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[Tovarisc]

Lets start with some what Polico leads with:

President Donald Trump called his son-in-law a “good boy” while thanking Wall Street Journal editor-in-chief Gerard Baker for a positive editorial about Kushner and said the leader of the Boy Scouts told him his jamboree speech was “the greatest speech ever made to them.”

The comments, made to the Wall Street Journal and obtained in a transcript by POLITICO, show Trump holding forth at length with Baker and engaging in a familiar back-and-forth. Baker, according to the transcript, asked many of the questions and took the lead byline on the main piece about the interview as well, an unusual step for the editor in chief of a paper with a large White House reporting staff.

Baker told Ivanka Trump, “It was nice to see you out in Southampton a couple weeks ago,” an apparent reference to a party thrown last month attended by many politicos, business titans and media elites thrown by Washington Post heiress Lally Weymouth, now the Post’s senior associate editor. Ivanka Trump and Baker also chatted about their daughters, who are both named Arabella.

The interview renewed questions internally at the paper about Baker’s leadership and posture towards the White House.

“And I liked your editorial today, very nice. (Laughs.)” the transcript quotes Ivanka Trump as saying.

“Oh, good, good. Well, you see, you know, my colleagues write those, so they’ll be – they’ll be –” Baker said, likely referring to the editorial section that is separate from the news section at the newspaper, before being cut off by the president.

“You did a good job,” Trump said.

“Yeah, you really did,” Ivanka Trump added.

“Thank you very much. Thank you,” Baker replied.

“You did a good job,” Trump continued before referring to Kushner: “He’s a good – he’s a good boy.”

“They wrote a very nice editorial, so very good,” Ivanka Trump said.

Meats and potatoes, not full copypasta

MR. BAKER: The partisanship, you mean.

PRESIDENT TRUMP: You think – yeah, the partisanship. So, anyway.

So I’d rather see – I’d rather see replace. I’d rather add the replace. And we have a very good plan. That’s the one thing, we really have a good plan. We’ve covered a lot of territory. It’s a very, very difficult situation because you move a little bit to the left and you lose four guys, you move a little bit to the right all of a sudden you have a bloc of people that are gone. You have about a one-inch road and it wheels through the middle of the valley, and if it’s even slightly off – it’s a very difficult – it’s a very difficult thing, always has been.

You know, if you think, Hillary Clinton, smart person, she was the first lady of the country, her entire life was spent – her entire eight years was spent trying to get health care. Never even came close. Obama – and one thing I have to say, I’m here now exactly six months. Obama took would you say a year and a half?

MR. BAKER: What are you most proud of in the first six months?

PRESIDENT TRUMP: A lot of things. I think I’m proud of the Supreme Court choice. And that’s not just a nomination, that’s getting him through. I’m very proud of opening up regulations. One of the reasons you see optimism is because people can actually use their land. They can farm their land. I’ve had tremendous and tremendous – look, I had 45,000 people there yesterday. It’s the biggest crowd they’ve ever had, and they were – they were going wild yesterday in West Virginia. But people can actually use their land and they can build.

And I think one of the things that I have to be very proud of is the VA. I think we have a great, great administrator, OK –

WSJ: Shulkin.

WSJ: Shulkin.

PRESIDENT TRUMP: – and a great secretary, David Shulkin. He’s – he was actually approved 100 to nothing, by the way.

WSJ: Can I ask on that? I mean, are you confident? When you say the Democrats are obstructionists, and obviously they’re looking ahead to the midterms next year, it doesn’t seem like politically for Democrats there’s a lot of incentive, even on a bipartisan thing like infrastructure, that might be popular – (inaudible). How tough a road is it going to be? In any case it’s hard –

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Well, they tried – they tried it with me. She spent hundreds of millions of dollars on negative ads. She didn’t do a positive ad, virtually. And she lost easily, you know, 306 to 223 I think, right – 223, something like that. That’s a lot. And she – they tried it.

I mean, honestly, they – the ads were coming at me. Hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of negative ads. And when people went into the voter booth, they didn’t know what she stood for. I always said that. I said if I can take this onslaught personally, it’s going to be a great thing because nobody knew what she stood for. So now they’re trying to change their message a little bit, you know. I mean, it’s – it’s one of those things, but now they’re trying to change their message and we’ll see what happens.

