Debate Now The Trump Years

[Foxfyre]

"How his administration is doing" is a pretty vague topic. If you meant for that topic to not include any discussion of his popularity with constituents, you probably should've specified that.

If you don't like the topic, please feel free not to participate.

"How his administration is doing" is a pretty vague topic. If you meant for that topic to not include any discussion of his popularity with constituents, you probably should've specified that.

If you don't like the topic, please feel free not to participate.

I didn't say I don't like the topic. I said either the topic is pretty vague, or your execution of what violates the threads rules is wrong. I also find it pretty ridiculous that you try to accuse me of violating the topic rules for using an opinionpoll, when you started the topic with the Rasmussen rating. Perhaps that was an oversight on your part. If so, I accept your apology.

Please re-read the thread rule - I believe Rule #3 - about using links. I did not violate my own rule.

The topic is not in the least vague. It is how you think he is doing. And if posting links reinforces your opinion about that, that is perfectly fine. But do follow the rule about posting those links.

Let me try this again. You said that this is a thread about how we think the president is doing, not presidential ratings.

Wouldn't presidential ratings figure big in evaluating how we think the president is doing?

And I sandwiched all of my links with summaries regarding what I believed they contained. I did not violate any thread rules.

I said presidential ratings could reinforce our opinion of how the Administration is doing. But if you're going to discuss ratings, please discuss it within the context of the thread topic. That's all.

 

[Foxfyre]

If a person's tax returns were necessary to avoid conflict of interest, it would be a legal requirement that the President provide them. There is no such law. Trump has resigned all his associations with all Trump businesses and assigned the whole empire to his two oldest sons which he said he would do weeks ago. And he has filed a complete financial disclosure. That is all he is required to do. If I say I'm going to the movies today and later decide that I won't, I was not lying at the time I said it.

And as for your story re Trump padding his audience at the CIA, I went to the CBS website--a media group who despises Trump--and scoured it for anything about that. Nothing. That appears to be an entirely fake news story being perpetuated on anti-Trump hate sites.

Trump has no studio audience. And even if he did, it would have been entirely illegal for him to take it into the CIA. The identities of the people in that organization are fiercely protected--no photos of the personnel of any kind are permitted and certainly a studio audience would not be privy to observe them. And I don't trust Politicus, a decidedly hate-Trump or anything non-progressive site, to be very good at reporting anything.

And it is a small thing but you violated the thread rules for posting links with the links you posted.

Overall, most Americans seem to be quite satisfied with the way things are going, and I fully expect that 57% approval rating today to improve.

No, providing tax returns is not a legal requirement for president. But then again, neither is having a conflict of interest. Ethical rules would dictate that avoiding conflicts of interest and providing tax returns would be the best way to put any doubters at ease. Point being, Trump has no consideration for any of his doubters. He's not here to represent all of America. He's here to represent only his most rapid supporters. If his first few days in office is any indicator.

It is illegal, however, for the president to receive renumeration's from any foreign government, prince, or king.

You either didn't read the cbs link or you're lying.


"Authorities are also pushing back against the perception that the CIA workforce was cheering for the president. They say the first three rows in front of the president were largely made up of supporters of Mr. Trump’s campaign."

Trump CIA Speech may have made worsened intel community relations

I did not violate the thread rules and I'm annoyed that you would even say that.

Trump does not have a 57% approval rating. The Gallup rating is at 45%, the lowest for any incoming president. Ever.

OK, I used the keyword for studio audience at CBS, but I did read their whole story. There's certainly nothing in the CBS account about a 'studio audience'. And it is anybody's guess who is lying--a CBS anti-Trump reporter who cites unnamed sources or Sean Spicer whose reputation is on the line. I posted my link for the 57% approval rating. Disprove it if you can.

If you're going to bust out of the gate with the unsupported assertion that CBS News is "anti-trump" then I can certainly refer to Rasmussen as "pro Republican". That's actually a pretty well-known fact. Gallup, on the other hand, is time-tested and non-partisan.

The sources that the CBS reporter was referring to were CIA employees. For obvious reasons, he cannot name then. There have been prior reports of Trump stuffing his audience with staff members to start applause. This is not new, nor is it a conspiracy. He's known for using props.

If you can find anything complimentary about Donald Trump at CBS, you're a better reporter than I am. Scott Rasmussen, however, was a registered Democrat who switched to Independent when he started Rasmussen Reports to avoid any appearance of bias. He has reported the dismally low approval ratings for Trump the whole way, so his 57% posted today is no reason to think he is pro-Republican.

I can't see any reason for any media to say something "complimentary" about Trump. That's not the media's job. That is the job of sycophants. The likes of which populated the front three rows of his CIA address.

You are engaging in a classic logical fallacy here.

