I’m sure that the moment this is published, about fifty new “breaking news” stories will be published and so I’ll probably have to write another political summary. As soon as Emperor Baby Fists was “wheels up” in Washington on Friday, it seems like two dozen massive new scandals broke. Baby Fists is making news on his first foreign trip too – his first stop was Saudi Arabia, which is where Trump seemed to “bow” to the king. Remember what a sh-t fit he threw about Obama bowing his head in respect to foreign kings and queens? I should also say this: in every photo of Trump in Saudi Arabia, he looks completely miserable. He’s so done with this whole presidency thing. He just wants to go back to Trump Tower and tweet. Here are some stories which have broken in the past few days:
All of the Saudi stuff. After all of the sh-t that Trump has said about Muslims for years and years, he’s now acting like he doesn’t have any kind of history of Islamophobia or inciting hatred of Muslims or anything. His advisers tried to strike a more moderate tone in his big “Muslim speech.” I couldn’t bring myself to watch it.
Trump & The Nut-Job. Apparently, in that same meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Ambassador Sergey Kislyak two weeks ago, Trump told them: “I just fired the head of the FBI. He was crazy, a real nut job. I faced great pressure because of Russia. That’s taken off.” I completely believe that he said this. And I completely believe that he actually thought this, that his problems would be over if he just fired Comey.
Please let it be Precious Ivanka. The Washington Post reported on Friday that the ongoing federal investigation into Trump, his campaign and Russian collusion has turned up a “significant person of interest.” Some journalists got the tip that the person of interest is none other than Jared Kushner. But honestly, at this point, it could be ANYONE. It should be noted though that there does seem to be a lot of evidence stacking up that Kushner is really, really worried about what this Russian investigation is going to uncover.
Another Trump person with Russian ties. The House committee’s investigation has turned up a new name: Michael Caputo. Caputo was communications director for the Trump campaign and shock of shocks, he worked in and for Russia for more than a decade. It seems like there might have been some collusion/communication between Caputo and Russia during the campaign. *clutches pearls*
The Revenge of James Comey. The Senate Intelligence Committee announced late Friday evening that Nutjob James Comey will testify in open session about his firing, the memos and everything else. It should happen after Memorial Day, next week.
He made a huge mistake. Sources tell Politico that Trump still believes that firing Michael Flynn was a huge mistake. No surprise.
Googling Impeachment. Apparently, Trump’s lawyers are researching how impeachment works. Frankly, I’d like to see Trump try to SPELL “impeachment.”
Photos courtesy of Getty.
Well I guess Comey didn’t like it that Trump called him a nutjob. Keep digging your own grave, Donald.
Dig, baby, dig.
After claiming that Hillary Clinton lacked the stamina to be President, Baby Fists skipped one of his scheduled meetings and sent Princess Nagini to make vague remarks about youth being the future for world peace or whatever in his place.
A couple of press tweets quoted his entourage saying he was exhausted. Low energy orange!
And the exhaustion is why he left the term “radical Islam” out of his prepared speech. Sure, Jan.
Yep. The official White House account is that he is “exhausted.” After two days. After he and his people mocked a woman with pneumonia. I don’t even have the energy to get mad about the hypocrisy anymore. He’s probably tired from publicly confessing to obstruction of justice so many times last week.
Didn’t his campaign also try to crucify Hilary over her connections to the Saudis? Here he is brown nosing them, and funnily enough Saudi Arabia also wasn’t on his list of banned countries…funny that.
And fifteen of the 9/11 terrorists were from Saudi Arabia. 15 of 19.
Plus bin Ladin.
Saudi Arabia is one of the countries that by it’s existence consistly shows the hypocrisy of Western countries. So sick and tired of seeing heads of states making nice with the Saudis while people get flogged to death for expressing their opinions.
Don’t forget his slam at Michelle for not wearing a headcovering. Of course, daughterwife and thirdwife were dressed according to SA custom. Oh, wait, they weren’t. Well, whata ya know!!
