[Closed] Donald! Trump!

Maybe they didn't find any evidence of the Republican Party plotting to undermine one of their own candidates,

Who can forget the gutwrenching look of shame on Mit Romney's face as he sat down to dine and beg for scraps with an exultant trump purely because hed spent so much time trying to destroy the guy
[img] [/img]

I'm sure there are Republican emails a-plenty that the Russians could be sitting on thatd be perfect for manipulating a tantrum prone narcissist like Trump.

pfffff..... this is where it starts getting really obvious that The Donald's combination of ignorance and egomania are hugely dangerous:

He took "a congratulatory call" from the president of Taiwan without fully understanding the political ramifications...... so he's now changing America's foreign policy towards China: doubling-down instead of admitting that he made a mistake.

With any luck, his administration will spend all their time in the next 12 months trying to put out fires that this monkey starts on twitter, and so wont actually have any time to do anything they promised.

The ironies are coming thick and fast at the moment - look at who he's appointing to his administration, it's a shame that most Trump supporters (Trumpers?) still can't see that they have been taken for the fools that they so obviously are.

Theres some classic comments in this article from intelligence officers in regards to Trump, I wonder if any of them are veiled threats.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/dec/11/intelligence-agencies-cia-donald-trump-russia

“Look, in my professional assessment as an intelligence officer, Trump has a reflexive, defensive, monumentally narcissistic personality, for whom the facts and national interest are irrelevant, and the only thing that counts is whatever gives personal advantage and directs attention to himself.

“He is about the juiciest intelligence target an intelligence office could imagine. He groans with vulnerabilities. He will only work with individuals or entities that agree with him and build him up, and he is a shockingly easy intelligence ‘target’ to manipulate.”

😀

Some great comments in there from CIA types

Trump is so easily manipulated because he's the ultimate snowflake!

“Look, in my professional assessment as an intelligence officer, Trump has a reflexive, defensive, monumentally narcissistic personality, for whom the facts and national interest are irrelevant, and the only thing that counts is whatever gives personal advantage and directs attention to himself.

“He is about the juiciest intelligence target an intelligence office could imagine. He groans with vulnerabilities. He will only work with individuals or entities that agree with him and build him up, and he is a shockingly easy intelligence ‘target’ to manipulate.”

Right now he's slagging off his own intelligence service in defence of Russia. 😯

There will bonuses all round at the FSB this year !

Had to laugh at the reporting around Trump's (daily) Intelligence briefings, allegedly he said "I am too smart to need to hear the same stuff everyday"

batfink the Americans who voted for Trump voted to have business people in charge of the country.

Not to worry batfink, I'm sure the daily intelligence briefings will get The Donald up to speed before he actually becomes president.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-elections/donald-trump-says-hes-too-smart-for-daily-intelligence-briefings-a7468456.html

Oh.

[i]"y'know, I'm, like, a smart person. I don’t have to be told the same thing in the same words every single day for the next eight years."[/i] 🙄

(Edit: jamba beat me to it)

batfink the Americans who voted for Trump voted to have business people in charge of the country.

Will be fun to see him defending himself against the Russian allegations for at least his first year, reckon there are plenty who are happy to keep asking questions.

He took "a congratulatory call" from the president of Taiwan without fully understanding the political ramifications.....so he's now changing America's foreign policy towards China: doubling-down instead of admitting that he made a mistake.

Or alternatively he fully realised the political sensitivities and was perfectly happy to speak to a democratically elected leader of an independent state that the USA already protects, rather than care about the sensitivities of an autocratic single party state with an horrific human rights record, who he has been saying for several years is a serial currency manipulator and positively wants to send a shot across the bows of.

Intelligence briefings seems entirely sensible - "tell me immediatley if anything changes"

We're in the post-truth world. Who needs those inconvenient 'fact' things getting in the way of opinion forming.

Tell me what I want to hear, or don't tell me anything at all

Or he's an idiot.

Will be fun to see him defending himself against the Russian allegations for at least his first year, reckon there are plenty who are happy to keep asking questions.

First year?

Donald spent five years publicly claiming that Obama wasn't born in the states. It was only a couple of months ago during the campaign that he finally conceded that he was.

http://edition.cnn.com/2016/09/09/politics/donald-trump-birther/

yes ninfan of course, without any proper briefings, understanding of the situation, knowledge of whats going on behind the scenes etc. but hey we know you have the T-shirt. Perhaps you might consider looking at Trump and thinking what you would say if it was Clinton saying/doing them.

Making stuff up again Mike? You have no evidence at all on which to form an opinion of Trumps knowledge of China or the international aspects, you're just relying on media bS to jump to a conclusion.

Jamba - worth a watch:

http://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/former-pm-mulroney-suggests-trump-could-be-good-for-canada-1.3192479

Intelligence briefings seems entirely sensible - "tell me immediatley if anything changes"

So in your opinion, Donald, who has been president elect for a little over a month, already knows everything a president needs to know about world security, international relations, ongoing intelligence operations and military actions?