The context is: how trustworthy can CBS be now, or any of the MSM for that matter, when they have been trashing trump for months and months? And that was within the context of how Trump is doing. I am not likely to use CBS to evaluate that.

And that is not a logical fallacy.

 

[Mr. Culpepper]

CBS or the alt-fact "the White House can disagree with the facts" guy... For me, it's a no brainer who to believe. One is a news source the other admitted to disagreeing with facts.

CBS or the alt-fact "the White House can disagree with the facts" guy... For me, it's a no brainer who to believe. One is a news source the other admitted to disagreeing with facts.

But how do you think the Trump administration is doing so far?

On a rating of 0 to 10 with 0 being the worst. 1. And that's because he hasn't started any form of armageddon yet. Exaggeration, but the dude is an absolute joke. He's worse than Bush. The only question left is will he beat out Nixon for worst President.

 

[Foxfyre]

I didn't expect them to have hypnotized the media as quickly as they have. The media are completely off balance.

The media has been off balance for the entire campaign, inauguration, and the first week of the Trump administration. The mainstream media has never been nor is it now a friend of President Trump or his administration. But I'm not sure what you mean by hypnotized. Can you elaborate?

 

[Foxfyre]

CBS or the alt-fact "the White House can disagree with the facts" guy... For me, it's a no brainer who to believe. One is a news source the other admitted to disagreeing with facts.

CBS or the alt-fact "the White House can disagree with the facts" guy... For me, it's a no brainer who to believe. One is a news source the other admitted to disagreeing with facts.

But how do you think the Trump administration is doing so far?

On a rating of 0 to 10 with 0 being the worst. 1. And that's because he hasn't started any form of armageddon yet. Exaggeration, but the dude is an absolute joke. He's worse than Bush. The only question left is will he beat out Nixon for worst President.

What has he done to merit your rating?

 

[Mr. Culpepper]

CBS or the alt-fact "the White House can disagree with the facts" guy... For me, it's a no brainer who to believe. One is a news source the other admitted to disagreeing with facts.

CBS or the alt-fact "the White House can disagree with the facts" guy... For me, it's a no brainer who to believe. One is a news source the other admitted to disagreeing with facts.

But how do you think the Trump administration is doing so far?

On a rating of 0 to 10 with 0 being the worst. 1. And that's because he hasn't started any form of armageddon yet. Exaggeration, but the dude is an absolute joke. He's worse than Bush. The only question left is will he beat out Nixon for worst President.

What has he done to merit your rating?

The question is what has he done to get me to stand behind him and not against him. Of which the anti is way too long to list. I hate the guy's guts with a passion. If I was to go on it would take way too long. Those who know me on here know me as the Resistance thread moderator. Kinda says it all.

 

[Foxfyre]

CBS or the alt-fact "the White House can disagree with the facts" guy... For me, it's a no brainer who to believe. One is a news source the other admitted to disagreeing with facts.

CBS or the alt-fact "the White House can disagree with the facts" guy... For me, it's a no brainer who to believe. One is a news source the other admitted to disagreeing with facts.

But how do you think the Trump administration is doing so far?

On a rating of 0 to 10 with 0 being the worst. 1. And that's because he hasn't started any form of armageddon yet. Exaggeration, but the dude is an absolute joke. He's worse than Bush. The only question left is will he beat out Nixon for worst President.

What has he done to merit your rating?

The question is what has he done to get me to stand behind him and not against him. Of which the anti is way too long to list. I hate the guy's guts with a passion.

So do you know what he has been doing for the past week? Or do you just hate him on general principles? Can you name something he has done since his inauguration that merits hatred?

 

[Mr. Culpepper]

CBS or the alt-fact "the White House can disagree with the facts" guy... For me, it's a no brainer who to believe. One is a news source the other admitted to disagreeing with facts.

CBS or the alt-fact "the White House can disagree with the facts" guy... For me, it's a no brainer who to believe. One is a news source the other admitted to disagreeing with facts.

But how do you think the Trump administration is doing so far?

On a rating of 0 to 10 with 0 being the worst. 1. And that's because he hasn't started any form of armageddon yet. Exaggeration, but the dude is an absolute joke. He's worse than Bush. The only question left is will he beat out Nixon for worst President.

What has he done to merit your rating?

The question is what has he done to get me to stand behind him and not against him. Of which the anti is way too long to list. I hate the guy's guts with a passion.

So do you know what he has been doing for the past week? Or do you just hate him on general principles? Can you name something he has done since his inauguration that merits hatred?

Repeatedly proving that he has a narcissistic personality complex. Working on repealing the ACA way too fast. Silencing the EPA. Blatantly lying with alt facts like it's '1984'. And tomorrow working on immigration and refugee bans. Not to mention his speach was a joke, tombstones and carnage? We're living in the Mad Max world now? Really? Since when? He and his cabinet have absolutely zero respect from me and that's censoring myself.

