Whoa – the Trumpster went on a rampage after hearing that his former Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, criticized him for being “undisciplined” and happy to violate the law.
Trump, who famously told the world he only hires the “best,” criticized Tillerson for being “lazy” and not having the mental capacity for being Sec of State.
Conflicting reports???
Mike Pompeo is doing a great job, I am very proud of him. His predecessor, Rex Tillerson, didn’t have the mental capacity needed. He was dumb as a rock and I couldn’t get rid of him fast enough. He was lazy as hell. Now it is a whole new ballgame, great spirit at State!
“What was challenging for me coming from the disciplined, highly process-oriented Exxon Mobil corporation,” Tillerson said, was “to go to work for a man who is pretty undisciplined, doesn’t like to read, doesn’t read briefing reports, doesn’t like to get into the details of a lot of things, but rather just kind of says, ‘This is what I believe.’”
Perhaps the most damning quote came when Tillerson talked about how Trump as president regularly attempted to do things that violated the law. “So often, the president would say, ‘Here’s what I want to do, and here’s how I want to do it’ and I would have to say to him, ‘Mr. President, I understand what you want to do, but you can’t do it that way. It violates the law.”
WATCH: Former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is speaking publicly about what led to his firing in March by President Trump.
CBS News political contributor @bobschieffer interviewed Tillerson in Houston last night, at a dinner to benefit MD Anderson Cancer Center. pic.twitter.com/47qDqcsrMs
My favorite moment from yesterday at the memorial service for former President George H.W. Bush was the chill that descended upon the front row of former presidents and First Ladies when Donald and Melania Trump arrived.
Even Fox News’ Chris Wallace noted the change in spirit when the Trumps arrived.
“I have to say I was struck when President Trump and Melania Trump came to the front row, that it was as if a chill had descended on that front row,” Wallace said on Fox’s “America’s Newsroom” during live coverage of the Bush state funeral at Washington National Cathedral.
“You had seen a lot of chatty talk between the Clintons and the Obamas, the Carters. But when Donald Trump sat down, the greeting that he was given by Barack Obama and Michelle Obama was about as cool as it could have been.”
Trump and the first lady greeted the Obamas and shook hands when sitting down next to them in the front row of the service for Bush, who passed away last Friday at the age of 94. There was no greeting between the Trumps and Clintons, who sat farther down the row.
I love that Hillary Clinton didn’t even glance his way. He’s been hideous to her and she owed him nothing.
1) The president Trump said was illegitimate (Obama) 2) The president he said assaulted women (Clinton) 3) The first lady/SoS he said should be in jail (Hillary) 4) The president he said was the second-worst, behind Obama (Carter) pic.twitter.com/J63WVhs7HU
I have been a bit perplexed by the Trump administration (over a LOT of things, yes, I know) regarding the national debt as it’s long been the clarion call of the Republican Party.
But Donald Trump has shown little to no interest in the spiking debt which usually sends the Repubs screaming.
According to The Daily Beast, we may now have the answer – it won’t get really, really bad until after he’s gone, so he doesn’t care.
Since the 2016 presidential campaign, Donald Trump’s aides and advisers have tried to convince him of the importance of tackling the national debt.
Sources close to the president say he has repeatedly shrugged it off, implying that he doesn’t have to worry about the money owed to America’s creditors—currently about $21 trillion—because he won’t be around to shoulder the blame when it becomes even more untenable.
The friction came to a head in early 2017 when senior officials offered Trump charts and graphics laying out the numbers and showing a “hockey stick” spike in the national debt in the not-too-distant future.
In response, Trump noted that the data suggested the debt would reach a critical mass only after his possible second term in office. “Yeah, but I won’t be here,” the president bluntly said, according to a source who was in the room.
I had seen this clip over the weekend of Donald Trump onstage in a photo opp with Argentine President Mauricio Macri at the G20 summit. Argentina played host for the economic event.
At the time, most thought Trump was just wandering off, as he is want to do.
Turns out, he just wanted to leave. CBS News now has audio of Trump off-stage telling someone to “get me out of here” as the Argentine president was just left standing there.
Buenos Aires hosted the G20 economic summit this past weekend, focusing international attention on Argentina and Macri. It gave Macri, who is running for reelection next year, the chance to rub elbows and pose for photos with leaders of the most powerful countries.
But also high up on people’s mind was someone not even there, the newly elected President of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro, the exciting and controversial far-right leader who is expected to shake up geopolitical order in the hemisphere.
Some anxiety about Bolsonaro is seeping into Argentine political and diplomatic circles, which have watched Trump and his administration fawn over the “like-minded” Bolsonaro in ways it once fawned over Macri.