So in your opinion, Donald, who has been president elect for a little over a month, already knows everything a president needs to know about world security, international relations, ongoing intelligence operations and military actions?

But that isn't what he said

Go back and read the article

Ninfan, what's your stance on Trump's view that no-one really knows about global warming? Obviously he knows better than 98% of the scientific community?

Making stuff up again Mike? You have no evidence at all on which to form an opinion of Trumps knowledge of China or the international aspects, you're just relying on media bS to jump to a conclusion.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/12/09/obama_russian_election_hacking_investigation/

No, has he got a full briefing from the CIA, the FBI, the NSA etc.

Well, clearly yes he has, hence the point above about the duration between his briefings rather than the existence of them

not much will change your mind of the Don but most people seem to have worked out that the Tiawan thing was at best a stupid mistake at worst a ridiculous play.

Ah, "most people" - you mean "the people in my leftie utopia social media bubble"

What would you be saying if Hillary had done that, or if she had praised Russia only for it to come out that the Russian govt hacked campaign servers but didn't release those emails...

I would draw the conclusion that they either didn't find any useful information, possibly due to the fact that nobody broke security protocols by sending emails containing classified and top secret information vis unsecure servers. A security protocol developed because of the risk of foreign powers hacking email servers...

what about the email traffic between his servers and the well known Russian front bank?

Yes, international business doing business internationally, very suspicious

But that isn't what he said
Go back and read the article

I listened carefully to his actual words in the Fox interview.

And to my ears it still sounded an awful lot like [i]"you guys get on with your jobs, I'll be on golf course, call me if it is really important."[/i]

I understand that you hear it differently.

Yes, international business doing business internationally, very suspicious

Ivanka Trump was reportedly closing a business deal with a Japanese clothing company – of which the country’s government is a large stake holder – as she sat in on a meeting between her father, President-elect Donald Trump, and Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

still sounded an awful lot like

So you get the fact that you are choosing to interpret his words with a meaning that the words spoken didn't actually contain, well done, that's a big step towards beginning to understand your own bias, once you transcend that level and listen to the actual words, perhaps dawn will break through the clouds for you

that's a big step towards beginning to understand your own bias,

Graham I could well imagine the daily intelligence briefings woud go something like

We continue to launch airstrikes against IS in Syria and Iraq, yesterday we conducted X strikes
We continue to monitor Russian troop movements in Ukraine and around the Baltic state borders
We continue to monitor China's activities in the South China Sea where Island building continues apace
The nutjob is still in charge in North Korea and he executed another general with an anti aircraft gun

Really what is new ?

@akira I think the "deniers" stance is that the world is warming up anyway due to a cyclical climate change. Also in practical terms unless countries like China and India agree real reform what's the point of the US doing anything ? Not my view but understandable.

So you get the fact that you are choosing to interpret his words with a meaning that the words spoken didn't actually contain, well done,

Not really.

The words he spoke clearly do contain that meaning. It may not have been the one he intended, but that's his failing as an orator, not mine as a listener.

Of course, for the Trump camp, his words can also be interpreted to be pushing the nice little subversive message that, unlike all those past presidents, The Donald is a man of action that doesn't have time to sit in boring meetings about boring world security, because he'll be too busy making American great again.

[quote=jambalaya ]Really what is new ?

Yet every other president before him has put up with this infliction on their daily life, presumably none of them were arrogant enough to think it was a waste of their time to be kept up to date and reminded daily of the situation so they were always fully informed?

Graham I could well imagine the daily intelligence briefings woud go something like

That's clearly the image Trump wants to portray, though how he would know that after only a month of being President Elect and only taking a meeting once a week I'm not entirely sure.

Maybe Obama told him?

Obviously we don't know, but personally I would imagine if you have the vast intelligence services of the US and their huge deployed military force, that there is probably something of interest to the Commander In Chief pretty much every day.

Obviously we don't know, but personally I would imagine if you have the vast intelligence services of the US and their huge deployed military force, that there is probably something of interest to the Commander In Chief pretty much every day.

So clearly that would be covered by the phrase "if something should change from this point, immediatley call me, I'm available on one minutes notice"

Non?

So clearly that would be covered by the phrase "if something should change from this point, immediatley call me, I'm available on one minutes notice"

Non?

@ninfan thanks, 10 mins well spent. Interesting and pragmatic comments about the oil pipeline too.

Trump is meeting most of the big tech bosses this week (Apple, Google, facebook, amazon ... ) they don't agree with his (or my 😉 ) views on encryption but imo he is going to shake things up and get some manufacturing and tax revenues back onshore the US.

Non.

I would imagine that [i]something[/i] does change on a daily basis.

And I can't imagine that Trump [i]really[/i] wants called up at 3am to be told about, say, Russian air strikes in Aleppo or the capture of a senior ISIS member.

But if he is to be an informed leader then he does still need to know about these things, perhaps at some kind of daily morning briefing. Non?

And I can't imagine that Trump really wants called up at 3am to be told about, say, Russian air strikes in Aleppo or the capture of a senior ISIS member.

