# 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:** 472
**Author:** ![psychobunny](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/54ee81/32.png) [@psychobunny](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/psychobunny)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2017, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/9424 "2017-08-04T21:36:57Z")
The good new is that while Trump is on vacation, there are steps being taken to fix the leaks. [link](http://www.townandcountrymag.com/society/politics/a10366986/trump-white-house-renovation-details/) > [@](#): > > Regardless of whether the president is happy with the current state of the White House, the presidential mansion is about to undergo major renovations this month, from August 4 through 20. A White House spokesperson tells Town & Country that this is “a massive renovation” that is “more out of necessity than cosmetic.” > The work, which will be carried out by the General Service Administration, includes: > > Refurbishing cracked stairs leading into the White House from the South Lawn, which have not been restored in 64 years > Performing exterior electricity upgrades, power-washing, and resurfacing an exterior door > Upgrading the HVAC system, which is 27 years old and runs 24 hours a day, seven days a week > **Fixing leaks in the lower press area of the West Wing** > Renovating the kitchen of the Navy Mess > Painting and renovating to freshen up the colors and switching out curtains and carpets > Removing temporary stairs by the press briefing room (bolding added) ---
**Author:** ![SteveG1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bb73d2/32.png) [@SteveG1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SteveG1)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2017, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/9425 "2017-08-04T22:09:23Z")
> [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](#): > > Hey, Steve. Your last name wouldn’t happen to be Rogers by any chance? No, I’d probably be more of a “that nerdy guy who works somewhere at Stark Industries doing something” D ---
**Author:** ![SteveG1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bb73d2/32.png) [@SteveG1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SteveG1)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2017, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/9426 "2017-08-04T22:10:53Z")
> [@psychobunny](#): > > The good new is that while Trump is on vacation, there are steps being taken to fix the leaks. > [link](http://www.townandcountrymag.com/society/politics/a10366986/trump-white-house-renovation-details/) > > (bolding added) You forgot the bestest part - CHANGING ALL THE LOCKS 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Shoeless](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/shoeless/32/7099_2.png) [@Shoeless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shoeless)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2017, 10:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/9427 "2017-08-04T22:38:21Z")
> [@ThelmaLou](#): > > Better: Loser Trump or Trump the Loser > > Loser is the single worst insult in the Trump dictionary (which, at last count, contains about 350 short words. When he used _beleaguered_ in a tweet, I jumped up and shouted, “FAKE!”). Maybe it was an autocorrect of “bigly”. ---
**Author:** ![psychobunny](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/54ee81/32.png) [@psychobunny](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/psychobunny)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2017, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/9428 "2017-08-04T22:46:45Z")
> [@SteveG1](#): > > You forgot the bestest part - CHANGING ALL THE LOCKS 😃 You joke but I had a patient once who was the White House locksmith. I think it was about 1996 and he was hoping that Clinton would lose because they would then have to change all the locks. He brought me a box of official White House M&Ms. ---
**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:** [August 4, 2017, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/9429 "2017-08-04T22:52:41Z")
> [@Shoeless](#): > > Maybe it was an autocorrect of “bigly”. I was hoping someone had added “Trumplish” as one of the translation choices on the Dialectizer. ---
**Author:** ![SteveG1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bb73d2/32.png) [@SteveG1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SteveG1)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2017, 11:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/9430 "2017-08-04T23:00:24Z")
> [@psychobunny](#): > > You joke but I had a patient once who was the White House locksmith. I think it was about 1996 and he was hoping that Clinton would lose because they would then have to change all the locks. He brought me a box of official White House M&Ms. That’s more valid than SOME reasons I’ve heard 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2017, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/9431 "2017-08-04T23:27:45Z")
> [@psychobunny](#): > > He brought me a box of official White House M&Ms. Of course now they have only T&Ts. ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2017, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/9432 "2017-08-04T23:29:34Z")