But I think that we’re doing very well. Every indication is that in every one of our swing states we’re substantially up, like Ohio. Tonight I’m going to Ohio – Youngstown, Ohio – and we’ll be up – we’re way up. You know, I won the state by nine or 10 or something, by nine or 10 points, without any governor support, OK? So you have the governor of Ohio not supporting you and you win by almost 10 points, which is pretty good because Ohio’s not – if you remember, you guys were always saying you have to win Ohio, right? There is –

MR. BAKER: So can – what’s – I mean, you’ve outlined the principles of tax reform. Can you tell us what you – you know, what you want to achieve fundamentally in tax reform?

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Sure. I want to –

MR. BAKER: What are the – what are the main goals?

PRESIDENT TRUMP: I want to achieve growth. We’re the highest-taxed nation in the world, essentially, you know, of the size. But we’re the highest-taxed nation in the world. We have – nobody knows what the number is. I mean, it used to be, when we talked during the debate, 2 ½ trillion (dollars), right, when the most elegant person – right? I call him Mr. Elegant. I mean, that was a great debate. We did such a great job. But at that time I was talking $2 ½ trillion. I guess it’s 5 trillion (dollars) now. Whatever it is, it’s a lot more. So we have anywhere from 4 to 5 or even more trillions of dollars sitting offshore.

We want to get that back, number one, at a very reasonable cost. And that cost is going to be 10 percent. And right now it’s so high that, number one, you would never do it on a business basis. But, number two, bureaucratically it’s impossible. Did you know that? I have friends that try and get their money back. They say they have to go through years of writing out forms and this and that to bring money back into the country. We’re going to make that one – like a half-a-page document. It’s going to be very easy to bring your money back in. And it’s going to be taxed at 10 percent, which is a rate that’s – it’s within reason. And so that’s one of the things we want to do. That’ll be an easy one. That’s one that – you know, it’s – when you talk about a country that’s broken or a system that’s broken, there’s something – the $5 trillion, let’s call it – that the Democrats and the Republicans agree should come back in. It’s been out there for years. Nobody ever did anything about it. I mean, Obama –

WSJ: Well –

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Obama could have gotten that money back in very easily, even if they did a separate bill. But nobody –

MR. BAKER: You should be able to get Democrat support for that, right? I mean, you can reach across the aisle –

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Yeah, except they’re obstructionists. If they weren’t obstructionists, I would normally get Democratic support. So we don’t anticipate that. We don’t –

PRESIDENT TRUMP: I do like low interest rates. I mean, you know, I’m not making that a big secret. I think low interest rates are good. I like a dollar that’s not too strong. I mean, I’ve seen strong dollars. And frankly, other than the fact that it sounds good, lots of bad things happen with a strong dollar.

WSJ: You tweeted this morning about trade talks with Britain.

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Yes.

WSJ: Can you tell us more about what’s going on?

PRESIDENT TRUMP: No, but I can say that we’re going to be very involved with the U.K. I mean, you don’t hear the word Britain anymore. It’s very interesting. It’s like, nope.

PRESIDENT TRUMP: We have a very good relationship. I have a very good relationship with the prime minister. And we are absolutely looking to do a major trade deal.

WSJ: Would the idea be that the trade deal will kick in pretty much as soon as Brexit happens?

PRESIDENT TRUMP: As soon as it’s appropriate to have it kick in, absolutely. And it’ll be a big trade deal – much, much more business than we do right now, many, many times.

WSJ: Are there keys that would be the important pieces of it? What would – can you highlight specific –

PRESIDENT TRUMP: There’ll be certain pieces. It’s not – there’ll be certain pieces. I mean, one of the things that – I have a very good relationship with the EU people and all, but they are very, very protectionist. You know, our farmers and others can’t even deal with – you know, you can’t sell in. It’s very unfair. And that’s what I’ve been talking about for a long time. It’s so stacked against the United States. Now, the EU was conceived to the point that they wanted to do something to compete with the United States. Well, you know, you could say that’s a friendly act or an unfriendly act. But it’s very protectionist. Among the most, we have farm products that you just can’t get into the EU. And we don’t do that to them.

MR. BAKER: So you’d include an agriculture deal with the U.K.?

