July 31, 2017: Foreign Policy Gibberish from Donald, D.C.'s Wizard of Oz

 

7/31/17: As not predicted by Anthony Scaramucci, new White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly fires Anthony Scaramucci. (See 7/28/17.) 

____________________ 

“We’ll handle North Korea. We’ll be able to handle North Korea. It will be handled. We handle everything.”  

President Trump

____________________ 

 

A Rasmussen opinion poll has Trump’s approval rating at 39%, his disapproval rating at 61%. In Trumpistan, of course, this qualifies as “Fake News” because no one who voted for Trump likes it. 

Again, those of us who possess semi-adequate reasoning skills might note: four days after Trump’s inauguration, Rasmussen was the one poll that had him rated most favorably: 57% approval, 43% disapproval. 

A Gallup poll on July 31 also shows Trump down, 37%-59%. 

In other words: more and more Americans are coming to realize Trump is the D.C. equivalent of the Wizard of Oz. 

Speaking of frauds, during an afternoon cabinet meeting, the president tells reporters not to worry about North Korea. In his usual lucid fashion, he explains, “We’ll handle North Korea. We’ll be able to handle North Korea. It will be handled. We handle everything.” 

Who says this man can’t handle complicated policy!

 

* 

LAST, BUT DEFINITELY NOT LEAST, the Washington Post cites several sources aboard Air Force One when discussion turned to how to handle revelations about Don Jr.’s meeting with the Russian lawyer. Aides, the Post reports, wanted to release a truthful statement, to get out in front of the story. 

No dice said the Liar-in-Chief. 

Trump personally dictated a statement in which Trump Jr. said that he and the Russian lawyer had “primarily discussed a program about the adoption of Russian children” when they met in June 2016. This is according to multiple individuals with knowledge of the deliberations. 

That false statement, issued to the New York Times as it prepared an article, emphasized that the subject of the meeting was “not a campaign issue at the time.” 

According to the Post top advisers are worried that the president’s actions leave him vulnerable to allegations of a cover-up. 

 “This was…unnecessary,” said one of the president’s advisers, who like most other people interviewed for this article spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive internal deliberations. “Now someone can claim he’s the one who attempted to mislead. Somebody can argue the president is saying he doesn’t want you to say the whole truth.”

 

Think Watergate.

 

BLOGGER’S NOTE (6/28/22): See: 7/7/18 for initial developments related to the story, and 7/8/17 for the first denial. Also, keep in mind that when Natalia Veselnitskaya, the Russian lawyer in the meeting was indicted on unrelated charges, she fled to Russia. She’s never coming back. Unless Trump gets reelected in 2024. 

 

BLOGGER’S NOTE #2 (July 5, 2022): It’s fun to go back and look at what Trump first said about people he hired – and what he said after they realized he was in way over his head and offered up criticism. In the clip on North Korea, he predicts that General Kelly, “will go down, in terms of the position of chief-of-staff, as one of the greats ever.”

 

Honorable men and women, like Gen. Kelly soon ran afoul
of a boss with no other guiding principle than self-interest.

After Gen. Kelly stepped down from his post, Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham went to bat for the president. “I worked with John Kelly,” she told reporters, “and he was totally unequipped to handle the genius of our great President.” (See: 10/26/19.) 

Gen. Kelly spoke up again during Trump’s first impeachment, defending Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, who had testified that the president placed personal interest ahead of U.S. national security, in demanding Ukraine investigate the Biden family. We teach young officers “to always tell the truth, to tell truth to power,” Kelly said. Col. Vindman “ did exactly what we teach them to do from cradle to grave.” 

When Vindman heard Trump tell President Zelensky he wanted to see the Biden family investigated, that was like hearing “an illegal order.” “We teach them, ‘Don’t follow an illegal order. And if you’re ever given one, you’ll raise it to whoever gives it to you that this is an illegal order, and then tell your boss.’”

 

Now it was Kelly’s turn to face President Trump’s wrath. “When I terminated John Kelly, which I couldn’t do fast enough, he knew full well that he was way over his head. Being Chief of Staff just wasn’t for him,” the president tweeted. Kelly, he continued, “came in with a bang, went out with a whimper, but like so many X’s, he misses the action & just can’t keep his mouth shut, which he actually has a military and legal obligation to do.” 

It’s interesting to note that the president claims he couldn’t get rid of the general “fast enough.” Kelly took the White House job on July 31, 2017. He remained in his position until January 2, 2019. None of Trump’s three other chiefs-of-staff (Reince Priebus, Mick Mulvaney, and Mark Meadows) lasted even a year. (See: 2/13/20.)