 

[Foxfyre]

But how do you think the Trump administration is doing so far?

On a rating of 0 to 10 with 0 being the worst. 1. And that's because he hasn't started any form of armageddon yet. Exaggeration, but the dude is an absolute joke. He's worse than Bush. The only question left is will he beat out Nixon for worst President.

What has he done to merit your rating?

The question is what has he done to get me to stand behind him and not against him. Of which the anti is way too long to list. I hate the guy's guts with a passion.

So do you know what he has been doing for the past week? Or do you just hate him on general principles? Can you name something he has done since his inauguration that merits hatred?

Repeatedly proving that he has a narcissistic personality complex. Working on repealing the ACA way too fast. Silencing the EPA. Blatantly lying with alt facts like it's '1984'. And tomorrow working on immigration and refugee bans. Not to mention his speach was a joke, tombstones and carnage? We're living in the Mad Max world now? Really? Since when? He has zero respect from me.

Fair enough. You probably have a lot of company.

 

[GaryDog]

No, providing tax returns is not a legal requirement for president. But then again, neither is having a conflict of interest. Ethical rules would dictate that avoiding conflicts of interest and providing tax returns would be the best way to put any doubters at ease. Point being, Trump has no consideration for any of his doubters. He's not here to represent all of America. He's here to represent only his most rapid supporters. If his first few days in office is any indicator.

It is illegal, however, for the president to receive renumeration's from any foreign government, prince, or king.

You either didn't read the cbs link or you're lying.


"Authorities are also pushing back against the perception that the CIA workforce was cheering for the president. They say the first three rows in front of the president were largely made up of supporters of Mr. Trump’s campaign."

Trump CIA Speech may have made worsened intel community relations

I did not violate the thread rules and I'm annoyed that you would even say that.

Trump does not have a 57% approval rating. The Gallup rating is at 45%, the lowest for any incoming president. Ever.

OK, I used the keyword for studio audience at CBS, but I did read their whole story. There's certainly nothing in the CBS account about a 'studio audience'. And it is anybody's guess who is lying--a CBS anti-Trump reporter who cites unnamed sources or Sean Spicer whose reputation is on the line. I posted my link for the 57% approval rating. Disprove it if you can.

If you're going to bust out of the gate with the unsupported assertion that CBS News is "anti-trump" then I can certainly refer to Rasmussen as "pro Republican". That's actually a pretty well-known fact. Gallup, on the other hand, is time-tested and non-partisan.

The sources that the CBS reporter was referring to were CIA employees. For obvious reasons, he cannot name then. There have been prior reports of Trump stuffing his audience with staff members to start applause. This is not new, nor is it a conspiracy. He's known for using props.

If you can find anything complimentary about Donald Trump at CBS, you're a better reporter than I am. Scott Rasmussen, however, was a registered Democrat who switched to Independent when he started Rasmussen Reports to avoid any appearance of bias. He has reported the dismally low approval ratings for Trump the whole way, so his 57% posted today is no reason to think he is pro-Republican.

I can't see any reason for any media to say something "complimentary" about Trump. That's not the media's job. That is the job of sycophants. The likes of which populated the front three rows of his CIA address.

You are engaging in a classic logical fallacy here.

The context is: how trustworthy can CBS be now, or any of the MSM for that matter, when they have been trashing trump for months and months? And that was within the context of how Trump is doing. I am not likely to use CBS to evaluate that.

And that is not a logical fallacy.

Of course it is. You're attacking the source without looking at the content, or the context in which it is reported. If you don't trust ANY of the MSM because of their reporting in the past, then you're violating the rules of this thread.

 

[GaryDog]

Today, Trump is continuing to repeat his lie that millions illegally voted for Hillary in the election to assist her in winning the popular vote. His remarks to this effect in the past were met with research by election officials, who found only 4 instances of voter fraud, at least one if which involved a woman in Iowa who voted for Trump twice.

Trump continues to destroy the credibility of his administration, credibility that he will need if he expects to, say, convince the country to go to war, convince the country to get behind sanctions against bad actors in the world, or convince the public to support any number of domestic policy proposals he may have at a later date. It's hard to imagine a president more actively and vociferously giving in to his inner adolescent and easing an emotional impulse at the expense of sabotaging his own administration.

And, according to sources inside the White House, Trump wanted an even MORE petulant response:



The first days inside Trump’s White House: Fury, tumult and a reboot

Pundits were dissing his turnout. The National Park Service had retweeted a photo unfavorably comparing the size of his inauguration crowd with the one that attended Barack Obama’s swearing-in ceremony in 2009. A journalist had misreported that Trump had removed the bust of Martin Luther King Jr. from the Oval Office. And celebrities at the protests were denouncing the new commander in chief — Madonna even referenced “blowing up the White House.”