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2017/05/20/melania-and-ivanka-trump-following-tradition-of-western-visitors-forgo-headscarves-in-saudi-arabia/
Not that it would make is any less gross but if he at least stood by all the crap he’d said about Obama and Hilary over the years, at least you could say well he’s a consistant,non contradictory ahole but he has managed to do everything x 100 that he railed on them both for and no one says a word to him.
The just made a $110 billion arms deal with us – of course he is going to cozy up to them. ALso reported that Netanyahu had to order some of his ministers to the welcoming ceremony for Trump and they scaled it down.
I was going to write about the deal. This is going to have consequences…the kind of dramatic ones.
@eleonor – also read that the deal may be illegal.
And they bribed Ivanka for the deal.
It’s being reported now that the Saudi’s are asking for Trump to rescind the 9/11 lawsuit.
(per the Tribune Washington Bureau)
NONE of the countries where trump had financial interests were on the ban list. Coincidence?? Yeah, sure.
http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/306990-trump-appeared-to-register-eight-companies-in-saudi-arabia
I accidentally watched the whole speech. I thought I was watching AM Joy and she was going to cut in and out of the speech with commentary from her and her guests. I was obviously wrong.
It was long winded, completely tone deaf, and absent of a lot of historical context. He said he was not going to tell them what to do, but worded his speech in such a way that he was actually doing just that. He is taking the same tone that Bush and Obama took to talking to audiences in the middle east. There is nothing original or interesting about the speech other than that he only made a few mistakes when he was reading it.
Most of the men in that room looked completely unimpressed or fell asleep- even King Salman had a look of “WTF is he blathering on about”. The only nice thing I can say was that the room that they were in was quite beautiful.
I am looking forward to Comey testifying. He probably will not say anything damning so as not to jeopardize an on-going case, but I still look forward to it.
You know exactly that the Saudis laughed about Trump and didn’t take him seriously. Plus, it’s “funny” that he hold a speech there and said that they should stop supporting terrorism and so on – it’s Saudi Arabia, they have and will always support radical extremists. That’s how they make money.
I returned yesterday from two weeks in the Middle East. The overall attitude towards Trump is shockingly positive and optimistic. The Middle East was incredibly frustrated by Obama’s lack of action on Syria and ISIS and are holding out hope Trump will act to end what have become endless wars. It was a truly eye opening experience.
I’m certainly no expert on the Middle East, but aren’t there a lot of repressive regimes there? They probably see a compatriot in trump, a bumbling, ignorant compatriot they can flatter and use.
But why is it The U.S. responsibility to do something? The US is damned if you do and damned if you don’t when it comes to interfering in other countries. Why can’t those countries commit the money, manpower and resources into doing something about Syria & ISIS as well as the refugee crisis?
@I’mScared Aside from the fact the US disrupted the region and created the power vacuum that ISIS stepped into by waging an illegal war in Iraq … all of the countries in the region are developing nations that are struggling to care for their own people while absorbing millions of refugees from Syria and Iraq. The refugee crisis in Europe is peanuts compared to the refugee crisis in Jordan.
@I’mScaredAsHell – I have said the same thing to people on FB – Why does America have to be the world’s police? Maybe SA thinks Trump will keep bombing Syria the way he already has.
@I’mscared and swak William Schulz wrote and excellent book, In Our Own Best Interest, that explores how ignoring wars and human rights violations has harmed America directly and indirectly in countless ways. The question isn’t why should the US be the world’s policemen, the question is what happens when we don’t act.
I couldn’t bring myself to watch so thanks for the summary. No surprise that his supporters think he knocked it out of the park with the speech. Sigh.
Don’t worry, as soon as he gets his phone back it’ll be crazytime again.
What a twerp – making a deal with Saudi Arabia which was behind 9/11 and supports terrorist groups like ISIS and Al-Qaida.