> [@psychobunny](#): > > You joke but I had a patient once who was the White House locksmith. I think it was about 1996 and he was hoping that Clinton would lose because they would then have to change all the locks. He brought me a box of official White House M&Ms. Clinton White House? The M & Ms were all green. ---
**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:** [August 4, 2017, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/9433 "2017-08-04T23:30:49Z")
This is good news. [The guardrails hold](https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-guardrails-hold/2017/08/03/fcfc157c-7877-11e7-9eac-d56bd5568db8_story.html?utm_term=.7a646d418bd3) Emphasis added. > [@](#): > > A future trivia question and historical footnote, the spectacular 10-day flameout of Anthony Scaramucci qualifies as the most entertaining episode yet of the ongoing reality show that is the Trump presidency. (Working title: “The Pompadours of 1600 Pennsylvania.”) But even as the cocksure sycophant’s gobsmacking spectacle stole the show, something of real importance took place a bit lower on the radar. > > At five separate junctures, the sinews of our democracy held against the careening recklessness of this presidency. Consequently, Donald Trump’s worst week proved a particularly fine hour for American democracy: > > 1. The military says no to Trump on the transgender ban. > > Well, not directly — that’s insubordination — but with rather elegant circumspection. The president tweeted out a total ban on transgender people serving in the military. It came practically out of nowhere. … What was done? Nothing. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs simply declared that a tweet is not an order. Until he receives a formal command and develops new guidelines, the tweet will be ignored. > … > > 1. The Senate saves Sessions. > > Trump’s relentless public humiliation of Attorney General Jeff Sessions was clearly intended to get him to resign. He didn’t, in part because of increasing support from Congress. We discount here the solemn praise Sessions garnered from hypocritical Democrats who just weeks ago were denouncing him as an unreconstructed racist. > … > > 1. Senate Republicans reject the Obamacare repeal. > > The causes here are multiple, most having nothing to do with Trump. Republicans are deeply divided on the proper role of government in health care. … Nonetheless, the stunning Senate rejection of repeal was also a pointed rejection of Trump’s health-care hectoring. > … > > 1. The Boy Scouts protest. > > In a rebuke not as earthshaking but still telling, the chief executive of the Boy Scouts found it necessary to apologize for the president’s speech last week to their quadrennial jamboree. > … > > 1. The police chiefs chide. > > In an address to law enforcement officials, Trump gave a wink and a nod to cops roughing up suspects. Several police chiefs subsequently reprimanded Trump for encouraging police brutality — a mild form, perhaps, but brutality still. > … > > Whatever your substantive position on the various issues involved above, we should all be grateful that from the generals to the Scouts, from the senators to the cops, the institutions of both political and civil society are holding up well. > … ---
**Author:** ![SteveG1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bb73d2/32.png) [@SteveG1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SteveG1)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2017, 11:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/9434 "2017-08-04T23:46:14Z")
> [@](#): > > 1. The Senate saves Sessions. > > Trump’s relentless public humiliation of Attorney General Jeff Sessions was clearly intended to get him to resign. He didn’t, in part because of increasing support from Congress. We discount here the solemn praise Sessions garnered from hypocritical Democrats who just weeks ago were denouncing him as an unreconstructed racist. He IS a racist. And yet I find it strangely satisfying that he is hanging around despite the wishes of the Orange Shit Gibbon (who for all the "tough guy pretenses doesn’t have the balls to fire him outright at this time). ---
**Author:** ![SteveG1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bb73d2/32.png) [@SteveG1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SteveG1)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2017, 11:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/9435 "2017-08-04T23:56:52Z")
“Sean Spicer’s out, Reince Priebus is out, Trumpcare is dead, and Kim Jong Un has a missile that can reach New York. And, weirdly, I don’t feel tired from all the winning yet.” —Jimmy Kimmel ---
**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:** [August 5, 2017, 12:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/9436 "2017-08-05T00:05:23Z")
> [@SteveG1](#): > > He IS a racist. And yet I find it strangely satisfying that he is hanging around despite the wishes of the Orange Shit Gibbon (who for all the "tough guy pretenses doesn’t have the balls to fire him outright at this time). I agree. I don’t like what Sessions stands for or what he wants to do. But I’m glad the Senate ganged up on Trump to keep him from firing the Attorney General–because ultimately the mission would have been to replace him with someone who would fire Mueller. And that’s something I really DON’T want to happen. ---
