# 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:** 1896
**Author:** ![steatopygia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steatopygia/32/3132_2.png) [@steatopygia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/steatopygia)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2019, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/37905 "2019-10-17T22:30:35Z")
Things are happening pretty fast again but lets not forget something we need to know about. The content of Trump and Erdogan’s phone call. Whatever was said led directly to US forces retreating, nuclear weapons being abandoned, and a blow up in the mid-East with people being killed. All after ONE phone call from the bestest deal maker ever. ---
**Author:** ![Euphonious\_Polemic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/euphonious_polemic/32/3002_2.png) [@Euphonious\_Polemic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Euphonious_Polemic)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2019, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/37906 "2019-10-17T22:52:04Z")
> [@Snowboarder\_Bo](#): > > [Rick Perry has resigned](https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/466368-rick-perry-resigns-as-energy-secretary). Well, he was 100% responsible for the whole Trump-Ukraine fiasco, after all. Right? Case closed now, right? ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2019, 11:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/37907 "2019-10-17T23:06:22Z")
> [@Snowboarder\_Bo](#): > > [Rick Perry has resigned](https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/466368-rick-perry-resigns-as-energy-secretary). That’s disturbing. The DOE seemed to be the only department that wasn’t being actively destroyed. I think Perry got there, and realized that he was now in charge of nuclear weapons and nuclear reactor safety, and was afraid to actually fuck with anything. Bad a choice as he was, it’s not hard to imagine FPT finding a far worse replacement. ---
**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:** [October 17, 2019, 11:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/37908 "2019-10-17T23:10:37Z")
> [@Mr.Greenjeans](#): > > It’ll be fun if the G7 is at Trump’s hotel and he is no longer president. That’s quite a unique, optimistic perspective you have there. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Gorsnak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gorsnak/32/7587_2.png) [@Gorsnak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gorsnak)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2019, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/37909 "2019-10-17T23:34:20Z")
> [@k9bfriender](#): > > That’s disturbing. The DOE seemed to be the only department that wasn’t being actively destroyed. > > I think Perry got there, and realized that he was now in charge of nuclear weapons and nuclear reactor safety, and was afraid to actually fuck with anything. > > Bad a choice as he was, it’s not hard to imagine FPT finding a far worse replacement. It’s a terrifying world we live in, where Rick Perry was one of the sane, responsible adults in the administration. ---
**Author:** ![Euphonious\_Polemic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/euphonious_polemic/32/3002_2.png) [@Euphonious\_Polemic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Euphonious_Polemic)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2019, 11:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/37910 "2019-10-17T23:46:24Z")
> [@k9bfriender](#): > > Bad a choice as he was, it’s not hard to imagine FPT finding a far worse replacement. Here he is: [https://postmediacanadadotcom.files.wordpress.com/2011/03/7484-wall04-homero-simpsons11.jpg?quality=60&strip=all](https://postmediacanadadotcom.files.wordpress.com/2011/03/7484-wall04-homero-simpsons11.jpg?quality=60&strip=all) ---
**Author:** ![nelliebly](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nelliebly/32/5422_2.png) [@nelliebly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nelliebly)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2019, 12:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/37911 "2019-10-18T00:12:18Z")
Another one of those “I can’t believe Trump supporters can respect this guy” moments. Reportedly Erdogan threw it in the dust bin. > [@](#): > > His Excellency > Recep Tayyip Erdogan > President of the Republic of Turkey > Ankara > > Dear Mr. President: > > Let’s work out a good deal! You don’t want to be responsible for slaughtering thousands of people, and I don’t want to be responsible for destroying the Turkish economy–and I will. I’ve already given you a little sample with respect to Pastor Brunson. > > I’ve also worked hard to solve some of your country’s problems. Don’t let the world down. You can make a great deal. General Mazloum is willing to negotiate with you, and he is willing to make concessions they would never have made in the past. I am confidentially enclosing a copy of his letter to me, just received. > > History will look upon you favorably if you get this done the right and humane way. It will look upon you forever as the devil if good things don’t happen. Don’t be a tough guy. Don’t be a fool! > > I will call you later. > > Sincerely, [signature] He writes like a child. What an embarrassment. ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2019, 12:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/37912 "2019-10-18T00:12:37Z")
