Not that I thought it would be a good idea to send Donald Trump to Asia for twelve days before, but after reading the latest Politico article on the administration’s preparations, I’m convinced that it could be the last nail in the president’s coffin.
For starters, his foreign policy team has scheduled “dozens” of meetings not because they need to have that many but because “top aides have sought to keep the briefings short to avoid overloading the president with details.”
And the details are many. They’re trying to tell the president how to properly accept a business card, whether or not to bow, and countless other ways to avoid inadvertently offending his hosts. They don’t want him to say something stupid about trade, about Taiwan, about Korean “comfort girls,” about extrajudicial assassinations in the Philippines, about North Korea’s nuclear program, about the “reelection” of Chinese President Xi Jinping, and on and on and on.
We all know this is pointless. They can have a thousand two-minute meetings, each one devoted to avoiding just one potential land mine, and the president is still going to screw up and screw up massively and repeatedly.
The administration and its friends know this, too.
The president’s advisers acknowledge privately that Trump’s unpredictable behavior could complicate the trip in ways big and small, from potentially escalating the crisis on the Korean Peninsula to flouting complicated rules of procedure.
“You never know what he’ll say,” an administration official said, adding that the grueling schedule could heighten the risk of mistakes. An outside adviser to the administration concurred: “The potential for error is huge.”
This trip is supposed to serve as a distraction from the Russian probe at home, but it’s only going to intensify the sentiment in favor of impeachment.
“Here’s what Manafort’s indictment tells me: Mueller is going to go over every financial dealing of Jared Kushner and the Trump Organization,” said former Trump campaign aide Sam Nunberg. “Trump is at 33 percent in Gallup. You can’t go any lower. He’s fucked.”
…Trump’s lawyer Ty Cobb has been advocating the view that playing ball will lead to a quick resolution (Cobb did not respond to a request for comment). But these soft-power approaches are being criticized by Trump allies including Steve Bannon and Roger Stone, who both believe establishment Republicans are waiting for a chance to impeach Trump. “The establishment has proven time and time again they will fuck Trump over,” a Bannon ally told me.
And when the president staggers home, he’ll have this to deal with:
President Donald Trump’s longtime aide and current communications director, Hope Hicks, is scheduled to speak with special counsel Robert Mueller’s team in mid-November, following the president’s trip to Asia, multiple people familiar with the schedule told POLITICO.
Hope Hicks was there when there president named Carter Page and George Papadopoulos as his foreign policy advisers. She was there when Trump wrote dishonest talking points on Air Force One about the meeting Manafort, Kushner and Donald Jr. had with representatives of the Kremlin. She has been at Trump’s side for a long time. She may be talking to Mueller’s prosecutors for days.
I don’t care how much people try to babysit Trump, he’s still not fit to be president. Even Steve Bannon seems to realize this:
Two weeks ago, according to a source, Bannon did a spitball analysis of the Cabinet to see which members would remain loyal to Trump in the event the 25th Amendment were invoked, thereby triggering a vote to remove the president from office. Bannon recently told people he’s not sure if Trump would survive such a vote. “One thing Steve wants Trump to do is take this more seriously,” the Bannon confidant told me. “Stop joking around. Stop tweeting.”
Sending Trump to Asia isn’t going to make one single solitary thing better for the president or the administration. It will almost definitely make things worse.
Maybe it’s just a failure of my imagination, but I am still having a hard time taking seriously the possibility of impeachment. I know the Republican Congress is dutifully trying to act like Donald Trump is not the actual President of the United States, and they are working diligently, night and day, to get those massive tax cuts for the 1% over the finish line before the whole edifice collapses. But even if or when a collapse happens, I still cannot envision the current crop of Republicans ever doing the “et tu Trump” thing, and sticking a shiv in the ribs of DJT.
Unless Trump barricades himself in the White House and takes the staff there as hostages, and makes some nationally televised ransom demands, I just don’t see the fellow Republicans crossing the political Rubicon and betraying him. I wish I was not so cynical, but I just can’t help it. The current world has made me that way.
Now if, by some miracle, the Dems take the House and Senate, then maybe impeachment is at least possible. But as long as the GOP holds any semblance of power, or at least one house of Congress, it just seems a virtual impossibility, even if Mueller indicts everyone around Trump.
Agreed.
And remember, the Senate has to hear the impeachment trial. Unless the D’s kick ass and take names BIGGLY in ’18, there will be more than 34 Republicans in the Senate.
I don’t see ANY of them (including the “moderates” Collins, Murkowski et all) voting to impeach Trump.
It’s totally, utterly impossible for the Dems to get the Republicans below 34 seats. The Republicans have 43 seats not even up for election.
Actually, the original quote was Julius Caesar saying Et tu, Brutus? The latter was Caesar’s long loyal friend. So, in this case it would more likely be “”et tu Pence”, while Mike sticks a shiv in the ribs of DJT.