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Well, I’ll tell you, you know, I did – I did thing that nobody even wrote about – although, you did. (Laughter.) But when I was with President Xi, who I have a very good relationship with, I said: Do me a favor. Would you allow cattle, please, to come in? I was last night in West Virginia, and I had farmers coming up to me and hugging me and kissing me because of the cattle stuff. They actually weren’t from West Virginia; they were from other places. (Laughter.) But, you know, it was the Boy Scouts, so they came from all over the country, but –

MR. BAKER: What about – just, very quickly, on tariffs. On steel tariffs, you committed to imposing steel tariffs. You haven’t done that, but you still –

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Well, we’re waiting – we’re waiting till we get everything completed. We don’t want to do at this moment. We’re going to – we’re going to wait till we get everything completed here. We’re going to see. It’s a very unfair situation. They’re dumping steel in our country. It’s extremely unfair. But we like to keep it as simple as – we like to keep very complicated subjects as simple as possible. So we’re waiting till we get everything finished up between health care and taxes and maybe even infrastructure. But we’re going to be addressing the steel dumping at a very – fairly soon.

We – just so you understand – we have massive reports. You know, a lot of this stuff you can’t just walk in and say I’m going to do this. You have to do statutory studies. And then you have to wait 90 days. And then you have to do another. And you have to wait another 20 days. It doesn’t go that quickly. It’s like NAFTA. You know, you have a six-month termination. I was ready to terminate NAFTA. I was looking forward to it, frankly, because NAFTA’s a horrible deal for the United States. And then I got a call from the president of Mexico, who’s a terrific guy, and I got a call from the prime minister of Canada. And they heard I was getting ready to terminate it. And they said: Would you have a meeting with us first? I said, yes. And if you look at my speeches, I’ve always said, either renegotiate it or terminate it.

Now, renegotiating it is easier. And we’re in the midst of a renegotiation right now. So we’ll see. And maybe we’ll have to terminate it. I happen to think NAFTA’s one of the truly bad deals – I mean, outside of the Iran deal, which is one of the worst deals in history –

WSJ: Do you think it’s salvageable? Do you think NAFTA’s salvageable?

PRESIDENT TRUMP: It may be salvageable.

WSJ: You mentioned the Iran deal, but it’s been certified as in compliance twice now. It comes up again in September. Would you – is there going to come a point where you just –

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Well, we’re doing major studies. Oh, I would be very surprised if they will be – look, we’ve been extremely nice to them. We’ve been extremely nice to them in saying they were compliant, OK? We’ve given them the benefit of every doubt. But we’re doing very detailed studies. And personally, I have great respect for my people. If it was up to me, I would have had them noncompliant 180 days ago.

WSJ: Do you expect them to be declared noncompliant the next time?

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Personally, I do. I do.

WSJ: In September?

PRESIDENT TRUMP: I think they’ll be noncompliant. I think they’re taking advantage of this country. They’ve taken advantage of a president, named Barack Obama, who didn’t know what the hell he was doing. And I do not expect that they will be compliant.

WSJ: Will you overrule your staff on that, if they come back with a recommendation –

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Oh, sure. Sure. Look, I have a lot of respect for Rex and his people, good relationship. It’s easier to say they comply. It’s a lot easier. But it’s the wrong thing. They don’t comply. And so we’ll see what happens. I mean, we’ll talk about this subject in 90 days. But, yeah, I would be – I would be surprised if they were in compliance.

MR. BAKER: You also suggested in Cleveland today they should be going – or, yesterday – they should be going after Hillary Clinton. Is that –

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Well, I didn’t – I wouldn’t have wanted to. But I see the way they go after us on a witch hunt, you know? The Russian – the Russian story’s all an excuse for the Democrats losing. In fact, if you read the book, “Shattered,” they have a whole chapter where they sat the day after the election and they said: Yeah, Russia. It was Russia. And, you know, Trump was involved. OK, the one thing interesting, you never heard me even associated with anybody. But, no, that’s a total witch hunt, the whole Russia story. It’s a hoax. It’s a hoax. We had no collusion with Russia. We never dealt with Russia.

People that were on the campaign, like Corey, came in yesterday. It was very interesting. He was being interviewed. He said – I was watching, Corey Lewandowski – he says: I was here from the beginning. And I must be honest with you, I never dealt with any Russians. He was only the campaign manager. I can even look at Hope. She was here from virtually the same day that Corey started, those two. Hope, how many Russians have you seen involved in the campaign, OK?

HOPE HICKS: None. (Laughs.)

