Donnie has weighed in on the subject of 3D printed guns:
This is classic. He accidentally manages to be on the right side of an issue…but then he blows it, by admitting right there in black and white, that the NRA has approval over federal firearms policy. Nice.
…This is a terrible situation and Attorney General Jeff Sessions should stop this Rigged Witch Hunt right now, before it continues to stain our country any further. Bob Mueller is totally conflicted, and his 17 Angry Democrats that are doing his dirty work are a disgrace to USA!
Looks like someone is getting a little worried the Mueller is getting too close. Poor President Dipshit.
I hope no one reminds him he’s the President and he can order Jeff Sessions to do things, and fire him if he won’t. (I know that technically it’s Rosenstein who has to end the investigation, but do we really think Trump cares about those little details? You can do anything that no one prevents you from doing, after all, and people with the ability to prevent Trump from doing things are not exactly standing up of late.)
Or maybe he’s just not quite ruthless enough to take that step. Either way, every day the investigation continues is a little blessing in my opinion.
Oh hell no. I’m not even sure what ruth is (when not capitalized), but I don’t think Trump has ever had any.
The CYA talking point is that it was an opinion, and not an order, despite the fact that we’ve been told that Trump’s tweets are official statements, not opinions:
“The president is president of the United States,” Spicer said, “so they are considered official statements by the president of the United States.”
He lacks any discernible kindness or empathy, but despite his catchphrase he apparently has an aversion to firing people. He prefers to passively aggressively make their lives miserable instead until they quit. Which works if you’re running a closely-held branding company, but it won’t work on career federal prosecutors.
My guess would be that Trump’s failure to actually fire Sessions is due to the facts stated above, combined with some strongly-worded advice from someone Trump actually listens to–which would narrow it down to Vlad or Ivanka.
Something like ‘firing Sessions is highly, highly, HIGHLY likely to lead to your being removed from office. Just wait, and it will all be taken care of by those working on your behalf.’
The problem that Trump has in firing someone like Sessions is that Sessions has basically been implementing Trump’s vision of America at the DoJ. Sessions subscribes to Trumpism - sometimes even more than Trump does himself. His only offense has been recusing himself from overseeing the Russia investigation. That’s one factor.
Another factor is that if he wants this Russia thing to go up in smoke, then he can’t end with just firing Sessions. He has to fire Rosenstein, too. And perhaps Christopher Wray for good measure. I’m sure his closest confidants have told him all of this.
That being said, I don’t think anything will stop Trump from firing Sessions or all three for that matter. Trump will be Trump.
Yeah, I made a thread saying that very thing:
https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=832100
Against Trump firing (at a minimum) Sessions, Rosenstein and Wray:
***Trump’s native laziness
***Trump’s lifelong timidity about actually firing people (recently mentioned in this thread)
***Trump’s likely suspicion that even some of his own fans might question 'if he’s innocent, why is he taking all these dramatic steps to end the investigation?’ Behind-the-scenes and passive-aggressive steps (such as whiny tweets) are much less likely to raise those awkward questions.
Trump is powerfully motivated to avoid doing ANYTHING that would lessen the cheers at his rallies.
In favor of Trump firing S, R & W:
***Trump’s temper
***Trump’s inability to think ahead or to guess how normal humans process events
***Trump’s desire to appear as something he never was: decisive and purposeful.
Tipping the scale, possibly: the aforementioned advice from Putin. Or perhaps from Ivanka. Neither of them wants Trump removed from office a day before such removal becomes inevitable. For Putin, even if Trump isn’t very satisfactory as a sanctions-removal tool, he is supremely satisfactory as a “reduce the power and prestige of the USA” tool. For Ivanka, of course, the more she can grift, the better, and time is her friend.
So, will Trump fire the trio? All in all, I don’t think I’d care to bet money one way or the other. Bit of a tossup.
Especially since it comes directly after (within 24 hours) Mueller informed Trump’s legal team that he wanted to include the topic of obstruction in his questioning of Trump.
If he’s getting advice from Putin not to fire Sessions, and to let this whole thing play out…then Putin must have something really big up his sleeve. We’ll find out in late October or early November…if Trump can wait that long.
Agreed. In the end he’s a passive aggressive coward. He fired Tillerson by Tweet, only fired two Obama era DAs when they refused to resign and probably had someone else do it.
He fired Comey probably because he thought everyone, Democrats included, would love him for it. Didn’t work out that way.
The longer Trump waits, the worse it looks if he ever actually does pull the trigger. But then, tweeting about how much he’d like to fire Mueller is apparently also providing evidence in an obstruction case.
So Trump is playing this just about as badly as one could. Just imagine how much worse off we’d be if we had a president as evil and malicious as Trump, but not as stupid.
You mean Mike Pence?
Eh, he’s been extremely patient, letting Mueller run with his investigation. But its run its course, time to wrap things up. Unfortunately, Jeff, Rod and Bob have all succumbed to the deep state, so it is with great sadness (particularly for Jeff) that I have to let them go.
The above will play just fine with his base, and that’s all he cares about.
True, but there will be some actual consequences for firing all three men. For one thing, there are likely to be other resignations involved throughout the Justice Department and maybe the FBI as well, and potentially among his inner circle as well. (There are rumors that Don McGahn, for one, threatened to resign when he was asked to stop the Mueller investigation shortly after it began.) His true believers will probably cheer the backs of all these people, but even some people who generally support him will think this looks bad.
And there will also be pushback from Senate Republicans for firing Sessions, in particular. He was well liked there and Chuck Grassley (who would be in charge of the committee hearings on any replacement) has made it clear he isn’t interested in seeing Sessions go anywhere. Plus, taking Sessions out of the Senate resulted in losing possibly the most reliable Republican seat imaginable, so it would be doubly insulting to the Senate Rs to see that happen without even having Sessions as AG where he’s doing a bunch of stuff that Trump really would approve of even if he probably isn’t aware of it.
This isn’t to say that Trump won’t actually do it at some point. I think the chances are pretty good that he will. But he’s probably hearing from a lot of people that he really shouldn’t.
God…that is some world class trolling. You rock, Barack.
That’s friggin’ outstanding.
That’s a fake tweet. Look for yourself.