Not just a deal – he gave them a discount on the original agreement!
So even if you can morally accept selling arms to a facist theocracy currently responsible for atrocities in Yemen that make Syria’s Assad look like a humanitarian, he still screwed US manufacturing out of billions of dollars.
All whilst conducting himself EXACTLY in the way he previously criticised the Obamas for…
A YUGE discount.
I spent the last two weeks in the Middle East interviewing Syrian refugees and I can assure you the horrors being committed by Assad exceed the horrors in Yemen, which is truly heartbreaking to say.
The USA has been arms dealer to the world for a long time. All the Presidents get into it.
He made that deal so he can say: “See, how BIGLY great I am, I can make BIGLY deals. I’m a BIGLY great businessman!”
His bigly deals with the Saudis are puny compared to Obama’s $100 billion in arms deals.
Waiting for a tweet about the bigly medal they gave him!
@swak: Some people on the Internet said that he looked like a dog on a golden leash. That they knew he would bow down to the Saudis if they gave him something shiny and made of gold.
@kitkat – 🙂
Thanks for making my day!
Face palm and tears.When will this stop? So scary
It’s Jared.
I, too, think it’s Tom Marvolo Kushner.
Is that the English version of it? I only read the Dutch translation.
He’s as dirty as the rest.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/kushner-keeps-most-of-his-real-estate-but-offers-few-clues-about-potential-white-house-conflicts/2017/05/21/35d7ceb4-3993-11e7-a058-ddbb23c75d82_story.html
Okay, it really annoys me that Jared and Ivanka are there/everywhere. His supporters voted for the whole Trump family, not just Donald.
They brought the kids too.
They probably forced the kids to perform for them, like they had to perform for the Chinese president.
Make them stop! Make them stop! Here, have $100 million to make them stop!
Yikes. If they did bring the kids, maybe they really are going to stay in Israel…. They can apply for citizenship (right of return for Jared at least) and extradition would be unlikely especially since BiBi likes his family and has known him since Jared was a child. Jared must be thinking of ways out of the investigation back home now that things are seriously heating up. I doubt that his initial omission of his Russian contacts on his security clearance form was accidental. Someone must have advised him that it was a bad idea to try that.
Yes, but they knew that when they voted for him.
Yea the timing on the news was deliberate. NYT and WaPo waited until Air Force One was wheels up to release the stories. It was coordinated because they congratulated each other on Twitter. Quite genius really.
Kushner and Pence are beginning to be implicated so yay. But that leaves us with Ryan as POTUS and that is equally horrifying.
Also invanka got a 10 million endorsement from the Saudis. The same ish they criticized HRC on.
Not $10 million. $100 million. $100 million for a PROPOSED foundation that doesn’t exist. The same PROPOSED foundation for which China also gave her a donation. There’s a pattern here.
It’s really a donation to help cover their legal fees. /s
Geez you are right. 100 mil. I mean I cannot
Ryan is said to have at least known – WaPo has a tape of him talking to other Republicans about 45 and the Russians and asking them (the repubs) to keep quiet.
Yes, I appreciate how the NY times and the Washington Post are making sure to target the entire line of succession here.
The NYT and WaPo are finally on the job and we should be as well. There are many issues beyond Russia-gate to be aware of.
The House is supposed to release a CBO score for the version of the AHCA they passed earlier in the month.
The White House is about to release the 2018 budget.
The FCC voted 2-1 to begin dismantling net neutrality.
The Education Department released its budget proposal with deep cuts to funding.
Keep track of the issues with Indivisible. Keep contacting your MoCs and attending town halls. Save our democracy and our future.
https://twitter.com/IndivisibleTeam
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The cruel Heritage Foundation is being allowed to influence the budget.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/05/22/trumps-plans-to-cut-food-stamps-could-hit-his-supporters-hardest/
More weapons for SA = more trouble. This will not end well. Everybody knows that SA is helping ISIL etc. so we all know where the weapons will go.