PRESIDENT TRUMP: OK? You know, I mean, it’s sad. So they do that. And I say, that’s fine. But then we should really look at real crimes, because real crimes are what Hillary did with 33,000 emails, where she deleted them and bleached them after getting a subpoena. Real crimes are what’s happening and what happened with the uranium deal. And also – I mean, you can say the speeches made while she was secretary of state where they paid her a fortune, Podesta owning a big company in Russia – they talk about me. I have nothing to do with Russia.

You know, I put out a letter from a very – from the biggest law firm saying Trump has no involvement with Russia. I don’t. I have no involvement. I mean, I had Ms. Universe there, like, nine years ago, eight years ago, something like that. But I have nothing to do with Russia. So – and it’s very funny, because all of these people that have been on the campaign, some of them right from the beginning – Anthony’s another example. You’ve been there. You know –

ANTHONY SCARAMUCCI (?): (Inaudible) – I said from the podium on Friday that’s there’s nothing to the Russia story. I said on the weekend there was nothing to the Russia story.

PRESIDENT TRUMP: You know, Anthony came in to see me before it all began. And he said, I want to back you for president. This was before the June 16th day. I said, Anthony, I’m not really sure that I’m running. I’m not sure. I may, but I’m not sure. He said, you got to run, you got to run. I want to endorse you. I said, but I’m not sure. This was a few months earlier than when I ran. And he was leaving and he was disappointed. I say, Anthony, what are you going to do? He goes, I got to back somebody, because that’s the way he is. That’s his personality. And he went to a very good guy named Walker.

Then I came after the hedge fund business. So he wasn’t in love with me for a short period of time. And he backed Bush. And that was OK. But his first choice was Trump. I think it’s important to say that because, you know. Is that a true story, by the way?

WSJ: Just on Sessions, just one thing. Would you like to see him step aside? Would you like to see him resign? Would it be in the country’s best interest just –

PRESIDENT TRUMP: I’m just very disappointed in him. I’m disappointed in, you know, a number of categories. I told you, the leakers. He should have – he should be after them. So many people say to me: Why are they going after you on nothing and they leave Hillary Clinton alone on, you know, really major things? And it is – so I’m disappointed in him. And don’t forget, when they say he endorsed me, I went to Alabama. I had 40,000 people, you may have been there, remember, in Mobile?

WSJ: I remember.

PRESIDENT TRUMP: I had 40,000 people. He was the senator from Alabama. I won the state by a lot, massive numbers. A lot of the states I won by massive numbers. But he was a senator. He looks at 40,000 people and he probably says, what do I have to lose, and he endorsed me. So it’s not like a great, loyal thing about the endorsement. But I’m very disappointed in Jeff Sessions.

WSJ: He’s the Russian guy. So Sessions has recused himself, but is Bob Mueller’s job safe? There is speculation –

PRESIDENT TRUMP: No, we’re going to see. I mean, I have no comment yet, because it’s too early. But we’ll see. We’re going to see. Here’s the good news: I was never involved with Russia. There was nobody in the campaign. I’ve got 200 people that will say that they’ve never seen anybody on the campaign. Here’s another – he was involved early. There’s nobody on the campaign that saw anybody from Russia. We had nothing to do with Russia. They lost an election and they came up with this as an excuse. And the only ones that are laughing are the Democrats and the Russians. They’re the only ones that are laughing. And if Jeff Sessions didn’t recuse himself, we wouldn’t even be talking about this subject.

MR. BAKER: You going to veto the Russian sanctions legislation?

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Well, I haven’t seen them yet. I haven’t seen them in final form. I will say this, Congress, if they’re going to negotiate, they make the worst deals I’ve ever seen. They made NAFTA. They made – you know, they allowed the Iran deal to go through.

WSJ: You said you’re opposed –

PRESIDENT TRUMP: I make good deals. I don’t make bad deals. I make good deals. So, but, I haven’t made my – I have not seen them. I have to see.

By the way, a lot of things have taken place in that agreement that are a lot different from what it was two weeks ago – a lot of things.

MR. BAKER: But we can’t expect any more staff changes in the immediate – in the immediate future?

PRESIDENT TRUMP: No, I don’t think so.

MR. BAKER: No?

PRESIDENT TRUMP: But I’m very happy with Anthony. I think Anthony is going to do amazing.

WSJ: Would you consider pardons, Mr. President, given the investigation is –

PRESIDENT TRUMP: You know what? I don’t even think of pardons. Here’s why, nobody did anything wrong. Look at Jared, everybody – we do appreciate the editorial – but everybody said Jared Kushner. Jared’s a very private person. He doesn’t get out. I mean, maybe it’s good or maybe it’s bad what I do, but at least people know how I feel. Jared’s this really nice, smart guy, who’d love to see peace in the Middle East and in Israel, OK?

