According to Julian Borger at The Guardian, the so-called president doesn’t care much for the Constitution.
In an interview with Fox News to mark the 100-day mark, he declared himself “disappointed†with congressional Republicans, despite his many “great relationships†with them.
He blamed the constitutional checks and balances built in to US governance. “It’s a very rough system,†he said. “It’s an archaic system … It’s really a bad thing for the country.â€
Unfortunately, Fox News doesn’t provide a transcript of the interview, and I’m not about to sit through the video.
But if that weren’t bad enough, we’re now hearing that Trump is frustrated because he can’t sue journalists.
White House chief of staff Reince Priebus on Sunday said that President Donald Trump’s administration has “looked at†changing the law so that Trump can sue the press, though Priebus offered few details.
ABC News’ Jon Karl questioned Priebus on “This Week†about Trump’s suggestion in March that he might “change libel laws†in order to go after the New York Times.
“That would require, as I understand it, a constitutional amendment,†Karl said. “Is he really going to pursue that?â€
“I think it’s something that we’ve looked at, and how that gets executed or whether that goes anywhere is a different story,†Priebus said.
Why he wants to sue the New York Times in particular beats me; other major newspapers have been harder on Trump than the Times. Maybe he doesn’t know there are other newspapers.
In other news, Trump has invited murderous Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte to the White House. Apparently Trump admires Duterte for his policy of killing suspected drug criminals and anyone else in the vicinity without having to deal with that pesky due process of law thing.
This weekend Trump blew off the White House Correspondents dinner — just as well; he’s not very funny — and instead blasted news media at a post-campaign rally in Pennsylvania.
To raucous booing from the crowd, Trump trashed outlets such as CNN and MSNBC as “fake news” and called the wider Washington media elite “a disgrace.” He ripped the “totally failing New York Times,” which he said was getting gradually smaller and would soon “look like a comic book.”
The paper edition is smaller than it used to be, but that’s because the Times is moving most of its content online.
“Here’s the story: if the media’s job is to be honest and tell the truth, I think we can all agree the media deserves a very big fat failing grade,” Trump said. “Very dishonest people.”
Trump also slammed the media for being critical in its coverage of his recent meeting with China’s president, Xi Jinping. Although Trump had repeatedly in his campaign called the country a currency manipulator, he backed off the claim upon meeting Xi, saying it was important that China help the US in dealing with North Korea.
“China is helping us possibly or probably with the North Korean situation. Which is a great thing,” Trump said. “I think it’s not exactly the right time to call China a currency manipulator right now — do we agree with that?”
Yeah, it’s not like Trump ever called China out for currency manipulation or anything.
It doesn’t help that I’ve been watching “The Handmaid’s Tale,” otherwise called “Mike Pence’s America,” on Hulu. Very gripping; it’s what the country would really be if Pence and his ilk had absolute power. Between that and the so-called president’s obvious disrespect for the Constitution and rule of law, I’m more than alarmed.
The Duterte invitation ruined my breakfast. Maybe Duterte, Kim Jong Un, and Erdogen can all do a sleep over at the White House. Speaking of Erdogen, he just purged 4000 non-supporters down to the level of school teachers!
I am not confident France won’t drink the Le Pen Kool-aid. I am optimistic about Merkel, though.
It’s all scary now. If the left wing circular firing squad can holster some of its weapons, maybe we’ll at least get a house of congress. We can’t rely on Trump’s discord forever.
Trump has always survived by fighting, bullying and threatening. Now he can’t do that. After all, being President is harder than his “old life”.
I can’t comment on the “Handmaid’s Tale” cause I haven’t seen it but as far as Pence is concerned, I am indulging my evil twin in wishing for a sexual scandal coming out of his closet where he keeps all his skeletons.