Trump’s advisers suggested that he could push back in a simple tweet. Thomas J. Barrack Jr., a Trump confidant and the chairman of the Presidential Inaugural Committee, offered to deliver a statement addressing the crowd size.

But Trump was adamant, aides said. Over the objections of his aides and advisers — who urged him to focus on policy and the broader goals of his presidency — the new president issued a decree: He wanted a fiery public response, and he wanted it to come from his press secretary.

Spicer’s resulting statement — delivered in an extended shout and brimming with falsehoods — underscores the extent to which the turbulence and competing factions that were a hallmark of Trump’s campaign have been transported to the White House.

...

Many critics thought Spicer went too far and compromised his integrity. But in Trump’s mind, Spicer’s attack on the news media was not forceful enough. The president was also bothered that the spokesman read, at times haltingly, from a printed statement.



Trump strikes me as a president exhibiting the severest form of narcissistic personality disorder the presidency has ever seen. And unlike some of the other mentally ill presidents we've had in the past (Lincoln, FDR, Kennedy, etc.), it's hard to see how Trump's particular brand of mental disfigurement could benefit the nation.


Some are suggesting that he pulls these stunts in order to distract his "enemies" (Trump's words -- those who voted for him are America, the rest? Enemies) from focusing on his more insidious policies and executive orders, from giving the green light to move the dirtiest form of energy on the planet through the Keystone and Dakota pipelines, to banning funding to overseas GMOs who even provide INFORMATION about abortions to pregnant women. He's pulled down the climate change tab from the White House website, and now he's even pulled any mention of climate change from the EPA website. You read that correctly. Trump is signaling that he does not want federal agencies to even display INFORMATION about the clear scientific consensus regarding climate change.

I suppose it's possible that Trump's continual temper-tantrums are calculated attempts to remove attention from those proposals, but I doubt it for two reasons:

1. Trump's simply not that smart.

2. Trump WANTS his believers (who he believes to be MUCH larger in number than they actually are) to see that he's pulling funds for charities overseas that provide birth control options for women and he WANTS his believers to see that he's purposefully shutting down climate change discussion in the EPA. So why would he try and distract from that?

Trump is certainly authoritarian in the way he operates. I won't go so far as to say "fascist", just yet, but the minute he starts using the presidency to find legal ways to silence the press, we will know we've crossed that threshold.

 

[PredFan]

There are only two things he has done or said, that I have a problem with:

1. He SAID (but has not yet done) that he will punish businesses who leave the country or whatever. This is not how we operate here in the US. We COMPETE. Take away the shackles on doing business in America and we can compete.
2. Chumming with the unions. They are part of the reason businesses went away in the first place.

The TPP is something I do not understand very well but if 0bama wanted it, it has to be a bad thing. I'll go with a little faith in our President in this one.

All the other stuff has been excellent. Great picks for his cabinet, dumping 0bama's EOs, moving our embassy in Israel, halting taxpayer funding of abortions overseas, and on and on. Hard to keep track, Trump has been busy.

 

[GaryDog]

Today, Trump is continuing to repeat his lie that millions illegally voted for Hillary in the election to assist her in winning the popular vote. His remarks to this effect in the past were met with research by election officials, who found only 4 instances of voter fraud, at least one if which involved a woman in Iowa who voted for Trump twice.

Trump continues to destroy the credibility of his administration, credibility that he will need if he expects to, say, convince the country to go to war, convince the country to get behind sanctions against bad actors in the world, or convince the public to support any number of domestic policy proposals he may have at a later date. It's hard to imagine a president more actively and vociferously giving in to his inner adolescent and easing an emotional impulse at the expense of sabotaging his own administration.

And, according to sources inside the White House, Trump wanted an even MORE petulant response:



The first days inside Trump’s White House: Fury, tumult and a reboot

Pundits were dissing his turnout. The National Park Service had retweeted a photo unfavorably comparing the size of his inauguration crowd with the one that attended Barack Obama’s swearing-in ceremony in 2009. A journalist had misreported that Trump had removed the bust of Martin Luther King Jr. from the Oval Office. And celebrities at the protests were denouncing the new commander in chief — Madonna even referenced “blowing up the White House.”

Trump’s advisers suggested that he could push back in a simple tweet. Thomas J. Barrack Jr., a Trump confidant and the chairman of the Presidential Inaugural Committee, offered to deliver a statement addressing the crowd size.

But Trump was adamant, aides said. Over the objections of his aides and advisers — who urged him to focus on policy and the broader goals of his presidency — the new president issued a decree: He wanted a fiery public response, and he wanted it to come from his press secretary.

Spicer’s resulting statement — delivered in an extended shout and brimming with falsehoods — underscores the extent to which the turbulence and competing factions that were a hallmark of Trump’s campaign have been transported to the White House.