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/08/01/trump-wall-street-journal-interview-full-transcript-241214

In memory of Mooch, his story arc was cut too soon...
2017 - 2017

 

[Wilsongt]

He was happy with Mooch, but I bet Kelly was the one who gave him the boot.

Also, he still thinks there wouldn't be a Russia story? 200 people and not a single person talked with Russians?

Really, bitch?

Really?

 

[Wanda/Wander]

 

[QuantumBro]

Missed the best part OP.

WSJ: We were in West Virginia yesterday.

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Oh, you did? Was that a scene, though? Huh?

WSJ: That was a scene, yes. (Laughter.)

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Biggest crowd they’ve ever had. What did you think?

WSJ: I thought it was an interesting speech in the context of the Boy Scouts.

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Right.

WSJ: They seemed to get a lot of feedback from former scouts and –

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Did they like it?

WSJ: It seemed mixed.

PRESIDENT TRUMP: They loved it. (Laughter.) It wasn’t – it was no mix. That was a standing –

WSJ: In the – you got a good – you got a good reaction in –

PRESIDENT TRUMP: I mean, you know, he writes mostly negative stuff. But that was a standing ovation –

WSJ: You got a good reaction inside the arena, that’s right.

PRESIDENT TRUMP: – from the time I walked out on the stage – because I know. And by the way, I’d be the first to admit mixed. I’m a guy that will tell you mixed. There was no mix there. That was a standing ovation from the time I walked out to the time I left, and for five minutes after I had already gone. There was no mix.

WSJ: Yeah, there was a lot of supporters in the arena.

PRESIDENT TRUMP: And I got a call from the head of the Boy Scouts saying it was the greatest speech that was ever made to them, and they were very thankful. So there was – there was no mix.

NO MIX

 

[Xando]

My head hurts reading this

 

[BeforeU]

 

[Serpico99]

That fragile ego

 

[Brandon F]

NO MIX

I mean, he is a guy who will tell you mixed if it was...

 

[chadskin]

My favorite part is when he calls other presidents and prime ministers and finds out how many people are living in their countries:

WSJ: What do you think is a reasonable corporate rate? We’ve heard 20 percent, but —

TRUMP: Well, you know, we’re going for 15 [percent]. We’re going to see, and we’ll see. But, you know, I don’t want to say anything about negotiation. I mean, we are asking for 15 percent, and we think we’re going to grow tremendously.

So I deal with foreign countries, and despite what you may read, I have unbelievable relationships with all of the foreign leaders. They like me. I like them. You know, it’s amazing. So I’ll call, like, major — major countries, and I’ll be dealing with the prime minister or the president. And I’ll say, how are you doing? Oh, don’t know, don’t know, not well, Mr. President, not well. I said, well, what’s the problem? Oh, GDP 9 percent, not well. And I’m saying to myself, here we are at like 1 percent, dying, and they’re at 9 percent and they’re unhappy. So, you know, and these are like countries, you know, fairly large, like 300 million people. You know, a lot of people say — they say, well, but the United States is large. And then you call places like Malaysia, Indonesia, and you say, you know, how many people do you have? And it’s pretty amazing how many people they have. So China’s going to be at 7 [percent] or 8 percent, and they have a billion-five, right? So we should do really well.

But in order to do that — you know, it’s tax reform, but it’s a big tax cut. But it’s simplification, it’s reform, and it’s a big tax cut, 15 –

 

[WedgeX]

Presumably the editorial Trump and Ivanka are referring to is:

The Kushner Statement: The President’s son-in-law sets a disclosure example on Russia.

 

[I Big JG I]

What an idiot, I mean, yeah, he's the best idiot. Can we impeach him soon? 2+2=5, Hail to the Thief.

 

[jellies_two]

At this point it is safe for shrinks to diagnose him with some variant of crippling narcissism.

There is more material for them to make this diagnosis than they would have on their best patients. Oath be dammed.

 

[GrizzleBoy]

WSJ: You tweeted this morning about trade talks with Britain.

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Yes.

WSJ: Can you tell us more about what’s going on?