But if he is to be an informed leader then he does still need to know about these things, perhaps at some kind of daily morning briefing. Non?

Reminiscent of nobody waking Hitler up to tell him about D-Day, because of strict orders not to disturb, and as a result nobody having authority to release the panzer reserve. "It's alright lads, it can wait for the morning briefing"

Or perhaps that the embassy in Benghazi was under attack...

Trumps interview was pretty clear that expects his people to have a bit of common sense and tell him about stuff that's important, but not just needlessly reside the same information over and over again if nothing has changed. Sounds like the sort of common sense approach that would help you develop a multi billion dollar business empire

So ninfan do you think as a successful businessman he will be happy slapping a 35% tax and other punishments on his overseas manufacturing enterprises 😉
http://money.cnn.com/2016/03/08/news/economy/donald-trump-trade/

"It's alright lads, it can wait for the morning briefing"

You're buying into Trump's own subliminal narrative there ninfan.

I'm quite sure that prior presidents didn't rely [i]solely[/i] on the morning briefing and have also been [i]"available on one minutes notice"[/i]. He's not the first POTUS to have a mobile phone.

Though he might be the first one to receive his emergency briefings on Twitter 😆

Some world-class turd polishing going on in this thread in Trump's defence.

I'd imagine the info a POTUS gets in his daily intelligence briefing has already been filtered down to its purest need-to-know essence by a well-oiled cadre of extremely capable people.

Shame it doesn't contain news of former Miss Universes and sex tapes and the like, but you can't please everyone.

He says he's open minded about climate change but he's going to put an pipe executive in charge of the EPA and has been looking into which people have been asking questions about climate change. Sounds single minded to me. Also other countries are eating his lunch apparently, maybe he should put his name on it, he likes putting his name on things....

ninfan - Member

So clearly that would be covered by the phrase "if something should change from this point, immediatley call me, I'm available on one minutes notice"

Do you think his depiction- that the most senior member of the intelligence service comes and meets the president every day and says "Nothing has changed, but let's go over it again anyway"- is correct/true? And that after so little time he knows everything he needs to know?

If the briefings Trump gets genuinely are like this, which I doubt, ask yourself why that might be- why does an expert repeat a briefing to a layman? Or a teacher repeat a lesson?

If [i]I'm[/i] briefing senior staff and I say, "Nothing's changed, but let's go over it again" it's because I don't think they get it. If someone says it to me, I know they don't think I get it. Or it's so absolutely critical that it bears repeating- in which case, if I trust their judgement in their field of expertise, I'll listen again... and if I don't there's a much bigger problem.

Truman introduced these briefings to the president-elect because he learned the hard way that he didn't know enough, and he wanted to fix that. Trump, it seems, thinks he already knows all he needs to know after just a few briefings. This even though he's probably got the steepest learning curve of any recent president, since he's not come from within the political system. Meanwhile it doesn't seem like any other president let alone president-elect has felt these aren't valuable, even late in their terms when they've had 8 years of them.

Is he as well informed as the current president? Basically impossible, at this point, no president-elect is ever going to be. So that leaves 2 obvious conclusions; he thinks he's better informed than he is, or he thinks he doesn't need to be as informed as everyone else thinks he needs to be to do the job. Neither is good. Dunning-Krueger or absentee landlord.

You know what happens when a crisis arises and the boss doesn't know what's happening? At best, he ends up just doing what he's told by his qualified staff. Is [i]that[/i] what people were voting for, a technocracy with a figurehead who does what his directors say because he's not been listening and they're "very, very good people"

At worst, he does something, anything, just to take action.

I think Northwind has nailed it

In his latest red faced child tantrum he was slgging off the CIA for being partisan because they dared to suggest that outside forces helped him win the election.

His ego really is that delicate that he cant accept that anything other than his own genius got him into power?
So hes just ignores his intelligence briefings and goes with his own ideas on whats really going on or presumably what his inner circle are telling him

not scary at all!

I see hes also costing the USA more than any other president elect has before starting the job, and people still think hes going to be good for the economy 🙂

😆

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http://jollyjack.deviantart.com/art/Putin-s-Poodle-650751388

rump is meeting most of the big tech bosses this week (Apple, Google, facebook, amazon ... ) they don't agree with his (or my ) views on encryption but imo he is going to shake things up and get some manufacturing and tax revenues back onshore

I wonder why a Russian puppet and mogul who dislikes the US intelligence community, wants a back door to encrypted American industrial communication?

I'm going to laugh in your face so hard Jamby, if Trump turns out to be the biggest intelligence penetration by the FSB of the US in recorded history.

[quote=ninfan ]Sounds like the sort of common sense approach that would help you develop a multi billion dollar business empire

So how come he hasn't managed that (better than he'd have done just sticking daddy's money in a bank)?

https://www.quora.com/Is-it-true-that-Donald-Trump-would-have-made-more-money-by-investing-in-a-mutual-fund-rather-than-becoming-a-business-man

So the article says if he'd just invested he'd be worth between 2.1 and 5.2 billion dollars, Forbes estimate his wealth at 3.7 billion.....um