...

Many critics thought Spicer went too far and compromised his integrity. But in Trump’s mind, Spicer’s attack on the news media was not forceful enough. The president was also bothered that the spokesman read, at times haltingly, from a printed statement.



Trump strikes me as a president exhibiting the severest form of narcissistic personality disorder the presidency has ever seen. And unlike some of the other mentally ill presidents we've had in the past (Lincoln, FDR, Kennedy, etc.), it's hard to see how Trump's particular brand of mental disfigurement could benefit the nation.


Some are suggesting that he pulls these stunts in order to distract his "enemies" (Trump's words -- those who voted for him are America, the rest? Enemies) from focusing on his more insidious policies and executive orders, from giving the green light to move the dirtiest form of energy on the planet through the Keystone and Dakota pipelines, to banning funding to overseas GMOs who even provide INFORMATION about abortions to pregnant women. He's pulled down the climate change tab from the White House website, and now he's even pulled any mention of climate change from the EPA website. You read that correctly. Trump is signaling that he does not want federal agencies to even display INFORMATION about the clear scientific consensus regarding climate change.

I suppose it's possible that Trump's continual temper-tantrums are calculated attempts to remove attention from those proposals, but I doubt it for two reasons:

1. Trump's simply not that smart.

2. Trump WANTS his believers (who he believes to be MUCH larger in number than they actually are) to see that he's pulling funds for charities overseas that provide birth control options for women and he WANTS his believers to see that he's purposefully shutting down climate change discussion in the EPA. So why would he try and distract from that?

Trump is certainly authoritarian in the way he operates. I won't go so far as to say "fascist", just yet, but the minute he starts using the presidency to find legal ways to silence the press, we will know we've crossed that threshold.

0bama, Reid, Pelosi, Clinton, Kerry. A quintet of the most agregious liars we have ever seen. You supported them, you have no moral ground to complain.

This kind of trolling has no place here.

 

[Foxfyre]

OK, I used the keyword for studio audience at CBS, but I did read their whole story. There's certainly nothing in the CBS account about a 'studio audience'. And it is anybody's guess who is lying--a CBS anti-Trump reporter who cites unnamed sources or Sean Spicer whose reputation is on the line. I posted my link for the 57% approval rating. Disprove it if you can.

If you're going to bust out of the gate with the unsupported assertion that CBS News is "anti-trump" then I can certainly refer to Rasmussen as "pro Republican". That's actually a pretty well-known fact. Gallup, on the other hand, is time-tested and non-partisan.

The sources that the CBS reporter was referring to were CIA employees. For obvious reasons, he cannot name then. There have been prior reports of Trump stuffing his audience with staff members to start applause. This is not new, nor is it a conspiracy. He's known for using props.

If you can find anything complimentary about Donald Trump at CBS, you're a better reporter than I am. Scott Rasmussen, however, was a registered Democrat who switched to Independent when he started Rasmussen Reports to avoid any appearance of bias. He has reported the dismally low approval ratings for Trump the whole way, so his 57% posted today is no reason to think he is pro-Republican.

I can't see any reason for any media to say something "complimentary" about Trump. That's not the media's job. That is the job of sycophants. The likes of which populated the front three rows of his CIA address.

You are engaging in a classic logical fallacy here.

The context is: how trustworthy can CBS be now, or any of the MSM for that matter, when they have been trashing trump for months and months? And that was within the context of how Trump is doing. I am not likely to use CBS to evaluate that.

And that is not a logical fallacy.

Of course it is. You're attacking the source without looking at the content, or the context in which it is reported. If you don't trust ANY of the MSM because of their reporting in the past, then you're violating the rules of this thread.

You're right that I don't trust much if any of the MSM based on their track record of being untrustworthy. You are wrong that I did not look at the content. And you are wrong that I am violating the rules of this thread. Again I caution you to respond to the post and not your opinion of me--see Rule #1 for this thread or add your own observations.

The topic is how Trump is doing since the inauguration. One of the glaring components of that is the obvious media war between Trump and the media making that appropriate for comment.

 

[GaryDog]

If you're going to bust out of the gate with the unsupported assertion that CBS News is "anti-trump" then I can certainly refer to Rasmussen as "pro Republican". That's actually a pretty well-known fact. Gallup, on the other hand, is time-tested and non-partisan.

The sources that the CBS reporter was referring to were CIA employees. For obvious reasons, he cannot name then. There have been prior reports of Trump stuffing his audience with staff members to start applause. This is not new, nor is it a conspiracy. He's known for using props.

If you can find anything complimentary about Donald Trump at CBS, you're a better reporter than I am. Scott Rasmussen, however, was a registered Democrat who switched to Independent when he started Rasmussen Reports to avoid any appearance of bias. He has reported the dismally low approval ratings for Trump the whole way, so his 57% posted today is no reason to think he is pro-Republican.

