# 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:** 1548
**Author:** ![jsc1953](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/5daacb/32.png) [@jsc1953](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jsc1953)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2019, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/30945 "2019-03-04T14:43:43Z")
> [@Gyrate](#): > > Which would explain why this year he badgered Abe into submitting the nomination. If someday it’s revealed that Trump, or his toadies pressured and threatened the Nobel committee to rescind Obama’s award…well, I would be shocked. Shocked. ---
**Author:** ![Rick\_Kitchen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rick_kitchen/32/522_2.png) [@Rick\_Kitchen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick_Kitchen)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2019, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/30946 "2019-03-04T19:10:47Z")
Jerry Nadler of the House Judiciary Committee has issued 81 requests for documentation (in advance of subpoenas, if necessary) to people and organizations associated with Individual 1. > **[With Sweeping Document Request, Democrats Launch Broad Trump Corruption...](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/04/us/politics/trump-obstruction.html)** > > The House Judiciary Committee on Monday sent document requests to 81 agencies, individuals and entities tied to President Trump, beginning a broad obstruction and corruption inquiry. Seth Abramson tweeted a long thread listing each person on the list and who they are. > ---
**Author:** ![Anny\_Middon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/bc79bd/32.png) [@Anny\_Middon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anny_Middon)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2019, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/30947 "2019-03-04T19:24:57Z")
Individual-1 is now [blaming the Cohen hearing for his failure with North Korea](https://www.politico.com/story/2019/03/04/trump-cohen-hearing-north-korea-summit-1200818) I’m not following his “logic” here. Was the self-called master negotiator distracted by news of the hearing? If so, sad! Or did he think it was news to Kim that I-1 is a con man and a liar? If so, another sad example of how delusionary he is. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2019, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/30948 "2019-03-04T19:41:42Z")
The classless Buffoon-in-Chief strikes again: > [@](#): > > [Trump once again fetes football champ with fast food](https://www.politico.com/story/2019/03/04/trump-football-fast-food-1201977) > > Trump on Monday once again welcomed a college football champion with a spread of fast food, serving the FCS champion North Dakota State University Bison chicken sandwiches from Chick-fil-A and Big Macs from McDonald’s instead of a fancier meal prepared by White House chefs. The lunch was reminiscent of the pizza, burgers and fries feast he offered to the FBS champion Clemson Tigers, who visited the White House in January… ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2019, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/30949 "2019-03-04T19:44:19Z")
This is actually pretty smart. If he put on a lavish spread for the mostly white ND State after feeding burgers to the mostly-black Clemson, it would be bad optics (regardless of the shutdown). ---
**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:** [March 4, 2019, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/30950 "2019-03-04T19:49:14Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > This is actually pretty smart. If he put on a lavish spread for the mostly white ND State after feeding burgers to the mostly-black Clemson, it would be bad optics (regardless of the shutdown). Somehow I doubt that was part of the planning. “Fast-food, good!” ---
**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:** [March 4, 2019, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/30951 "2019-03-04T19:56:58Z")
Yeah, you never know when those Deep State White House chefs will substitute basil for tarragon in the _sauce Bearnaise_ for the Chateaubriand. Those bastards. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2019, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/30952 "2019-03-04T20:00:57Z")
> [@kaylasdad99](#): > > Yeah, you never know when those Deep State White House chefs will substitute basil for tarragon in the _sauce Bearnaise_ for the Chateaubriand. > > Those bastards. Barbaric, they probably put sugar in cornbread. ---
**Author:** ![VinylTurnip](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b2d939/32.png) [@VinylTurnip](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VinylTurnip)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2019, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/30953 "2019-03-04T20:10:07Z")
> [@running\_coach](#): > > Somehow I doubt that was part of the planning. > > “Fast-food, good!” I’m actually relieved— I saw the headline “Trump Feeds Chick Fil-A to Bisons” earlier and assumed he was entering some bizarre new Dr. Moreau phase. ---
