting a picture of how disengaged, unread and volatile he could be. They spoke out months and weeks before the election, and after each interview, some stupid comment or tweet would deflect from their first-hand observations getting any further coverage.
I do think people fought against Breitbart himself and then Bannon. It just wasn’t as mainstream until the election. I was in a conspiracy group that I had to leave because it went from being fun, to far right InfoWars/Pizzagate type stuff and I remember many people thought Clinton had Breitbart killed. I think these people are very dangerous and should not be ignored. Painted as loons and maybe not given the attention they crave, but their dangerous crazy can’t be ignored.
I’m referring to what Kaiser wrote. We can’t ignore Steve Bannon just because he’s out of the White House. There are people out there that buy into his nonsense and it’s scary. The easy thing to do is write them off but we’re going to have the same problem in 2020 if we do that. It’s hard and painful, I get it but we have to correct this course. We have to stop ignoring these batsh*t clowns and start fighting. Much like Chrissy Tiegen did to Liz Cronkin. That’s the only way. If Bannon is throwing us some cookie crumbs…examine them but be careful.
I think Steve Bannon has a “burn it all to the ground” mentality, I think he said at one point his goal was to dismantle the government as we know it and cause anarchy. As one of my friends would say (often in reference to the golden cheeto), he didn’t get his way, so he wants to take his toys and go home. Well, bannons not like that. He wants to stick around for exposure and said incendiary things, some of which are true and enlightening and may take this administration down, but I don’t think he has any long time goal besides being disruptive and anti-Semitic, et cetera.
I think you’re absolutely right, tho. I think it’s time to stop being outraged and depressed and time to start doing anything we can to make the pendulum swing the other way. After the election, i was so distraught and called my dad and was like, “what do we do?!?” And his response was, “we survived the civil war, well survive this.” And I was like, um yea me and you personally didn’t survive the civil war. But the idea is, as ted lieu said, what makes America great (not racist, not sexist, not xenophobic or anti-Semitic or transphobic or anything), is that we have a system that can self-correct. https://twitter.com/tedlieu/status/928333824299274241
We’ve all had a year of wringing our hands and grieving. It’s time to do whatever we can to change this, whatever that looks like.
Just because people vent about Trump here doesn’t mean we’re not doing anything. The Women’s March, Swing Left, Indivisible. Doug Jones and all the other races up and down tickets, all across the US. The blue wave is coming.
Team I hope they destroy each other.
Like most idiots who are involved in crime they will try and sink each other before Mueller gets to them. To which I say go for it
The moral of this article remains: VOTE. And take at least one other person with you when you go and make sure they vote, too.
YES.
I just can’t wait until they’re all in jail….. lmao
I’m enjoy this.
Winner: Best Headline in the history of journalism. 😂😂
I love that Bannon admitted that Breitbart is not a legitimate publication.
That was a golden nugget of lol!
I knew when Bannon left, he wouldn’t leave quietly. This is going to be fun to watch.
This has been released because Wolff’s book is coming out on Tuesday and it’s all promotion. Bannon wasn’t behind the timing, and the book references things others say too, and none of it is good. That’s because we all know the Clown Show is real. Mango Mussolini let Wolff hang out in the WH for months to get these interviews so while he probably thought it would be the Next Art of the Deal, he got played. It’s hubris and so well deserved.
The best part is the cease and desist threats being made… since a defence to defamation is the truth, discovery would have to happen and it would be amazing.
I’ve read on twitter that a lawsuit would not happen because orange lizard would have to testify. It’s a toothless threat.
I love how the animals are going after each other now the ship is sinking.
In response to the Wolff book, Suckabee just announced that visitors of the WH cannot use their phones and other devices.
Lock the gate once all the horses have escaped! Such competency, this bunch.
I’m going to call people that piss me off ” jumos”. As in, ” Who’s the jumo that left the empty carafe on the warmer?” Or, “Some jumo jammed the copy machine and then just walked away.”
I’m still loving that Milo’s book was given away for free in court documents. Shame it couldn’t happen with this one too.
Sorry, I was thinking Bannon had written a book.
“… I had already won the nomination by defeating 17 candidates, often described as the most talented field ever assembled in the Republican Party.”
Would that be Ben Carson, or Ted Cruz? LOLLOLLOL.
Bannon tweeted:
“Well the table is turning. I won’t speak about who lost their minds or ever had one. But it’s easy to see who will be played by the Opposition Party. We should all fight for the common goals and ideas we have. United We stand and divided we will fall and fail.
I don’t think Trump is ever going to be impeached no matter who turns against him. If the democrats atempt to impeach him, we will just rile up the Republican base and more of them than ever will vote in the next presidential election. They know that.
Unfortunately, I think the dems will wait it out until next election.
That being said, Im glad Steve Bannon turned against Trump and they are fighting. Maybe Trump will be less likelt to listen to the crazy alt right. Wishful thinking?
What? Bannon thinks that somehow, even after the revelations and the disparaging reports in this book that Trump is going to “stand united” with him to “fight for goals and ideas”? lol I don’t think so.
Can somebody please try to ecplain Rebekah Mercer to me.
She is beyond rich , has a science bachelor from Stanford. How does it come to be that her worldview is the same as a rural bible belt redneck with bad /no economic prospects?
She endorses Arthur B. Robinson and homeschools her kids. Not that homeschooling per se is a bad thing, just if it is done to teach children creationism instead of science. In my opinion.
She seems to me at first glance to be a good representation of the white, wealthy women spectrum who voted for DT.
So if education and financial security does not make a difference, what can?
Kayla Moore and Rebekah Mercer. Would they enjoy each others company ?
I am from Germany (please excuse spelling errors) and here the separation of state and religion is part of the fundament of our collective civil and govermental identity.
it is a very highly accepted, expected and inherent standard of our way of life, worldview, understanding of our national self. In all economic and social classes, city or rural area.
I don’t think a Rebekah Mercer would “grow”/happen in Germany. Not in the quantities I assume America to be producing.