I can't see any reason for any media to say something "complimentary" about Trump. That's not the media's job. That is the job of sycophants. The likes of which populated the front three rows of his CIA address.

You are engaging in a classic logical fallacy here.

The context is: how trustworthy can CBS be now, or any of the MSM for that matter, when they have been trashing trump for months and months? And that was within the context of how Trump is doing. I am not likely to use CBS to evaluate that.

And that is not a logical fallacy.

Of course it is. You're attacking the source without looking at the content, or the context in which it is reported. If you don't trust ANY of the MSM because of their reporting in the past, then you're violating the rules of this thread.

You're right that I don't trust much if any of the MSM based on their track record of being untrustworthy. You are wrong that I did not look at the content. And you are wrong that I am violating the rules of this thread. Again I caution you to respond to the post and not your opinion of me--see Rule #1 for this thread or add your own observations.

The topic is how Trump is doing since the inauguration. One of the glaring components of that is the obvious media war between Trump and the media making that appropriate for comment.

If there's a war between the MSM and Trump, that is Trump's own doing. At every single one of his rallies, he told the 20,000 people in attendance to turn and look at the media covering the event, and declare them to be evil people. If he wants "good" coverage, he certainly doesn't act like it.

Your posts reflect a fundamentalist, religious distrust of all media. That makes it difficult to discuss any points with you, as we've seen. What sort of media coverage do you trust?

 

[Foxfyre]

Today, Trump is continuing to repeat his lie that millions illegally voted for Hillary in the election to assist her in winning the popular vote. His remarks to this effect in the past were met with research by election officials, who found only 4 instances of voter fraud, at least one if which involved a woman in Iowa who voted for Trump twice.

Trump continues to destroy the credibility of his administration, credibility that he will need if he expects to, say, convince the country to go to war, convince the country to get behind sanctions against bad actors in the world, or convince the public to support any number of domestic policy proposals he may have at a later date. It's hard to imagine a president more actively and vociferously giving in to his inner adolescent and easing an emotional impulse at the expense of sabotaging his own administration.

And, according to sources inside the White House, Trump wanted an even MORE petulant response:



The first days inside Trump’s White House: Fury, tumult and a reboot

Pundits were dissing his turnout. The National Park Service had retweeted a photo unfavorably comparing the size of his inauguration crowd with the one that attended Barack Obama’s swearing-in ceremony in 2009. A journalist had misreported that Trump had removed the bust of Martin Luther King Jr. from the Oval Office. And celebrities at the protests were denouncing the new commander in chief — Madonna even referenced “blowing up the White House.”

Trump’s advisers suggested that he could push back in a simple tweet. Thomas J. Barrack Jr., a Trump confidant and the chairman of the Presidential Inaugural Committee, offered to deliver a statement addressing the crowd size.

But Trump was adamant, aides said. Over the objections of his aides and advisers — who urged him to focus on policy and the broader goals of his presidency — the new president issued a decree: He wanted a fiery public response, and he wanted it to come from his press secretary.

Spicer’s resulting statement — delivered in an extended shout and brimming with falsehoods — underscores the extent to which the turbulence and competing factions that were a hallmark of Trump’s campaign have been transported to the White House.

...

Many critics thought Spicer went too far and compromised his integrity. But in Trump’s mind, Spicer’s attack on the news media was not forceful enough. The president was also bothered that the spokesman read, at times haltingly, from a printed statement.



Trump strikes me as a president exhibiting the severest form of narcissistic personality disorder the presidency has ever seen. And unlike some of the other mentally ill presidents we've had in the past (Lincoln, FDR, Kennedy, etc.), it's hard to see how Trump's particular brand of mental disfigurement could benefit the nation.


Some are suggesting that he pulls these stunts in order to distract his "enemies" (Trump's words -- those who voted for him are America, the rest? Enemies) from focusing on his more insidious policies and executive orders, from giving the green light to move the dirtiest form of energy on the planet through the Keystone and Dakota pipelines, to banning funding to overseas GMOs who even provide INFORMATION about abortions to pregnant women. He's pulled down the climate change tab from the White House website, and now he's even pulled any mention of climate change from the EPA website. You read that correctly. Trump is signaling that he does not want federal agencies to even display INFORMATION about the clear scientific consensus regarding climate change.

I suppose it's possible that Trump's continual temper-tantrums are calculated attempts to remove attention from those proposals, but I doubt it for two reasons:

1. Trump's simply not that smart.

2. Trump WANTS his believers (who he believes to be MUCH larger in number than they actually are) to see that he's pulling funds for charities overseas that provide birth control options for women and he WANTS his believers to see that he's purposefully shutting down climate change discussion in the EPA. So why would he try and distract from that?