During the Obama administration, the US inked over $100 billion in arms deals with Saudi Arabia.
Presidents since the 1970s have sold the Saudis weapons, unfortunately it’s nothing new.
You’re not going to normalize trump no matter how much effort you put into it.
@Susanne Pointing out facts that don’t fit your narrative of arms deals with the Saudis isn’t normalizing Trump.
Just noticing that most of your responses are of the “But, Obama, but, Obama, but, Obama.”
And President Obama held back precision weapons that could be used against civilians. And BHO sought to improve relations with Iran. Saudi Arabia hated him for that and were all too eager to grease the ego of the easily manipulated fool, trump.
http://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/20/world/middleeast/donald-trump-saudi-arabia.html?_r=0
Ok, but during the war on Yemen, as the death toll and human rights violations escalated dramatically, the Obama administration nixed the sale of the precision-guided munitions it had originally agreed to put in the deal to try to coerce the Saudis into curbing those atrocities.
Now those munitions are back in the Trump arms package — which speaks volumes about this administration and their desire to put profit and trade above human life. Also, keep in mind that this deal is part of a larger 10-year, $350 billion agreement in a “strategic vision” between the two countries. Recall that Saudi Arabia is also considering a $40 billion in US infrastructure. You better believe that Trump and Kushner have their eyes on that particular prize.
This isn’t the same as what Obama did.
Thank you, Kitten. That’s in the link I just posted, also. President Obama was able to look at the situation and attempt to achieve the best outcome in a bad situation. trump is too dumb for nuances. Wave the money in front of his greedy face and tell him how bigly wonderful he is and you’ve hooked him, consequences be damned.
Exactly, Kitten. The U.S. has been in the arms business for a long time, but even Obama wasn’t short-sided enough to give the Saudis technology that could impeed us if say…we got into another war. Trump doesn’t care, he can only see to the next dollar sign.
Sidenote- I’ve been meaning to ask you forever, but could you recommend some good podcasts?
Hi Marty-
Are you asking about Trump-centric ones?
I listen to The 45th (two Muslim women-one conservative and one liberal-and one American liberal woman host the show), Pod Save America (probably my favorite), Pod Save The World, Lovett or Leavitt, and I highly recommend Deray McKesson’s new podcast Pod Save The People. He has awesome guests and I love his voice–like seriously obsessed with the smooth tonal quality of it. That’s the superficial component, but honestly I love hearing the PoC perspective about 45. He did a great episode recently where he went into depth about voter suppression…I’ve heard countless podcasts on this subject but I found his to be the most thorough exploration of a terrible topic.
I also listen to Intercepted and Fresh Air (they don’t only cover Trump but they cover him fairly frequently with great guests like New Yorker writer Evan Oznos).
Intercepted is Jeremy Scahill’s podcast which I sometimes find infuriating in terms of his anti-Obama stance (like why the F*CK are you bringing up O’s administration right now??) but I think he and Greenwald are both important voices and I like being challenged by their style of adversarial journalism.
These are great! Thanks Kitten!
Why were Ivanka and Damien Thorn there?
Saudis gave her $100 million. Girl has got to show up for her money.
Had another scream at my mother last night about this sh*tty disaster. She claimed he was great to give Saudi Arabia all that money because they’re close friends with the US. WTF! I tried to explain it’s where most of the 9/11 hijackers were from, but she refused to believe that and said they were all from Iran. She also denied anyone in the government had said anything about impeachment. The pain! The pain! So upsetting to see Trumpsters still not seeing the truth. I get more frustrated everyday.
It sounds like so far he’s managed to stay more or less on script in the Middle East – star queuing up all the “He sounds SO presidential!!” stories….
He skipped out on the Tweeps social media conference and sent Princess Nagini instead because he was tired.
There’s a hilarious video of him looking terrified in a room full of Saudis. I laughed so hard because a xenophobe in a room full of foreigners (to him) is hysterical
That’s already happened. So ridic how the bar is set for this turd.
