# The Trump Administration: A Clusterfuck in the Making **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [December 7, 2016, 12:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070 "2016-12-07T00:25:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1513
**Author:** ![carrps](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carrps/32/2957_2.png) [@carrps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carrps)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2019, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/30245 "2019-02-01T18:56:01Z")
> [@eschereal](#): > > To continue the hijack, _The President’s Analyst_ is not at all like a Flint movie. The Flint movies were camp Bond sendups, with their ultra-competent superspy hero. _The President’s Analyst_, by contrast, is deeply fucked up, in the manner of a _Delicatessen_ or _Big Lebowski_: properly disorienting and weird, with a strong flavor of the late Sixties, which, if you did not live through that era, might not quite make sense to you. Just another thumbs up for TPA. The above is a great description. “It’s the Phone Company!” ---
**Author:** ![carrps](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carrps/32/2957_2.png) [@carrps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carrps)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2019, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/30246 "2019-02-01T19:02:59Z")
Meant to add: Did Lily Tomlin’s Ernestine character come before or after TPA the movie? “We’re the phone company. We don’t care. We don’t have to.” ---
**Author:** ![dasmoocher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/dbc845/32.png) [@dasmoocher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dasmoocher)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2019, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/30247 "2019-02-01T19:03:09Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > 3½ years ago in [Vanity Fair](https://www.vanityfair.com/magazine/2015/07/donald-ivana-trump-divorce-prenup-marie-brenner): > > That April, Ivana began to tell her friends that she was worried about Donald’s state of mind. She had been completely humiliated by Donald through his public association with Marla Maples. > > “ **How can you say you love us? You don’t love us! You don’t even love yourself. You just love your money** ,” twelve-year-old Donald junior told his father, according to friends of Ivana’s. > > “ **What kind of son have I created?** ” Trump’s mother, Mary, is said to have asked Ivana. Second non-quote paragraph of that article and I notice this (published 9/1990): > [@](#): > > It was spring, four years ago. Donald and Ivana Trump were seated at opposite ends of their long Sheraton table in Mrs. Marjorie Merriweather Post’s former dining room. They were posed in imperial style, as if they were a king and queen. They were at the height of their ride, and it was plenty glorious. **Trump was seen on the news shows offering his services to negotiate with the Russians. There was talk that he might make a run for president.** Ivana had had so much publicity that she now offered interviewers a press kit of flattering clips. Anything seemed possible, the Trumps had grown to such stature in the golden city of New York. [my bold] So, Donald was eager to “negotiate” the Russians in 1986? What was he going to get out of it? That’s Soviet era even before Vlad. ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2019, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/30248 "2019-02-01T19:08:42Z")
Obviously, the #FakeNews tentacles of the #DerpState go back a long time in their efforts to frame #DearLeader. WAKE UP, SHEEPLES! ---
**Author:** ![garygnu](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/garygnu/32/2924_2.png) [@garygnu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/garygnu)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2019, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/30249 "2019-02-01T19:12:29Z")
> [@dasmoocher](#): > > … > So, Donald was eager to “negotiate” the Russians in 1986? What was he going to get out of it? That’s Soviet era even before Vlad. [Here’s an article about that situation.](https://www.cnn.com/2017/06/02/politics/donald-trump-cold-war/index.html) It was even before the KGB brought him to Moscow in the fateful 1987 trip. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2019, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/30250 "2019-02-01T19:44:09Z")
> [@carrps](#): > > Meant to add: Did Lily Tomlin’s Ernestine character come before or after TPA the movie? > > “We’re the phone company. We don’t care. We don’t have to.” TPA was released in 1967; Lily Tomlin joined the cast of _Laugh-In_ in 1969. That’s not probative, of course; her wikipedia page indicates that she entered the comedy field in 1965, but it’s more likely that TPC in _TPA_ informed Ernestine’s attitude than the other way around. ---
**Author:** ![dasmoocher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/dbc845/32.png) [@dasmoocher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dasmoocher)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2019, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/30251 "2019-02-01T19:47:49Z")
> [@garygnu](#): > > [Here’s an article about that situation.](https://www.cnn.com/2017/06/02/politics/donald-trump-cold-war/index.html) It was even before the KGB brought him to Moscow in the fateful 1987 trip. Thanks. Interesting: > [@](#): > > Because, Lown [Dr. Bernard Lown, associated with the 1985 Nobel Peace Prize] recalls Trump saying, “I’m going to call Ronnie and ask him to make me ambassador plenipotentiary to Moscow.” It took Lown a minute to realize that by Ronnie, Trump meant President Ronald Reagan. > > Trump’s plan, Lown says today, was to personally negotiate a nuclear arms deal and – in the process – do nothing less than end the Cold War. > > “It’ll take one hour of discussion before the Cold War is over,” Lown said Trump told him. > > Lown told Trump that in his opinion, Gorbachev might be ready to make a deal and that he also found the Soviet leader intelligent and knowledgeable. It was not the same impression he formed of Trump. > > **“I thought he was inattentive and self-concentrated. I thought what he said was idiocy. He didn’t understand the complexity of the issues.”** > > … > > Trump’s interest in nuclear negotiation goes back as least as far as 1984 when he told The Washington Post “it would take an hour-and-a-half to learn everything there is to learn about missiles. … I think I know most of it anyway.” > > … > > Trump’s plan to negotiate with Gorbachev wasn’t that much different from his negotiating style 30 years later. > Everything was about Trump’s personality, Lown said. > > “He would so charm Gorbachev that he would have no option but to agree with him,” he said. [my bold] Wow, with Trump the more things change, the more they stay the same. The bolded part was the guy’s opinion of Trump back in 1986, when Trump supposedly still had his full mental faculties. Trump must really want that Nobel Peace Prize… Or, an Emmy… Or, a building in Moscow. And, apparently, Trump has known almost all there is about nuclear missiles since the '80s without even researching the subject. ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2019, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/30252 "2019-02-01T19:55:52Z")