Trump is certainly authoritarian in the way he operates. I won't go so far as to say "fascist", just yet, but the minute he starts using the presidency to find legal ways to silence the press, we will know we've crossed that threshold.

0bama, Reid, Pelosi, Clinton, Kerry. A quintet of the most agregious liars we have ever seen. You supported them, you have no moral ground to complain.

Please refer to Rule #1 of the thread rules Predfan. I'm pleased you are participating but it is not allowed to disrespect ANYBODY in this thread. The thread topic is about how Trump is doing. I would have PMed you to remove the post if I had seen it soon enough but alas I didn't. So please consider this a gentle shot across the bow so we don't get off track here.

If you catch somebody in a lie about the President that would affect the reality or perception of how the President is doing, that would likely be appropriate. But we can't call people liars without specifying the lie and that has to be on topic.

 

[Foxfyre]

If you can find anything complimentary about Donald Trump at CBS, you're a better reporter than I am. Scott Rasmussen, however, was a registered Democrat who switched to Independent when he started Rasmussen Reports to avoid any appearance of bias. He has reported the dismally low approval ratings for Trump the whole way, so his 57% posted today is no reason to think he is pro-Republican.

I can't see any reason for any media to say something "complimentary" about Trump. That's not the media's job. That is the job of sycophants. The likes of which populated the front three rows of his CIA address.

You are engaging in a classic logical fallacy here.

The context is: how trustworthy can CBS be now, or any of the MSM for that matter, when they have been trashing trump for months and months? And that was within the context of how Trump is doing. I am not likely to use CBS to evaluate that.

And that is not a logical fallacy.

Of course it is. You're attacking the source without looking at the content, or the context in which it is reported. If you don't trust ANY of the MSM because of their reporting in the past, then you're violating the rules of this thread.

You're right that I don't trust much if any of the MSM based on their track record of being untrustworthy. You are wrong that I did not look at the content. And you are wrong that I am violating the rules of this thread. Again I caution you to respond to the post and not your opinion of me--see Rule #1 for this thread or add your own observations.

The topic is how Trump is doing since the inauguration. One of the glaring components of that is the obvious media war between Trump and the media making that appropriate for comment.

If there's a war between the MSM and Trump, that is Trump's own doing. At every single one of his rallies, he told the 20,000 people in attendance to turn and look at the media covering the event, and declare them to be evil people. If he wants "good" coverage, he certainly doesn't act like it.

Your posts reflect a fundamentalist, religious distrust of all media. That makes it difficult to discuss any points with you, as we've seen. What sort of media coverage do you trust?

What media I trust is not the topic of this thread, but I trust media that provides the who, what, where, when, why and how without prejudice. The thread is not about me.

Trump is participating in the media war for sure, but he damn sure didn't start it. And I am happy that he is confronting it head on instead of allowing the media to misrepresent the facts with impunity.

Actually in his handling of the media, I wish he would do it differently, but then it worked for him to get him elected so he may be a lot smarter about that than I am. I do suspect he deliberate dangles red meat in front of them because of the entirely predictable meltdown that will follow. And the more meltdowns there are, the better and more credible he looks.

So all in all, I think he is doing pretty well in that regard.

 

[GaryDog]

I can't see any reason for any media to say something "complimentary" about Trump. That's not the media's job. That is the job of sycophants. The likes of which populated the front three rows of his CIA address.

You are engaging in a classic logical fallacy here.

The context is: how trustworthy can CBS be now, or any of the MSM for that matter, when they have been trashing trump for months and months? And that was within the context of how Trump is doing. I am not likely to use CBS to evaluate that.

And that is not a logical fallacy.

Of course it is. You're attacking the source without looking at the content, or the context in which it is reported. If you don't trust ANY of the MSM because of their reporting in the past, then you're violating the rules of this thread.

You're right that I don't trust much if any of the MSM based on their track record of being untrustworthy. You are wrong that I did not look at the content. And you are wrong that I am violating the rules of this thread. Again I caution you to respond to the post and not your opinion of me--see Rule #1 for this thread or add your own observations.

The topic is how Trump is doing since the inauguration. One of the glaring components of that is the obvious media war between Trump and the media making that appropriate for comment.

If there's a war between the MSM and Trump, that is Trump's own doing. At every single one of his rallies, he told the 20,000 people in attendance to turn and look at the media covering the event, and declare them to be evil people. If he wants "good" coverage, he certainly doesn't act like it.

Your posts reflect a fundamentalist, religious distrust of all media. That makes it difficult to discuss any points with you, as we've seen. What sort of media coverage do you trust?

What media I trust is not the topic of this thread, but I trust media that provides the who, what, where, when, why and how without prejudice. The thread is not about me.