Yup. It’s asinine. These people, the ones who go on CNN and squeak about how we just saw “a different president Trump” and that “he was presidential,” are either so, so stupid, or just purposefully ignorant. How many times has he been “presidential” by way of reading off a TelePrompTer and not sh!tting on the stage, only to do something illegal, immoral, and/or evil 8 hours later? Fool me once, and all that
Trump thinks “impeachment” is a fancy French dessert bowl filled with scoops of vanilla ice cream and topped with peaches.
Two scoops, because he’s a bigly boy.
Oh, let’s go crazy and give him the entire container of thIs dessert — it’s definitely the **least** he deserves for all this “Winning!” At some point in the past months of Trumpageddon, he said that as President he would win so much the American people would get *so* tired of all the “Winning!” they would be begging him to stop. His definition of “Winning!” is clear and they *are* begging him to stop. Bigly begging.
He is disgusting. The easy part is over for him. Now he has to face some music with the other countries. He praises a country who the 9/11 killers came from, still allows beheading and killing the Yemen people, YET goes after a country who just had a democratic election and allowed women to vote. Iran has major problems but it looks like there is hope there. Saudis, I don’t think so.
Everyone says Dumpster did a girly curtsy in Saudi Arabia – I saw it as a genuflect to the almighty dollar/gold – a king with more money than he will ever dream to have.
I think President Tweeter was just bending down so the King could put some medal around his neck. Tweeter is taller than the King.
The really fun photo is of the Saudi King, the Egyptian President, and President Tweeter all with their hands on a glowing globe in a darkened room. The Iluminati fans should go nuts over that one. It was actually for the opening ceremony for some center against extremist ideology or something, but I instantly wondered if they were pledging “no girls allowed” for their treehouse boys club….
Poor Tweeter. Bet his jet is lagged. He’s not having a fun time. Wonder if he’ll skip the Pope and the conference.
Wonder if Jared will stay in Israel… I think he’s in deep in the Russia connections and has good reason to worry. Israel won’t extradite him, I suspect.
But after the medal was put on and the king started to turn away, trumpkins curtsied. Unless of course, poor exhausted baby was about to collapse.
So President Rump calls on Saudis to eradicate terrorism; it’s like asking the Royal Family to eradicate pomp and circumstance.
9/11
Never forget
Saudi-led
Wonder what they gave Trump to keep him sedated and as much on script as possible. He seemed to read strictly from the TelePrompter and didn’t veer off message. By the end of this trip he’ll be suffering from exhaustion….the strain of having to “behave” will get to him.
Also, did anyone else hear about how Trump & crew are going after the special counsel Mueller to have him removed from the investigation?
Report: White House Looking At Ethics Rule To Weaken Special Investigation
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/white-house-ethics-russia_us_591f7b0ae4b094cdba54393f
I believe the first thing Meuller should supena is his taxes for the last 10 years.
Maybe instead of exhaustion he’s over-medicated?
That rule is hard to prove. He would have had to worked directly with the family. A big firm has many lawyers. Not all of them know each other and they don’t work each other’s projects.
DOJ is always careful and they vet. Those a$$ can keep trying but I doubt it will work.
I hope the European leg of this tour breaks all the records for the enormous greatest bigly crowds of protesters OF ALL TIII-YAM!!!
Iran just re-elected its president who wants to engage with the West and trumps slams them and sucks up to Saudi Arabia, home of most of the 9/11 bombers. More money to be milked from the Saudis for the trump bank account. Certainly not any long held convictions. Impeachment, impeechmint, imartnxtymv, I don’t give a damn how you spell it.
http://twitter.com/jzarif/status/866360950345125889
Wonder how many gold-themed decorating ideas he picked up?
Now he has a huge golden medal to wear with his bathrobe.
He will probably want to keep that upon his WH departure, but all gifts must be catalogued and archived.