I wonder if anyone has given any thought as to what a post Roe v Wade landscape would look like where abortion is made illegal again after 50 years. I believe advances in women’s health care will be countered with advances in surveillance technology, plus the 4th amendment is at it’s weakest point in a generation. Drugs already have replaced invasive procedures in most cases with abortions happening at home. Post Roe, this will necessitate much more scrutiny of women by law enforcement. I can imagine conservative states forcing women to register their pregnancies as well as automatic reporting of all miscarriages to the health department or even the coroner’s office. The stereotypical “back alley abortionist” of the past may not be available to demonize like he was in the 50s and 60s. The only person available to charge with a crime this time around might be the woman because most illegal abortions will happen without an abortionist present. Miscarriages will be viewed as possible crimes. Some of this is already happening in other countries.
The reason Trump wants to sue the NY Times is because they are the biggest. If he can take down the Times, everyone else will fall in line. That was the objective in the first few weeks as the White House tried to intimidate the press. They wanted favorable coverage, not objective and absolutely not hostile coverage.
This has been the biggest failure of the first 100 days. Trump has been brilliant in manipulating the press over decades. In the campaign, they were complicit in the manipulatetion, because the viewer audience was so obsessed with every word – even the people who hate Trump are obsessed.
Trump tried to put the media on a leash after the inauguration – and the press thought about it and decided they could get ratings by being confrontational – or they could get access by being friendly. Histrionically, access has been the most important factor for the Washington Press Corps. Trump has been the exception – the media was able to build a strong viewership despite or even because Trump called them out and threatened them.
Don’t laugh but I think editors may have made an ethical choice also. The final result of giving the government control of content is oblivion. There is no ‘real’ journalism in Russia,, and even though even the major US outlets seldom indulge in critical thinking, investigative journalism or objective reporting – editors didn’t want to permanently abandon those endangered species of the craft.
Depending on the poll you deem reliable – about 40% will ignore the truth and support Trump despite the truth. Up to 60% are not buying his garbage. Commercially, there’s a market for bashing Trump and the better they do it, the bigger the market will be. So maybe capitalism and the decadent state of the media will do the job despite themselves.
Trump always projects what ever he is most guilty of. If he wants to sue everyone that say something about him, perhaps Obama and Clinton can sue him for lying about them for years. He has always sued people and used threats to shut people up who speak the truth about him.
Now that fox news is tied up with it’s own sins, I wish the people who want to bring the right wing scream machine down, the thing that essentially created the deaf dumb and blind 40% , would focus on talk radio. talk about libel
Maybe Elizabeth Warren should sue Trump for trying to make her into a salem witch.
Trump a big vile bag of shit!!! Sure invite Duterte to the White House, maybe even invite him to address Congress.. Better yet, have him give J. Beauregard Sessions some pointers on cleaning up his MS-13 problems.
Where is the voice of decency? Where is the voice of outrage? Trump is a cancer on the soul of America.
Ann Colter, queen of the right wing hate hags, will have her minions wrap her in the first amendment of the constitution and drape her with American flags. At the same time, I read, they will vilify Nancy Pelosi as the wicked witch and/or new anti-Christ. Just time for the minions to pat themselves on the back for their great morals and accurate judgement and pop another bullet in their foot. “It is an upside-down world in which easy lies sound more true than hard facts.” Charles Blow NYT today.
This underscores one more reason why “running the government like a business” is such a ridiculous idea. When corporations change CEOs, you never know how or how much the rules are going to change. Some CEOs seem to view themselves as monarchs and I would bet Trump, is among them. As with monarchs, once in a while, you get an incompetent, idiotic or insane blue blood ascending the throne. Our “rough, archaic system” is the only thing saving us right now.
As a business, the USA should still have its mission statement, “to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.”
Evidently, Trump would change that too.
I’d force any wingnuts you have to deal with personally to make a choice. Choose between either the Constitutional values they so often fall back on as Absolute Truth, or the anti-constitutional values their boy increasingly speaks of. I wouldn’t accept any red herrings or Jesus or faked heart attacks as an answer.