> [@k9bfriender](#): > > I think Perry got there, and realized that he was now in charge of nuclear weapons and nuclear reactor safety He’s also in charge of ummm…I forget. Oops. ---
**Author:** ![Slash1972](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slash1972/32/6461_2.png) [@Slash1972](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slash1972)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2019, 12:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/37913 "2019-10-18T00:16:05Z")
> [@Johnny\_L.A](#): > > [Trump has awarded next year’s G-7 summit of world leaders to his Miami-area resort](https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-has-awarded-next-years-g-7-summit-of-world-leaders-to-his-miami-area-resort-the-white-house-said/2019/10/17/221b32d6-ef52-11e9-89eb-ec56cd414732_story.html). From the article: “The Trump Organization on Thursday said it was “honored” to have been chosen by its owner, the president, for this event” No way did I just read that sentence in a real newspaper. ---
**Author:** ![Sherrerd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sherrerd/32/8_2.png) [@Sherrerd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sherrerd)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2019, 12:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/37914 "2019-10-18T00:31:16Z")
> [@Slash1972](#): > > From the article: > “The Trump Organization on Thursday said it was “honored” to have been chosen by its owner, the president, for this event” > No way did I just read that sentence in a real newspaper. Yeah, that’s real Dear Leader dictatorship-style prose. If Trump “wins” in 2020 (through some combination of vote-suppression and hacking), then we will all be expected to express ourselves in that way. On pain of “re-education.” On the other hand, if 20 or so GOP Senators hear from enough of their constituents that they’ve had enough of Donnie-boy, we could get rid of him before the G-7. In that case one would expect the participants to do anything and everything to avoid Doral and its bedbugs. They’d be better off in camper-trailers parked in a Walmart parking lot, and they know it. ---
**Author:** ![Aspenglow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aspenglow/32/76_2.png) [@Aspenglow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aspenglow)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2019, 12:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/37915 "2019-10-18T00:40:01Z")
> [@k9bfriender](#): > > That’s disturbing. **The DOE seemed to be the only department that wasn’t being actively destroyed.** > > I think Perry got there, and realized that he was now in charge of nuclear weapons and nuclear reactor safety, and was afraid to actually fuck with anything. > > Bad a choice as he was, it’s not hard to imagine FPT finding a far worse replacement. I’m sorry, but it’s not really true. I’ll agree the destruction wasn’t active, but the passive destruction has been incredibly successful. This is an article I think everyone should read in [Vanity Fair](https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/07/department-of-energy-risks-michael-lewis) from way back in September 2017. I remember it because it scared the shit out of me. The DOE is in tough shape, too. ☹ ---
**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:** [October 18, 2019, 12:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/37916 "2019-10-18T00:59:13Z")
> [@Aspenglow](#): > > I’m sorry, but it’s not really true. I’ll agree the destruction wasn’t active, but the passive destruction has been incredibly successful. > > This is an article I think everyone should read in [Vanity Fair](https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/07/department-of-energy-risks-michael-lewis) from way back in September 2017. I remember it because it scared the shit out of me. > > The DOE is in tough shape, too. ☹ I don’t subscribe to VF. How about quoting a couple of the scariest parts? (It’s almost Halloween anyway.) ---