I bet he’ll have a bigly tantrum when he find that out!
I dont know who is on Trump’s hit list when it comes to “”enemy of the US” . I had thought it was North Korea, but with that speech I am getting a vibe he wants to start some conflict with Iran.
Low energy #45 looked as if his knees were about to buckle a couple of times today. I’m not watching the coverage because I can’t take him. Everything he critized Obama and Hillary about he and his has wife and daughter have done.
My personal highlight of the the current administration’s weekend was Pence getting walked out on by around 100 Notre Dame graduates and their families. They walked out once he started speaking in a peaceful protest of his views and policies.
Pence was a controversial choice and a coalition of student groups had expressed their disappointment in the decision, announcing their plans to protest in advance. Apparently, he was the second choice because enough alum and students gave negative feedback when Trump was the proposed commencement speaker. As someone who was raised Catholic but left the church as an adult because of its position on women, it’s a bit of cognitive dissonance to think about inviting a serial philander and man on his third marriage to speak at this country’s foremost Catholic university. It’s okay for them to protest Obama in 2009 because of his pro-choice views and support for stem cell research, but fine to invite or think about inviting Pence and Trump.
How about trump appointing calista gingrich, mistress and third wife of serial adulterer, newt, as ambassador to the Vatican? A deliberate thumb in the eye to Pope Francis who has taken issue with some trump positions?
Yeah appointing the slutty mistress to the Vatican was surreal.
As Bill Maher so eliquently said, trump’s guiding principle as president, the trump Doctrine, if you will, is “What would a dick do?””
EPA needs an administrator-get a climate denier who’s sued the government multiple times.
Education Dept-get the dumbest woman in America who hates public education and wants to destroy it.
Energy-tap a guy who took a Meat course in college.
HUD-hey, here’s someone who lived in public housing as a kid. He’ll do.
Meet ups with foreign leaders-check the Dictators are Us dating app.
Ironic that it’s coming from the king of crazy nutjobs, Trump.
Presidents, both Democratic and Republican, have made weapons deals with Saudi Arabia since the 1970s. The key things to look at is one: Trumps hypocrisy, SA was one of his go to criticism, and now it’s abundantly clear why. Two: Trump just sold them weapons that Obama refused to, which is why they were so eager to please him. Trump sold SA weapons that could seriously come to bite us in the ass one day.
Very interesting on MSNBC, they reported that the Israeli intelligence people were so furious over Trump telling the Russians what had been top secret information that they were shouting in a meeting, and many don’t want to share intelligence in the future. So, he’s now in Israel. That should be interesting. Also, they said that he was feeling soooo exhausted that Princess Nagini had to take a meeting for him. Hillary flew the equivalent of 8 trips around the world in her diplomatic travels, and he called her weak. I don’t think this trip will be the yuge success he wanted, and he still has to come home and face the music about Russia.
Just watched trump at the Western Wall. He had his bottom lip puffed out in his perpetual pout, looking like a teenager dragged along on a family trip. He walked up to it like a 95 year old in need of knee replacements. He looked miserable.(Good)
Look at the way Jared, Ivanka and Melania put a entire hand on the wall while Trump only puts finger tips on it.
I also read that his WH staff was trying to get Mueller thrown off the case with the conflict of interest clause (his firm did work for the family). However, that would be moot if Mueller did not work directly with them or handled any of their matters. DOJ is pretty much on the ball and would have researched any conflict of interests prior to the appointment.
I smell the desperation from these losers.
Yet another idiot heard from. Wilbur Ross, Sec. of Commerce, says in an interview how refreshing it was not to see any protestors in Saudi. Because it is illegal, moron!
It is ridiculous he brought his posse of deplorables with him. What a motley bunch they are. There is no way to articulate how disgusting and outlandish this whole Trump as president experiment is. The man is clearly unstable and morally bankrupt but his devoted lapdogs think this circus clown is legitimate. Although the daily schadenfreude helps take the edge off.