“I think they’re going to be best friends,” said Julio Burdman, a Buenos Aires-based political consultant and pollster. “Now, they’re going to skip Argentina because, for Trump, maybe Bolsonaro is an attractive partner.”
Donald Trump’s former personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, pleaded guilty this morning in a New York court to lying to Congress regarding a Moscow real estate project that Trump and his company pursued during the months he was running for president.
Trump repeatedly said during the 2016 campaign he had no deals, interests or financial ties in or to Russia.
In a nine-page filing, prosecutors laid out a litany of lies that Cohen admitted he told to congressional lawmakers about the Moscow project — an attempt, Cohen said, to minimize links between the proposed development and Trump as his presidential bid was taking off.
Cohen falsely said efforts to build a Trump-branded tower in Moscow ended in January 2016, when in fact discussions continued through that year, the filing said. Among the people Cohen briefed on the status of the project was Trump himself, on more than three occasions, according to the document.
Trump has repeatedly said that he had no business dealings in Russia, tweeting in July 2016, “For the record, I have ZERO investments in Russia” and telling reporters in January 2017 that he had no deals there because he had “stayed away.”
Tom Winter of NBC News was in the court room and reports on what Cohen testified to:
BREAKING: Michael Cohen names the president in court involving Moscow project, and discussions that he alleges continued into 2017. @Tom_Winter explains after attending the court hearing this morning. https://t.co/6VteqRXgoDpic.twitter.com/iw9Mld32KV
Trump immediately told reporters that he could have pursued the deal in Russia and there would have been nothing wrong with that, but he didn’t.
He went on to say the man who was his personal lawyer for years and years is “a weak person.”
TRUMP, speaking to reporters outside the White House, says Michael Cohen is “a weak person. And by being weak, unlike other people that you watch, he’s a weak person, and what he’s trying to do is get a reduced sentence. So he is lying about a project everybody knew about.” pic.twitter.com/QVSGJcoRa6
Trump less than an hour ago: “I will probably be meeting with President Putin. We haven’t terminated that meeting. I was thinking about it, but they’d like to have it. I think it’s a very good time to have the meeting. ” https://t.co/iikpOXs7xQ
One more thing – don’t forget this email from Felix Sater to Michael Cohen in 2015 saying, “Buddy, our boy can become president of the USA and we can engineer it.”
Reminder of a Felix Sater email sent to Michael Cohen in 2015:
“Buddy our boy can become president of the USA and we can engineer it,” Sater wrote. “I will get all of Putins team to buy in on this, I will manage this process.” https://t.co/4fbCWHQpN9
Donald Trump’s approval rating drops again, this time to a low 38% according to the Gallup tracking poll.
Worse, though, is his disapproval rating that jumped up to his high of 60%.
Gallup tracks daily the percentage of Americans who approve or disapprove of the job Donald Trump is doing as president. Weekly results are based on telephone interviews with approximately 1,500 national adults, with a margin of error is ±3 percentage points.
Donald Trump began his Tuesday ‘executive time’ by tweeting an epic rant over the latest news that Special Counsel Robert Mueller has announced former Trump campaign chair Paul Manafort repeatedly lied to his investigators after receiving a plea deal.
Mueller now says any request for leniency for Manafort is off the table.
I’m telling you now – Manafort is pulling his shenanigans because Trump has promised a pardon.
The Phony Witch Hunt continues, but Mueller and his gang of Angry Dems are only looking at one side, not the other. Wait until it comes out how horribly & viciously they are treating people, ruining lives for them refusing to lie. Mueller is a conflicted prosecutor gone rogue….
….The Fake News Media builds Bob Mueller up as a Saint, when in actuality he is the exact opposite. He is doing TREMENDOUS damage to our Criminal Justice System, where he is only looking at one side and not the other. Heroes will come of this, and it won’t be Mueller and his…
….terrible Gang of Angry Democrats. Look at their past, and look where they come from. The now $30,000,000 Witch Hunt continues and they’ve got nothing but ruined lives. Where is the Server? Let these terrible people go back to the Clinton Foundation and “Justice” Department!
This may have something to do with the state of the matter: The Guardian is reporting today that Manafort held secret talks with Julian Assange, inside the Ecuadorian embassy in London, in 2013, 2015 and in Spring 2016, around the time Trump named him as his convention manager.
Trump’s upset and worried about Mueller this morning. Why? One reason could be that Trump said things in his written answers a week ago that were in sync with what Manafort was saying, but that Trump now realizes Mueller can disprove?
We now know why Trump had this paranoid meltdown this morning.
When he typed these tweets, he knew Mueller had connected the dots between Julian Assange and Roger Stone, and Donald Trump, Jr. and, now, Paul Manafort.
