Yeah, just thinking about “Trump picking his fights carefully” has me bent over double, laughing.
Well that’s just it though. The peace offering was to show that the day to day Presidentin’ would be ordered by an old party hand. Appointing an establishment SecAg would’ve been meaningless.
I was just thinking the other day that it’s almost like having the Bluth family running the country, except (a) it’s not at all funny, and (b) the dad isn’t in prison yet.
Bernie Madoff made a lot of money. Jeff Skilling and Ken Lay made a lot of money. Yeah, <nyuk! nyuk!> they “made” a “lot” of “money” – until someone starting actually started asking them to prove that they made as much as they said they did.
So someone has money in accounts and cash flow to buy cars and property: So . fucking . what? Trump’s whole philosophy about money is summed up in the line that goes something like this: if you owe the bank $50,000 dollars, the bank’s got you by the balls. If you owe the bank $50 MILLION dollars…you’ve got the bank by the balls. And this, ladies and gentlemen, is one of only two goddamn reasons we even know who Donald Trump is today – because the creditors decided that the Trump name was worth something and allowed him to use it as part of his bankruptcy settlements. The other reason is that an entertainment exec named Jeff Zucker - yes, the one who now runs CNN - had this idea that creating a show in which a CEO gets to bully and harass others on national TV would be train wreck television and that people would have to watch. And they did.
Trump is not a good businessman. Any of the mechanics and plumbers who voted for him could probably run circles around him when it comes to managing an actual business and keeping it profitable. What Trump does better than most is project power and project wealth. He’s exactly what Fareed Zakaria said he was: a bullshit artist. And so was Bernie Madoff, and Ken Lay, and Jeff Skilling. They kept up the act until someone demanded to see proof of purchase. There’s a reason that Trump doesn’t want us to see his taxes and there’s absolutely a reason that Trump doesn’t want Robert Mueller to go digging through his finances and is willing to violate the rule of law and the constitution to keep him from digging.
It would be as meaningful as appointing him CoS and not allowing him to do the job. Did anyone actually think Trump would let RP actually run the place? If so, they got hoodwinked and deserve it.
My impression at the time was that President Trump appointed Mr. Priebus to placate those who said that he needed experience in the WH or he’d be gobbled up by the establishment in D.C. But the President has always had his personal favs when it comes to people, and those are the people to whom he listens, and to whom he actually delegates authority.
Did Reince Priebus ever actually DO anything as Chief of Staff? If so, I’ve quite managed to miss it… :rolleyes:
That assumes that he’s smart enough to realize that he’s in a dangerous position.
In Trump’s case, based on reading some of his deposition, I think that being disorganized is a big part of what has saved him until now. In a usual company, there’s a clear chain of command, records are kept, everyone knows what is going on. In Trump’s companies, people take on and drop tasks in an adhoc manner, based on small pitches to Trump that he approves and vaguely remembers. He has little idea of what is going on, whether that person actually did what they said they would, or any real specifics. And if you go talk to that other person, they’ll probably just say that they handed the task on to some other person, and just had an advisory role. And if you ask that person, they’ll say that they were about to get started, when someone else came in and said that Trump gave them the okay to take over.
Unraveling the sequence of events is, effectively, impossible. Eventually, lawyers just give up trying to prove anything and drop the case. It’s like trying to fight one of those people who thinks that people from their state don’t have to pay taxes because it was incorporated after 1800 - that is to say, they are crazy - but where that person has a decent roster of well-paid, high end lawyers.
Traditionally, so long as Trump could pay his legal team, he could basically get away with any amount of shady business practices and poor organization. If he doesn’t have enough money to pay people, he just doesn’t pay them, and they can suck it. Problem solved.
Now, he has the Federal government providing all of the funding he needs for his legal costs. I don’t know what the White House discretionary costs are, but all he has to do is not fill a few roles and he’s got plenty of bonus money to sue everyone to hell.
And Priebus didn’t really even have all that much experience. He was the head fundraiser for a political party.
Sort of funny how directly this article interfaces with my last post:
I’m going to guess that Kelly will resign pretty quickly. 
Hmm…good luck getting the White House Counsel to file civil suits against anyone. He’d still have to do it through private lawyers, who would probably do it pro bono for the privilege of representing the dirtbag.
Who’s he going to sue? Mueller? Comey? Congress? CNN? Love to hear his standing for any of those. In practice, though, he threatens suits far more than he actually files anyway, because either he knows or his lawyers tell him that there’s no way he’ll win. Do you think any of the above are going to bend to his will because he threatens them? Where are the complaints that Kasowicz said they would file against Comey? More hot air in service of bullying.
He’s also going to find out that anything along the lines of slander is very difficult for a politician to win.
They had better expect to do it pro bono whether they want to or not.
I have a vague recollection that during the campaign it was reported his lawyers had learned over the years to never meet with him one-on-one, because later he’d claim he or you had never said something that had actually been said in the meeting.
Of course I never quite understood how having two lawyers present actually helped:
Trump: I never said that.
Lawyer: Yes, you did. Chris was here at that meeting too and heard you say it.
Trump: Then both of you are wrong.
Apparently having [del]hundreds[/del] dozens of people present, like at his inauguration, plus having photographic evidence, is similarly no protection against Trump’s habit of denying Reality he doesn’t like.
Obviously, I don’t know what he will do but, if he does go the lawsuit route, I imagine that he had some deal during the campaign with the GOP for funding and other aid. He would have standing there, if they did anything that he disapproved of.
I meant legal standing, not whatever his delusion du jour is.
Doubtful. Election funding laws say that campaign donations are to be used for campaign purposes. That could be legal expenses (e.g. Contractual dispute over a hall rental), but that doesn’t mean the campaign funds are Donald Trump’s personal piggy bank. (Yeah, I know, why would that stop him? But the GOP folks don’t want to be on the receiving end of an inquiry into misuse of campaign funds.)
There have already been questions asked about that $50,000 payment to DT Jr’s lawyer, from campaign funds. Donors have an interest in knowing their donations were just used for the campaign.
Of course the news is that Trump is debating tanking the health care market. I don’t think that he’ll do that, because everyone’s going to be reminding him that all he’s accomplishing is murdering Americans. That just ain’t a lever you can pull and come out a winner.
And outside of that, I admit that I’m a bit stumped.
I think even Trump has to admit that the screws have been tightly twisted down on him, and locked him into a one-way-path to having his business legacy taken apart. Unless he can come up with a way to fight back, it might be time for him to offer a deal to bail, if they’ll let Pence call off the investigations after he’s out.
On the one hand, I’ll be glad to win my bet. On the other hand: w00t, 3.5 years of President Jerry Falwell.
Actually, there might be a way out for Trump but I’m not sure he’d take it. But say the healthcare markets become destabilized without any further action on his part - this is quite possible given the fact that insurers now know that Republicans are after their meal ticket of insurance mandates. If you’re a CEO of Cigna or Blue Cross you’re probably thinking it’s just a matter of time before they come back and fuck things up even further. Business is all about making decisions before you’re forced to, so I suspect that the damage has already been done.
So what this does is create a bigger demand for more bipartisan cooperation. The tea party stands to lose the most from this because it has been proven that their approach to dismantling Obamacare isn’t that popular outside of tea party land, which isn’t very populous. The question is can congress work together and would Trump, who’s still infuriated with the investigations, allow bipartisanship to go forward. I’ve got my doubts.
I can imagine a large number of Trump supporters would be fine and dandy with their donations being used to assist their Unfairhaired Champion in any way possible to gain and hold power.