That could happen.
Well, Shakespeare – it’s unlikely that the quote is historically accurate.
Things that won’t happen:
(1) The current House will vote for impeachment
(2) Enough republican senators will vote to convict
Things that could happen:
(1) A democratic controlled House voting for impeachment in 2019
(2) Trump resigning, perhaps nudged along by an implicit promise that Pence will pardon him if he does, but his personal finances will be devastated if he doesn’t
I keep thinking about exactly this. I remind myself that not forseeing Trump getting elected was a “failure of imagination” of a similar scale.
Meaning, I actually think it could happen (if that wasn’t clear). The whole thing just keeps getting worse and worse, at an accelerating pace (as Trump gets more tired and frustrated and more backed into a corner, having already clearly lost interest in the whole thing).
I could see him leaving of his own volition, long before I could see Republicans impeaching him. They are spineless cowards, and they shit their pants every time a fleeting thought crosses their mind about maybe having to do something which might put them in the crosshairs of their base. If there is any group more delusional than Trump, it is his most earnest supporters, the true believers. Those are the ones who are calling the shots in the GOP. It’s a parasitic relationship, where Congressional Republicans are the host, and the Trumpers are the parasite, subsisting on the remaining small bits of flesh that still cling to the Republican exoskeleton.
The base is actually the host that the corporate tax cutting parasites invaded during the first gilded age. In the 19th century.
The parasites then spread to the racists and evangelicals and convinced them to join the Borg.
What’s happening now is that the base/host/Bannon are trying to control the parasites to do their bidding:
Very appropriate seasonal image!
Well also, the GOP base would annihilate any of their guys who did that to Trump.
“Unless Trump barricades himself in the White House and takes the staff there as hostages, and makes some nationally televised ransom demands.”
LOL! This is my new favorite end game scenario! The media will go crazy. Someone, somewhere will blame Hillary. Imagine the ratings! But let’s replace staff with cabinet because I can’t think of a less sympathetic cast of characters as hostages than the current cabinet.
Thanks MiO! Going to bed with a smile on my face.
Steve Bannon doesn’t know what we all know? The moment you tell DT to stop doing something is exactly the something we can expect him to do. This applies doubly to China. “Don’t bring up North Korea.” You can count on him bringing up North Korea, etc.
Why would China agree to this in the first place? What were they thinking? Unless they somehow benefit from the POTUS making an ass of himself.
Maybe they’re angling for a slice of kompromat pie.
Xi Jimping was just crowned Emperor for the indefinite future, so it’s logical for him to meet with the leader of the most powerful country in the world. Xi knows that Trump is a complete clown who can be manipulated to do anything Xi wants. That said, the trip will likely be a disaster.
The donald may leave China pledging not to put tariffs on solar panels.
I can visualize several reasons China would want Trump traipsing through Asia.
Certainly one thing China realized in previous meetings is that Trump is an idiot…and can be easily manipulated, and prefers his own home field advantage…like Mar Lago. So get him over seas and very tired and see what you can get him to say. For instance, get him to say something supportive about the islands China is building in the South China Sea. That would be HUGE for China, it would increase their leverage AND drive a wedge between America and its allies that are opposed to those islands.
But even on a basic level, the trip helps China. Trump is a buffoon, so getting him in Asia talking like the idiot he is can show countries in Asia that America elects idiots, and so cannot be trusted to be reliable. That alone can help China…”see, we just appointed someone for the long term, we can be trusted”.
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It’s all Jared’s fault.
I hear Ivanka was opposed.
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Ivanka provides her counsel to the President in private, or so she says. That means she doesn’t oppose anything our horrible President does in any way that is meaningful or helpful.
It’s called sarcasm.
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Sure, I know. I just despise her is all.
Didn’t mean to undermine your funny.
O/T but stunning Just watch Sarah lie
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/president-attacks-federal-justice-system-as-joke-laughingstock
The Republicans still need Trump. He won’t be impeached.
It’s humiliating to be an American citizen with Trump as our president. I know it’s been said a fhousand times, but can you imagine Obama needing many mini tutoring sessions on protocol and etiquette in order to prevent insulting foreign leaders? Sure, Obama had some lessons, but he has a sense of decorum and dignity that Trump will never possess.
A trip away from the country won’t make things any better. Trump will show his ass and make us look bad and he’ll brag about how the other world leaders adore and respect him, and he’ll come home to a bigger mess than when he left.
Gawd, I hate this man!
I was thinking the same thing. And yet they hated Obama and love Trump. It’s hard to avoid the ugly conclusion: that these are just barbaric people who don’t have the wherewithal to understand the contrast (notwithstanding the racial undertones or the constant brainwashing by Fox etc.).
Who don’t even have the motivation to be decent human beings
I feel like Trump is the scorpion in the story of scorpion and the frog that crossed the river.
My anger is at the Republicans in both houses, and state capitals, that represent the basest instincts of their wealthy donors!