**Author:** ![enipla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/54ee81/32.png) [@enipla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/enipla)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2019, 1:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/37917 "2019-10-18T01:09:15Z")
> [@nelliebly](#): > > Another one of those “I can’t believe Trump supporters can respect this guy” moments. Reportedly Erdogan threw it in the dust bin. > [signature] > > He writes like a child. What an embarrassment. The scary part is someone obviously helped him with the wording, and spelling. I suspect it was Barron. Or well, It could have been Don Jr., or Eric. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2019, 1:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/37918 "2019-10-18T01:09:50Z")
> [@ThelmaLou](#): > > I don’t subscribe to VF. How about quoting a couple of the scariest parts? (It’s almost Halloween anyway.) For those interested in reading the article, you don’t need to subscribe. I can read it fine, and I don’t subscribe, but you can also open it in your browser’s private/incognito mode to read it. ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2019, 1:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/37919 "2019-10-18T01:10:51Z")
> [@Jack\_Batty](#): > > Nooooo. Not Trump. Tax fraud? The deuce you say. Shouldn’t that be “The Douche you say”? > [@begbert2](#): > > Everybody knows that Trump is a criminal. It’s just that his republican supporters and enablers like crime when it’s perceived as benefiting them, or him - since if he commits crimes to benefit himself, they can feel like they can commit crimes too. > > People who don’t like crime aren’t Trump supporters, or republican politicians. Even as a kid, I knew along with everyone else that Trump was dishonest, bigoted, and apparently free to flout both state and national law. > [@Slash1972](#): > > From the article: > > “The Trump Organization on Thursday said it was “honored” to have been chosen by its owner, the president, for this event” > > No way did I just read that sentence in a real newspaper. & > [@Sherrerd](#): > > Yeah, that’s real Dear Leader dictatorship-style prose. > > If Trump “wins” in 2020 (through some combination of vote-suppression and hacking), then we will all be expected to express ourselves in that way. On pain of “re-education.” I’ve now lived in two countries controlled by actual dictators. And those dictators didn’t even have the temerity to pull the outright shit that Tan the Conman does on a daily basis. > [@Sherrerd](#): > > On the other hand, if 20 or so GOP Senators hear from enough of their constituents that they’ve had enough of Donnie-boy, we could get rid of him before the G-7. I do like that view. The reality though is that those senators are from states where the majority of the voters are full-on members of the magacult. They believe with the fervor of a convert because, let’s face it, that’s what they are. They’ve converted from what they were taught in civics (Hell, they’ve converted from what they were taught in church, too!) to the belief that the current PO[del]TU[/del]S can do no wrong. If he does it, it is, _by definition_, meet and right. Verily, they will support whatever he does, and when asked why, they will respond: “It is very meet, right, and our bounden duty, that we should at all times, and in all places, give thanks unto him, he who is not Hillary”. > [@Sherrerd](#): > > In that case one would expect the participants to do anything and everything to avoid Doral and its bedbugs. They’d be better off in camper-trailers parked in a Walmart parking lot, and they know it. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if the other countries’ legislatures were to enact laws that prohibited their leaders from enriching our so-called president with emoluments of any kind? I can just imagine the tweestorm twitler would send out in mind-numbing frenzy. Fo for it. Post your version of what that jackass would say. ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2019, 1:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/37920 "2019-10-18T01:13:07Z")
> [@enipla](#): > > The scary part is someone obviously helped him with the wording, and spelling. I suspect it was Barron. > > Or well, It could have been Don Jr., or Eric. No, no, no. The scariest part is that it’s true that Trump is the president of the United States of America. Happy Halloween! ---
**Author:** ![Aspenglow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aspenglow/32/76_2.png) [@Aspenglow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aspenglow)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2019, 1:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/37921 "2019-10-18T01:13:07Z")
> [@ThelmaLou](#): > > I don’t subscribe to VF. How about quoting a couple of the scariest parts? (It’s almost Halloween anyway.) It’s a really long article. You get 3 freebies a month – worth a try? Here are a few excerpts: > [@](#): > > “The election happened,” remembers Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall, then deputy secretary of the D.O.E. “And he won. And then there was radio silence. We were prepared for the next day. And nothing happened.” Across the federal government the Trump people weren’t anywhere to