PRESIDENT TRUMP: No, but I can say that we’re going to be very involved with the U.K. I mean, you don’t hear the word Britain anymore. It’s very interesting. It’s like, nope.

jackiechanwtf.jpg dafuq are you even talking about?????????????????????????

 

[Mr. Giggles]

Lol.

I love Trump interviews, half of it is just boasting, quarter of it is blaming Clinton and Obama and the other quarter is incoherence

 

[SoundofSilence]

 

[Spine_Ripper]

Brain hurt. Very.

 

[Carpe Carnim]

And I’m going to start explaining to people when you have an area that just isn’t working – like upper New York state, where people are getting very badly hurt – and then you’ll have another area 500 miles away where you can’t – you can’t get people, I’m going to explain you can leave, it’s OK, don’t worry about your house.

You know, a lot of them don’t leave because of their house. Because they say, gee, my house, I thought it was worth 70,000 (dollars) and now it’s worth nothing. It’s OK. Go, cut your losses, right?

"Y'hear that rural America? Stop living in your cheap-ass hovels, bathing in opioid dependency. And if you're afraid of losing your home, just go ahead and walk-away, towards your nearest city"

WTF?

 

[Bad_Boy]

I lost brain cells reading his responses. This man is our president.

jesus

 

[Clefargle]

Wew ladsssssss

 

[chekhonte]

We have a president with a bonafide thought disorder.

 

[Booya_base]

Missed the best part OP.



NO MIX

Wait, I don't understand, was it mixed or not?

 

[PeakPointMatrix]

All of his responses need a translators note. Or like a bullet point of what the actual content was.

 

[adj_noun]

MR. BAKER: You should be able to get Democrat support for that, right? I mean, you can reach across the aisle –

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Yeah, except they’re obstructionists. If they weren’t obstructionists, I would normally get Democratic support. So we don’t anticipate that. We don’t –

I'm actually a little in awe that the WSJ guy screwed up "Democratic" and Trump actually got it right.

 

[SummitAve]

Wow at

WSJ: He’s the Russian guy. So Sessions has recused himself, but is Bob Mueller’s job safe? There is speculation –

PRESIDENT TRUMP: No, we’re going to see. I mean, I have no comment yet, because it’s too early. But we’ll see. We’re going to see. Here’s the good news: I was never involved with Russia. There was nobody in the campaign. I’ve got 200 people that will say that they’ve never seen anybody on the campaign. Here’s another – he was involved early. There’s nobody on the campaign that saw anybody from Russia. We had nothing to do with Russia. They lost an election and they came up with this as an excuse. And the only ones that are laughing are the Democrats and the Russians. They’re the only ones that are laughing. And if Jeff Sessions didn’t recuse himself, we wouldn’t even be talking about this subject.

Reading the rest he literally has no idea what he's talking about, not even canned lines outlining vague ideas of policy direction. It's all bullshit.

 

[Suikoguy]

What is going on at the WSJ that it took someone leaking this to Politico for it to be posted somewhere?

 

[Tovarisc]

Wow at

I can see him convincing himself that firing the Mueller is right thing to do and won't bring any troubles because he never colluded with Russia.

What is going on at the WSJ that it took someone leaking this to Politico for it to be posted somewhere?

Could be someone at WSJ turning heat up on Baker as there apparently is some fighting inside if he is too close to administration. I left quite a bit of transcript out, but he at places seem like almost answering for Trump.

 

[Psychoward]

my head hurts

 

[Th3BranMan92]

 

[Mike M]

At this point it is safe for shrinks to diagnose him with some variant of crippling narcissism.

There is more material for them to make this diagnosis than they would have on their best patients. Oath be dammed.

I believe I saw a headline that the Goldwater Rule about diagnosing public figures was being waived for professionals discussing Trump, but no idea if it was legit.

 

[android]

This man has dementia mixed with narcissism. I fear for the world.

 

[MaKTaiL]

"It’s very interesting. It’s like, nope."

Trump, Donald

 

[DJ_Lae]

Other than the inane rambling and nonsense he spouts, what always jumps out to me is his obsession with repeating voting numbers from last fall and a similar obsession with attempting to quantify the numbers of people present whenever he gives a speech somewhere.

I mean, it doesn't really surprise me, that he can't shut up about it. It just doesn't seem particularly important in the grand scheme of, you know, being the president.

 

[Kettch]

MR. BAKER: What are you most proud of in the first six months?

PRESIDENT TRUMP: A lot of things. I think I’m proud of the Supreme Court choice. And that’s not just a nomination, that’s getting him through.