Trump is participating in the media war for sure, but he damn sure didn't start it. And I am happy that he is confronting it head on instead of allowing the media to misrepresent the facts with impunity.

Actually in his handling of the media, I wish he would do it differently, but then it worked for him to get him elected so he may be a lot smarter about that than I am. I do suspect he deliberate dangles red meat in front of them because of the entirely predictable meltdown that will follow. And the more meltdowns there are, the better and more credible he looks.

So all in all, I think he is doing pretty well in that regard.

It's impossible to debate with you if you respond to each reported story containing facts with "well, that's the MSM, and I'll never believe that."

It was my belief that you wished to have a constructive debate. It now seems you do not. CBS is a very old, well-respected media company. I'm not quoting ThinkProgress here.

Please support your claim that "Trump damned sure didn't start" the media war with supporting facts. From what I've seen, Trump has insulted the media at every turn, often in scary fashion. It cannot be easy to be a reporter in the bullpen at a Trump rally and have the leader of the rally tell all people in the audience to look at you with disdain. That's borderline inciting violence. This will not endear you to the press when you behave this way.

Do you believe the media reporting of the inaugural crowd size was false, and therefore Trump was justified in sending Spicer out there to respond so vociferously (and falsely)?

 

[Foxfyre]

There are only two things he has done or said, that I have a problem with:

1. He SAID (but has not yet done) that he will punish businesses who leave the country or whatever. This is not how we operate here in the US. We COMPETE. Take away the shackles on doing business in America and we can compete.
2. Chumming with the unions. They are part of the reason businesses went away in the first place.

The TPP is something I do not understand very well but if 0bama wanted it, it has to be a bad thing. I'll go with a little faith in our President in this one.

All the other stuff has been excellent. Great picks for his cabinet, dumping 0bama-the-Idiot's EOs, moving our embassy in Israel, halting taxpayer funding of abortions overseas, and on and on. Hard to keep track, Trump has been busy.

Your last paragraph disrespects President Obama. That is not permitted per the thread rules. Second shot across the bow--I'm trying to help people get settled in with the rules before I start reporting folks. Again if I had seen the post soon enough I would have PMed you to edit it.

The rest of your post I mostly agree with. I have been watching President Trump long enough though to know that he frequently "thinks out loud" and that was likely the case re punishing out sourcers and he frequently expresses where he's going with something without fully completing the thought. Has he said anything like that since the inauguration? I don't recall hearing it but then I don't watch the news 24/7. But so far he seems to be operating as deal-maker Trump. His goal is always to benefit himself, or in this case America, for sure, but the best deal is a satisfactory win-win for both.

That's why I trust him not to start a trade war or to violate the rights of American businesses. And as for chumming with the unions, I have noticed that too, but have to trust him for a method to that madness. He needs their cooperation and willingness to make deals too in order to keep jobs in this country--they are a large reason so much has been outsourced.

 

[GaryDog]

There are only two things he has done or said, that I have a problem with:

1. He SAID (but has not yet done) that he will punish businesses who leave the country or whatever. This is not how we operate here in the US. We COMPETE. Take away the shackles on doing business in America and we can compete.
2. Chumming with the unions. They are part of the reason businesses went away in the first place.

The TPP is something I do not understand very well but if 0bama wanted it, it has to be a bad thing. I'll go with a little faith in our President in this one.

All the other stuff has been excellent. Great picks for his cabinet, dumping 0bama-the-Idiot's EOs, moving our embassy in Israel, halting taxpayer funding of abortions overseas, and on and on. Hard to keep track, Trump has been busy.

Your last paragraph disrespects President Obama. That is not permitted per the thread rules. Second shot across the bow--I'm trying to help people get settled in with the rules before I start reporting folks. Again if I had seen the post soon enough I would have PMed you to edit it.

The rest of your post I mostly agree with. I have been watching President Trump long enough though to know that he frequently "thinks out loud" and that was likely the case re punishing out sourcers and he frequently expresses where he's going with something without fully completing the thought. Has he said anything like that since the inauguration? I don't recall hearing it but then I don't watch the news 24/7. But so far he seems to be operating as deal-maker Trump. His goal is always to benefit himself, or in this case America, for sure, but the best deal is a satisfactory win-win for both.

That's why I trust him not to start a trade war or to violate the rights of American businesses. And as for chumming with the unions, I have noticed that too, but have to trust him for a method to that madness. He needs their cooperation and willingness to make deals too in order to keep jobs in this country--they are a large reason so much has been outsourced.

Indeed, I agree that Trump's goal is always to benefit himself. That's what he's done so far as president, namely protecting his own ego from the trampling it receives by accurate reporting about crowd sizes at his inaugural, and accurate reporting about the nearly 5 million people who marched against Trump on January 21st.