> [@El\_Kabong](#): > > OK, I’m totally confused. > > [Russia Vows to Respond After Trump Pulls Out of Missile Treaty - Bloomberg](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-02-01/russia-vows-to-respond-after-trump-pulls-out-of-missile-treaty) > > After basically kissing Putin’s ass for his entire term, now the Presidential Pustule decides to blow up the INF treaty? What’s really going on here? [“I go, ‘hey, why did you open the door for the horse?’ and they go ‘well, the hospital was inefficient!’”](https://vimeo.com/268233557) 😕:rolleyes: Canceling a treaty that one side isn’t complying with isn’t going to get the other side to comply any more than letting a horse into a hospital is somehow going to make the hospital more efficient. ---
**Author:** ![bobot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bobot/32/21622_2.png) [@bobot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bobot)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2019, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/30253 "2019-02-01T19:57:32Z")
"…Because, Lown [Dr. Bernard Lown, associated with the 1985 Nobel Peace Prize] recalls Trump saying, “I’m going to call Ronnie and ask him to make me ambassador plenipotentiary…” He recalls Trump saying “plenipotentiary”? ? I don’t think so. ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2019, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/30254 "2019-02-01T20:04:48Z")
Good news, everybody: [Skeptic on radiation limits will head EPA radiation panel](https://apnews.com/78752620f7124421b69a9bb80a9c3108)! > [@](#): > > Acting EPA head Andrew Wheeler on Thursday announced the appointment of Brant Ulsh, a health physicist, as one of the EPA’s science advisers and the panel chairman. Ulsh has been a leading critic of the EPA’s decades-old position that exposure to any amount of ionizing radiation is a cancer risk. > > In a paper he co-wrote last year, Ulsh and a colleague argued that the position was based on outdated scientific information and forced the “unnecessary burdens of costly clean-ups” on facilities working with radiation. > [@](#): > > Last year, Ulsh told The Associated Press that “we spend an enormous effort trying to minimize low doses” at nuclear power plants, for example. > > “Instead, let’s spend the resources on minimizing the effect of a really big event,” he said. > > U.S. agencies have long maintained there is no threshold of radiation exposure that is risk-free. ---
**Author:** ![Max\_Torque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e9bcb4/32.png) [@Max\_Torque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_Torque)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2019, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/30255 "2019-02-01T20:08:32Z")
> [@eschereal](#): > > You mean Frederick Trumpf, right? It occurred to me the other day that, if you put his name back into German, instead of “Donald John Trump”, you get, “Donald Johann Drumpf”. 6-6-6. Wake up, evangelicals! ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2019, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/30256 "2019-02-01T20:20:54Z")
> [@max torque](#): > > it occurred to me the other day that, if you put his name back into german, instead of “donald john trump”, you get, “donald johann drumpf”. > > 6-6-6. > > Wake up, evangelicals! IOKITACDI a ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2019, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/30257 "2019-02-01T20:24:10Z")
> [@Max\_Torque](#): > > It occurred to me the other day that, if you put his name back into German, instead of “Donald John Trump”, you get, “Donald Johann Drumpf”. > > 6-6-6. > > Wake up, evangelicals! I mean, tbh, how else do you expect Revelations to play out if nobody follows the Antichrist? ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2019, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/30258 "2019-02-01T21:01:34Z")
> [@kaylasdad99](#): > > TPA was released in 1967; Lily Tomlin joined the cast of _Laugh-In_ in 1969. That’s not probative, of course; her wikipedia page indicates that she entered the comedy field in 1965, but it’s more likely that TPC in _TPA_ informed Ernestine’s attitude than the other way around. Nah, back then everybody hated TPC. It was a monopoly that could treat us like dirt while sending out PSAs [exactly like this.](https://youtu.be/s2NNZdigSXg) ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2019, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/30259 "2019-02-01T21:10:20Z")
(listening to the incessant buzzing in that clip) Yes, living in Today’s complex world of the future is a little like having bees live in your head. But there they are! ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2019, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/30260 "2019-02-01T21:16:40Z")
Is this the correct order? _The Russians are Coming! The Russians are Coming! The President’s Analyst Dr. Strangelove, or How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love the Bomb_ ---
**Author:** ![jsc1953](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/5daacb/32.png) [@jsc1953](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jsc1953)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2019, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/30261 "2019-02-01T21:20:46Z")
Strangelove: 1964 Russians: 1966 Analyst: 1967 ---
**Author:** ![viakix](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/8c91f0/32.png) [@viakix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/viakix)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2019, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/30262 "2019-02-01T21:21:21Z")
Just curious how President Trump would be viewed by the media if he ran as a democrat instead of republican? ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2019, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/30263 "2019-02-01T21:23:08Z")
Right, I know that, but I mean to sit and watch all three in a row. _Strangelove_ has to come last, because, you know, only individuals of the highest quality. ---
**Author:** ![Airbeck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/airbeck/32/6574_2.png) [@Airbeck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Airbeck)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2019, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/30264 "2019-02-01T21:26:32Z")
> [@viakix](#): > > Just curious how President Trump would be viewed by the media if he ran as a democrat instead of republican? You just joined today and this is your first post. Welcome. The media would cover the things that he says and does just like now. “The Media” is not a single organization that all makes decision as one. So asking what “The Media” would do is as non-nonsensical as asking what the American public are going to have for dinner tonight. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070.md?page=1512) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070.md?page=1514)