**Author:** ![simster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/simster/32/1047_2.png) [@simster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/simster)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2019, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/30954 "2019-03-04T20:17:19Z")
> [@running\_coach](#): > > Somehow I doubt that was part of the planning. > > “Fast-food, good!” > [@DJT](#): > > “We could’ve had chefs, we could have, but we had fast food – because I know you people,” President Donald Trump said to laughter. “because I know you people” ([https://www.cnn.com/2019/03/04/politics/trump-fast-food-white-house/index.html](https://www.cnn.com/2019/03/04/politics/trump-fast-food-white-house/index.html)) ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2019, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/30955 "2019-03-04T20:28:44Z")
> [@Gyrate](#): > > Which would explain why this year he badgered Abe into submitting the nomination. I wonder if Abe was just messing with him. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2019, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/30956 "2019-03-04T20:42:27Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > I wonder if Abe was just messing with him. What? Isn’t Abe Honest? ---
**Author:** ![dasmoocher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/dbc845/32.png) [@dasmoocher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dasmoocher)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2019, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/30957 "2019-03-04T20:50:24Z")
[The Making of the Fox News White House](The Making of the Fox News White House Fox News has always been partisan. But has it become propaganda?) _Fox News has always been partisan. But has it become propaganda?_ > [@](#): > > In January, during the longest government shutdown in America’s history, President Donald Trump rode in a motorcade through Hidalgo County, Texas, eventually stopping on a grassy bluff overlooking the Rio Grande. The White House wanted to dramatize what Trump was portraying as a national emergency: the need to build a wall along the Mexican border. The presence of armored vehicles, bales of confiscated marijuana, and federal agents in flak jackets underscored the message. > > But the photo op dramatized something else about the Administration. After members of the press pool got out of vans and headed over to where the President was about to speak, they noticed that Sean Hannity, the Fox News host, was already on location. Unlike them, he hadn’t been confined by the Secret Service, and was mingling with Administration officials, at one point hugging Kirstjen Nielsen, the Secretary of Homeland Security. The pool report noted that Hannity was seen “huddling” with the White House communications director, Bill Shine. After the photo op, Hannity had an exclusive on-air interview with Trump. Politico later reported that it was Hannity’s seventh interview with the President, and Fox’s forty-second. Since then, Trump has given Fox two more. He has granted only ten to the three other main television networks combined, and none to CNN, which he denounces as “fake news.” > > Hannity was treated in Texas like a member of the Administration because he virtually is one. The same can be said of Fox’s chairman, Rupert Murdoch. Fox has long been a bane of liberals, but in the past two years many people who watch the network closely, including some Fox alumni, say that it has evolved into something that hasn’t existed before in the United States. Nicole Hemmer, an assistant professor of Presidential studies at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center and the author of “Messengers of the Right,” a history of the conservative media’s impact on American politics, says of Fox, “It’s the closest we’ve come to having state TV.” > > … > > Axios recently reported that sixty per cent of Trump’s day is spent in unstructured “executive time,” much of it filled by television. Charlie Black, a longtime Republican lobbyist in Washington, whose former firm, Black, Manafort & Stone, advised Trump in the eighties and nineties, told me, “Trump gets up and watches ‘Fox & Friends’ and thinks these are his friends. He thinks anything on Fox is friendly. But the problem is he gets unvetted ideas.” Trump has told confidants that he has ranked the loyalty of many reporters, on a scale of 1 to 10. Bret Baier, Fox News’ chief political anchor, is a 6; Hannity a solid 10. Steve Doocy, the co-host of “Fox & Friends,” is so adoring that Trump gives him a 12. So not only propaganda, apparently there are report cards as well. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2019, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/30958 "2019-03-04T21:18:45Z")
[Link gefixet](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/03/11/the-making-of-the-fox-news-white-house). ---
**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:** [March 4, 2019, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/30959 "2019-03-04T22:57:27Z")
> [@jsc1953](#): > > If someday it’s revealed that Trump, or his toadies pressured and threatened the Nobel committee to rescind Obama’s award…well, I would be shocked. Shocked. Has a Nobel ever been rescinded? Seems like not a doable thing. Unless the US conquers Sweden and takes control of its institutions. ---