be found. Allegedly, between the election and the inauguration not a single Trump representative set foot inside the Department of Agriculture, for example. The Department of Agriculture has employees or contractors in every county in the United States, and the Trump people seemed simply to be ignoring the place. Where they did turn up inside the federal government, they appeared confused and unprepared. A small group attended a briefing at the State Department, for instance, only to learn that the briefings they needed to hear were classified. None of the Trump people had security clearance—or, for that matter, any experience in foreign policy—and so they weren’t allowed to receive an education. On his visits to the White House soon after the election, Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, expressed surprise that so much of its staff seemed to be leaving. “It was like he thought it was a corporate acquisition or something,” says an Obama White House staffer. “He thought everyone just stayed.” > [@](#): > > Deputy Secretary Elizabeth Sherwood- Randall has spent her 30-year career working on reducing the world’s supply of weapons of mass destruction—she led the U.S. mission to remove chemical weapons from Syria. But like everyone else who came to work at the D.O.E., she’d grown accustomed to no one knowing what the department actually did. When she’d called home, back in 2013, to tell them that President Obama had nominated her to be second-in-command of the place, her mother said, “Well, darling, I have no idea what the Department of Energy does, but you’ve always had a lot of energy, so I’m sure you’ll be perfect for the role.” > > The Trump administration had no clearer idea what she did with her day than her mother. And yet, according to Sherwood-Randall, they were certain they didn’t need to hear anything she had to say before they took over her job. > [@](#): > > Since Perry was confirmed, his role has been ceremonial and bizarre. He pops up in distant lands and tweets in praise of this or that D.O.E. program while his masters inside the White House create budgets to eliminate those very programs. His sporadic public communications have had in them something of the shell-shocked grandmother trying to preside over a pleasant family Thanksgiving dinner while pretending that her blind-drunk husband isn’t standing naked on the dining-room table waving the carving knife over his head. That’s as far as I will go. There’s lots more. ---
**Author:** ![Aspenglow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aspenglow/32/76_2.png) [@Aspenglow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aspenglow)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2019, 1:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/37922 "2019-10-18T01:14:49Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > For those interested in reading the article, you don’t need to subscribe. I can read it fine, and I don’t subscribe, but you can also open it in your browser’s private/incognito mode to read it. Thanks. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Morgyn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/morgyn/32/3041_2.png) [@Morgyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morgyn)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2019, 1:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/37923 "2019-10-18T01:18:47Z")
> [@Muffin](#): > > [Turkey holding 50 US nuclear bombs 'hostage' at air base, report says | Fox News](https://www.foxnews.com/world/turkey-nuclear-bombs-hostage-syria) > What a UUGE WIN for Trumpelstiltskin: bumped the Broken Arrow tally from 32 to 82, and only had to start a slaughter to get the job done! WIN TRUMP WIN! I occasionally like to indulge in flights of paranoid fantasy, and after hearing about those weapons, I imagined part of the phone call between Trump and Erdogan. > [@](#): > > _Trump_: So what would it take to get you to guarantee me a lifetime income from Trump Towers Istanbul, and maybe refuge from extradition after I leave office? > > _Erdogan_: How about 50 nuclear weapons? > > _Trump_: Look, I promised them to Vlad, but I think I can get him to let you have 25 of them. How does that sound? > > _Erodgan_: Deal! ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2019, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/37924 "2019-10-18T01:57:19Z")
> [@Sherrerd](#): > > Yeah, that’s real Dear Leader dictatorship-style prose. > > If Trump “wins” in 2020 (through some combination of vote-suppression and hacking), then we will all be expected to express ourselves in that way. On pain of “re-education.” Do you remember the very first cabinet meeting after the inauguration? The entire cabinet spent the meeting thanking him for his leadership. It was really weird. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070.md?page=1895) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070.md?page=1897)