**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:** [August 5, 2017, 12:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/9437 "2017-08-05T00:28:31Z")
> [@](#): > > 1. The Senate saves Sessions. > > Trump’s relentless public humiliation of Attorney General Jeff Sessions was clearly intended to get him to resign. He didn’t, in part because of increasing support from Congress. We discount here the solemn praise Sessions garnered from hypocritical Democrats who just weeks ago were denouncing him as an unreconstructed racist. I’m really sick of this false conclusion, that if someone is supportive of Sessions remaining in his position but hates everything he stands for, it makes them a hypocrite. It’s utter bullshit. I loathe Sessions. He is the antithesis of virtually everything I believe. I did not want him as AG. But he is Trump’s pick. Elections have consequences. When it was learned that Sessions lied in his confirmation hearing about meeting with Russians, in my opinion, _that_ was when he should have been fired. Trump could have done it then. There was an actual basis for doing it – same as when he reluctantly fired Flynn. But he didn’t, and that was Trump’s choice, too. When Trump later started trying to force Sessions to resign and it became clear his actual reason was to try and fire Mueller, well, that’s something different altogether. That’s Trump abusing his power and Sessions resisting the effort. I still think Sessions will be scooped up by Mueller when he indicts Sessions for his perjury. But for now, I can support Sessions in his choice to resist Trump’s efforts to dislodge him as AG, continue to despise him as a person and as an AG, and not at all feel like I’m a hypocrite for simultaneously doing both those things. ---
**Author:** ![mistymage](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mistymage/32/459_2.png) [@mistymage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mistymage)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2017, 12:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/9438 "2017-08-05T00:30:54Z")
> [@Darren\_Garrison](#): > > Of course now they have only T&Ts. TNAs … the McMahons got a great deal on that branding. ---
**Author:** ![John\_DiFool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_difool/32/19543_2.png) [@John\_DiFool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_DiFool)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2017, 12:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/9439 "2017-08-05T00:48:53Z")
> [@jayjay](#): > > Typically, with anything concerning Dinesh D’Felon, it’s neither sarcasm nor satire. Heaps of hypocrisy and psychological projection tho. ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2017, 12:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/9440 "2017-08-05T00:50:12Z")
I don’t understand why I don’t want him to fire Sessions. It’s win-win from my POV. Sessions is horrifying, and Trump would look just that much worse. ---
**Author:** ![enipla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/54ee81/32.png) [@enipla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/enipla)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2017, 1:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/9441 "2017-08-05T01:30:33Z")
> [@jsgoddess](#): > > I don’t understand why I don’t want him to fire Sessions. It’s win-win from my POV. Sessions is horrifying, and Trump would look just that much worse. I feel much the same way. As much as I dislike Sessions, he’s the only one in the Trumps administration/circus that seems to have some backbone. Is he protecting Mueller and hopes the house of cards comes down? He could be in a world of shit either way I suppose. Staying on perhaps puts him in a better position. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2017, 1:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/9442 "2017-08-05T01:33:54Z")
> [@ThelmaLou](#): > > This is good news. > > [The guardrails hold](https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-guardrails-hold/2017/08/03/fcfc157c-7877-11e7-9eac-d56bd5568db8_story.html?utm_term=.7a646d418bd3) Emphasis added. That’s right, fans, Krauthammer is now one of the Voices of Reason. _Krauthammer_. ---
**Author:** ![voltaire](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voltaire/32/313_2.png) [@voltaire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/voltaire)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2017, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070/9443 "2017-08-05T02:42:43Z")
> [@enipla](#): > > I feel much the same way. > > As much as I dislike Sessions, he’s the only one in the Trumps administration/circus that seems to have some backbone. > > Is he protecting Mueller and hopes the house of cards comes down? He could be in a world of shit either way I suppose. Staying on perhaps puts him in a better position. Preserving Sessions to preserve Mueller is not even strictly necessary anymore. Rod Rosenstein isn’t going to fire Mueller. Trump has been blocked from making any recess appointments. And the Senate would either ignore, reject, or demand a pledge and assurances re:Mueller from anybody Trump nominates. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070.md?page=471) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-a-clusterfuck-in-the-making/774070.md?page=473)