Of course he's most proud of something he stole from a black man.

 

[Shadybiz]

Once again, I feel a little bit dumber every time I read one of these transcripts.

Wait, I don't understand, was it mixed or not?

Former Scouts and Scout leaders were very pissed about the speech after the fact.

 

[shockthrill]

how did this man become a billionaire?

i just don't understand

 

[xxracerxx]

how did this man become a billionaire?

i just don't understand

Who says he is a billionaire, besides himself?

 

[Puppet Shadow]

WSJ: Will you overrule your staff on that, if they come back with a recommendation –

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Oh, sure. Sure. Look, I have a lot of respect for Rex and his people, good relationship. It's easier to say they comply. It's a lot easier. But it's the wrong thing. They don't comply. And so we'll see what happens. I mean, we'll talk about this subject in 90 days. But, yeah, I would be – I would be surprised if they were in compliance.

I can understand someone changing their mind over a few months, but Trump goes from being absolutely convinced of something to admitting he's not sure in a matter of seconds.

If it's not the onset of dementia, it's some screwed up form of narcissism.

 

[5taquitos]

how did this man become a billionaire?

i just don't understand

Daddy's wallet.

 

[NullPointer]

WSJ: He's the Russian guy. So Sessions has recused himself, but is Bob Mueller's job safe? There is speculation –

PRESIDENT TRUMP: No, we're going to see. I mean, I have no comment yet, because it's too early. But we'll see. We're going to see. Here's the good news: I was never involved with Russia. There was nobody in the campaign. I've got 200 people that will say that they've never seen anybody on the campaign. Here's another – he was involved early. There's nobody on the campaign that saw anybody from Russia. We had nothing to do with Russia. They lost an election and they came up with this as an excuse. And the only ones that are laughing are the Democrats and the Russians. They're the only ones that are laughing. And if Jeff Sessions didn't recuse himself, we wouldn't even be talking about this subject.

Huh.

 

[Ogodei]

This is pretty cogent by Trump standards tbh.

 

[Osukaa]

LOL What the Fuck am I reading

 

[gdt]

Holy shit at that Iran talk. What the fuck

 

[HP_Wuvcraft]

God, he's gonna try to fire Mueller isn't he?

 

[Chie Satonaka]

I have a headache now.

I'm not even kidding.

 

[NullPointer]

God, he's gonna try to fire Mueller isn't he?

Yes

 

[Beartruck]

God, he's gonna try to fire Mueller isn't he?

This is why Graham is trying to create legislation to stop Trump from firing Mueller. He knows its better for Trump to go down slowly years from now rather than down in flames immediately.

 

[Bastables]

Holy shit at that Iran talk. What the fuck

It's pretty epic right; "Even if Tillerson finds them compliant, they're non-compliant. Btw Obama was a moron."


wut......

 

[shockthrill]

What makes this whole thing sad is that Trump's grandfather was a genius scientist that worked with Tesla or something like that


sad Trump never got those genes for intellect

 

[F0rneus]

The man has to be far below the average IQ.

 

[Stumpokapow]

PRESIDENT TRUMP: You think – yeah, the partisanship. So, anyway.

So I’d rather see – I’d rather see replace. I’d rather add the replace. And we have a very good plan. That’s the one thing, we really have a good plan. We’ve covered a lot of territory. It’s a very, very difficult situation because you move a little bit to the left and you lose four guys, you move a little bit to the right all of a sudden you have a bloc of people that are gone. You have about a one-inch road and it wheels through the middle of the valley, and if it’s even slightly off – it’s a very difficult – it’s a very difficult thing, always has been.

You know, if you think, Hillary Clinton, smart person, she was the first lady of the country, her entire life was spent – her entire eight years was spent trying to get health care. Never even came close. Obama – and one thing I have to say, I’m here now exactly six months. Obama took would you say a year and a half?

This is like very very close to a breakthrough

- Maybe the current health care status quo actually is the majority consensus and there isn't room for change with the current elected officials
- Maybe it's okay to view things as problems that are work in progress instead of talking about dynamiting them and then building your own which will solve all the problems
- Maybe the status quo isn't the greatest disaster of all time and the blowback agains the ACA was hyperbolic?
- Maybe even people who are good negotiators are slowed by structural pressure and Obama wasn't a catastrophic do nothing president

I cannot imagine that any of these maybes will ever be said plainly in public, though.