I think there is too much decorum and protocol in international relations as is, but there does need to be SOME.
As to the screwups during the trip, consider them guaranteed. Trips of this sort by the President are extraordinarily intricate affairs both substantively and procedurally. They are also physically strenuous. We have here a 71-year-old man with no background in this kind of thing, who has little inclination to learn or understand the issues and processes involved, and who also possesses little self-control most of the time and even less when tired. He will be under constant observation by U.S. and local press, who will not fail to report any problems.
This thing has the potential to be a circus. It’s already fallen into one hole, when Trump’s handlers cut the trip short by a day to keep him from getting overly tired and “cranky” and thus snubbed an important regional meeting. And while Trump’s minders will no doubt do their best, their limitations were apparent in the earlier visit to Washington by the British Prime Minister, where official documents discussing the visit confused her correct name (Theresa May) with the name of model Teresa May. As well, the official schedule for Trump’s trip to Puerto Rico had him visiting the “Cavalry Chapel,” which if true must have had quite a history with an antiquated military unit; one strongly suspects “Cavalry Chapel” (with reference to the place of Christ’s crucifixion), was intended but muddled.
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Whoops, autocorrect made a muddle. The final sentence should have read: “One strongly suspects that”Calvary Chapel” (with reference to the site of Christ’s crucifixion) was intended but muddled.”
I was quietly giggling at that….
English can be weird. It can be understood through tough thorough thought, though.
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All true, but you can count on Fox News and other rightwing organs to gush about how presidential Trump is, when he doesn’t leave his fly undone during meetings or grope Xi’s wife. And for the base, that’s all they need to continue worshipping him.
“One thing Steve wants Trump to do is take this more seriously,” the Bannon confidant told me. “Stop joking around. Stop tweeting.”
See, this is where it becomes obvious how clueless these people are: Drumpf is not “joking around” and nothing will make him “stop tweeting”. Unfortunately for all of us, he’s deadly serious, and views tweeting as his mainline to his adoring subjects…
While in Japan Donald Trump will play with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and pro golfer Hideki Matsuyama at the 2020 Olympic golf course in Kawagoe which doesn’t allow women to become members. Just to be exact Kawagoe isn’t in Tokyo its in Saitama.
I think DT has lost it. I thought his meltdown about the kneeling, the tweets about Kelley agreeing with him, then Kelley going out to take bullets for him were very telling. You’re the potus, why do you need a daddy to stand up for you? I sense the fight has gone out of him. He’s not some ruthless and tireless arch-authoritarian. He’s a braggart conman, an idiot savant media personality. I sense he knows he’s not up to fighting through or riding the landslide of karma that’s coming back at him now.
So he pardons manafort. So what? Mueller indicts Flynn or he’s already pled and is cooperating. So creates a shitstorm and fires Mueller. The investigation is well along. More will be indicted or the evidence will leak. Yeah, our politics are in a terrible place, ripe for terrible damage. But DTs not up for it. He just wants to tweet and play golf and watch fix and friends.
While I think this is exactly right — if anything, I think your description of his weakness is too mild — we have to remember that Trump himself is just some sort of strange figurehead or lightning rod and the phenomenon that surrounds and propels him is very large, stromg. and dangerous indeed.
It’s interesting, as always, to compare to the Nazi template: Hitler was lazy and disorganized, too, and a bad manager and bad decision-maker; but the movement was his, based on his own book (without a ghostwriter) and his military experience and personal drive, and his own philosophy; he was his own Bannon. Trump’s significant oratorical skill is really the only direct similarity.
This important difference, more than the comparative resilience and inertia of American democratic norms and ideals, may be the main thing that saves us from Ian Kershaw’s Nazi “abyss.”
This doff
Butt-ugly (Brazile book excerpt at Politico, h/t atrios).
And boy are we paying the consequences now.
And while we’re there, atrios, in his inimitably succinct way lays out the dubya indictment in a nutshell:
Wow!
So mainstream Dem moneybags boycotted the black candidate and Hillary got some financial shade from Obama in return.
There was a lot of hostility internally in 2008 that caused some lasting grudges apparently.
At least amongh the Democratic playahs.
I think the Xi Jinping has no illusions about what to expect from Trump after the Syrian bombing show viewed from Mar el Lago that Trump put on for his state dinner dessert.
In less than a year, Trump has ensured that the US has lost the trust to be the sole superpower and the art of the deal approach to diplomacy will gain few of the long-term relationships that the US has depended on for the past 70 years.
More signficantly, any idea that the US can defeat the Chinese One Belt-One Road initiative by trumping up wars to sabotage newly installed infrastructure will be a hugely destructive mistake.
This is going to be tested when China comes developing infrastructure in Afghanistan in order secure its Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region from terrorists.
Right now it looks like the US plan in Afghanistan is to preserve instability while the Afghanistan governments maneuvers around US occupation.