**Author:** ![ThelmaLou](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thelmalou/32/390_2.png) [@ThelmaLou](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThelmaLou)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2019, 12:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/30960 "2019-03-05T00:16:59Z")
Someone please explain the underlined part to me. > [@](#): > > Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell acknowledged Monday that the Senate will pass a resolution blocking President Donald Trump’s emergency declaration on the southern border. > > The Kentucky Republican’s comments underscore his inability to shield the president from a bipartisan rebuke, though McConnell added that he expected the House to uphold the president’s veto. > > McConnell’s Kentucky GOP colleague Rand Paul became the fourth Republican senator to join 47 Senate Democrats in supporting the House-passed disapproval resolution, which needs a simple majority to go to Trump’s desk. The Senate will vote later this month on the measure to stop Trump from unilaterally redirecting billions toward his border wall. > > “What is clear in the Senate is that there will be enough votes to pass the resolution of disapproval, which will then be vetoed by the president and then in all likelihood the veto will be upheld in the House,” McConnell said at an event in Louisville, Ky. > … > [Source](https://a.msn.com/r/2/BBUmC4q?m=en-us&referrerID=InAppShare) This is the part I don’t understand (underlined): “In all likelihood the veto will be upheld in the house.” That sounds like it’s saying thump’s veto will stick, i.e., that the resolution against the emergency declaration will be defeated. I would expect the veto to be overridden by the Democratic majority in the House. I have a feeling I’m misunderstanding the terminology. Or McConnell is full of crap. Explain like I’m 5. ---
**Author:** ![jasg](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f0a364/32.png) [@jasg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jasg)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2019, 12:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/30961 "2019-03-05T00:45:47Z")
> [@ThelmaLou](#): > > Someone please explain the underlined part to me. > This is the part I don’t understand (underlined): “In all likelihood the veto will be upheld in the house.” That sounds like it’s saying thump’s veto will stick, i.e., that the resolution against the emergency declaration will be defeated. I would expect the veto to be overridden by the Democratic majority in the House. I have a feeling I’m misunderstanding the terminology. Or McConnell is full of crap. Explain like I’m 5. McConnel’s terminology is odd to me. I think he is saying “The Veto will not be overridden in the house.” It takes a 2/3rds vote to do so and the Democrats don’t have enough votes for that. ---
**Author:** ![jasg](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f0a364/32.png) [@jasg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jasg)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2019, 12:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/30962 "2019-03-05T00:52:13Z")
Dupe ---
**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:** [March 5, 2019, 3:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/30963 "2019-03-05T03:01:07Z")
The House vote got 13 Republicans to support the resolution, for a total of 245 in favor. To override the veto, they need 46 more votes (out of 189 no’s). Sounds a tall order. ---
**Author:** ![Zakalwe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zakalwe/32/270_2.png) [@Zakalwe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zakalwe)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2019, 3:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/30964 "2019-03-05T03:22:50Z")
> [@Rick\_Kitchen](#): > > Jerry Nadler of the House Judiciary Committee has issued 81 requests for documentation (in advance of subpoenas, if necessary) to people and organizations associated with Individual 1. > [https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/04/us/politics/trump-obstruction.html](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/04/us/politics/trump-obstruction.html) > > Seth Abramson tweeted a long thread listing each person on the list and who they are. > [https://twitter.com/SethAbramson/status/1102619649802420225](https://twitter.com/SethAbramson/status/1102619649802420225) This sounds to me like ( **ThelmaLou**? Imma need you to sit down for this part) the Democrats have some advance notice (or can just read the tea leaves) that Mueller’s report is going to say that there is no provable evidence of Trump, himself, colluding with Russia. So they’re going to Plan B to try to hang Individual 1 on financial crimes and general skulduggery. Or at least taint the hell out of him for 2020 with the non-MAGAs. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070.md?page=1547) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070.md?page=1549)