Ivanka Trump doesn’t do this as often as she used to, but in the first year of the Trump presidency, whenever her father did something especially cruel or deranged, suddenly all of these articles would appear with unnamed sources claiming that Ivanka was “privately” appalled by her father. It was Ivanka’s way of staying on-brand, her way of distancing herself from her father. She barely bothers to do that at this point, which tells you a lot about how little she cares. But Ivanka’s strategy has been picked up by none other than the White House chief of staff John Kelly. According to Vanity Fair’s sources, Kelly personally contacted various Congressional Republicans and told them that they are free to criticize Trump’s Treason Summit in Helsinki. Some highlights from VF:
Trump was surprised by how few people defended him: “He was enraged there was a lack of people out there defending him,” one Republican close to the White House told me. The mood among West Wing advisers was downright funereal. “This was the nightmare scenario,” another Republican in frequent contact with the administration said.
How Kelly manipulated Trump: While National Security Adviser John Bolton, according to a source, thought Trump’s remarks were ill-advised, he believed that walking them back would only add fuel to the outrage pyre and make the president look weak. But Chief of Staff John Kelly was irate. According to a source, he told Trump it would make things worse for him with Robert Mueller. He also exerted pressure to try to get the president to walk back his remarks. According to three sources familiar with the situation, Kelly called around to Republicans on Capitol Hill and gave them the go-ahead to speak out against Trump. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Speaker Paul Ryan held televised press conferences to assert that Russia did meddle in the election.
Trump is unnerved: To those who know Trump best, the 24-hour reversal is a sign that he’s unnerved by the intensity of the backlash he provoked. “The president sent a very clear message [that] his worldview is in sync with his base and members of his party,” former Trump campaign spokesman Jason Miller told me. “Any of these other kerfuffles, if he had addressed it the next day, we wouldn’t have had that many days of things like s-hole countries.”
Re: John Kelly… just quit, dude. If this is true, you don’t get a f–king medal for sticking by a white supremacist traitor, nor do you get a medal for leaking to Vanity Fair that you were super-irate at the president of the United States prostrating himself before a foreign despot. And the fact that Kelly had to leak it to Vanity Fair? Nope. And how pathetic are Congressional Republicans, that their first instinct wasn’t to call a press conference and demand hearings on the president’s treason? No, they had to be prompted by Kelly. If anything, this makes every Republican look worse.
One thing I do believe is that Trump was “unnerved” and surprised by the reaction to his treason. He was surprised by the level of engagement and shock, and you know why? Because he’s been saying and doing the exact same sh-t for the past two years and he’s been “managing” it by tweeting and lying his ass off and doubling-down. He thought he could do the same sh-t when he was actually in the room with Vladimir Putin and the press. He was shocked that there were different expectations for him to not be so blatantly traitorous.
Photos courtesy of Getty.
RESIGN.
Or stay in, gather evidence, and make yourself freely available to any and all questioning. As long as the insiders keep hiding what Drumpf has done and continues to do? He keeps doing it.
Sorry, can I ask why you call him Drumpf?
“Drumpf” was apparently the family name before it was changed (post-immigration to USA).
That’s his family’s true surname.
Oh ok. So what’s the implication in using it? I know many people who’ve had Canadian-ized names (including my own family) for example?
Because his German history is scandalous. His ancestor was kicked out of Germany and told never to come back. Plus he has tried to lie about it and hide it.
Google John Oliver and Drumpf and you’ll see the joke.
Thank you for clarifying that. Personally, I’m not that comfortable making foreign ancestry into an epithet. There’s plenty for Trump himself to own right here, right now.
In light of his inane snubbing of Angela Merkle, I wonder if he’s exercising some grudge?
@ original G – no one’s making being foreign into an epithet here. It’s just another example of trump cowardice.
This is what I hope Kelly is doing. I think there’s little chance that that’s what he is doing, but that’s what I keep wishing.
The Original, yes his family’s story is sort of scandalous when it comes to their origins in Germany. In particular, his grandfather left Germany to dodge the draft (well, compulsory military service) and was not allowed back into Germany due to that. He was stripped of his citizenship. (The irony, of course, is that the Drumpf apple does not fall from the tree, being that Trump is a multi-time draft dodger himself.)
[Hey, guys!! Did any of you catch in the interview he gave in Scotland, on video, that he claimed his father was born in Germany and was a German citizen and an American immigrant? His father was actually born in 1916 in the Bronx. He said that both of his parents were born in the “EU,” which of course…the EU was not a thing back then. Why would be lie about something so easily fact-checkable???)
@The Mummy
“Why would he lie about something so easily fact-checkable???”
If you read fact-checks of his speeches, he lies an incredible number of times. One speech alone had 76% falsehoods. A narcissist who tries to cover his ignorance or embarrassment (or make himself look better than reality) will just make shit up as he goes along.
Most of his lies are easily fact-checkable, but who is he accountable to? He refuses most press interviews by saying the press is out to get him. He has Sarah H. Sanders cover his ass by dodging questions and lying on his behalf. Even if directly confronted, he would just lie more.
He’s not a well man.
Everytime is see Drumpf, I read it as “dumb.” Very apropos right? If his family stayed I have no doubt they would have fallen in line wit Hitler’s views.
As for Kelly, he may be detestable but at least he is loyal to the country (military man after all). The press reported he was the one who (accidentally?) turned off the lights when the Nazi was doing his retraction presser yesterday.
I do think he is sticking around to keep watch that the Nazi doesn’t sell us lock stock and barrel to Russia. Dan Coats too.
oh an he also spent decades LYING about his family origins claiming his father came over from Sweden as a child
Yes, it is because of John Oliver and his “Make Donald Drumpf Again”. I need to go watch some more.
If i hear one more thing about the ‘mood of the White House’….
I hope all of their days are full of misery and they can’t eat enough TUMS to rid themselves of the endless heartburn their Nazi jobs create.
Sorry that’s all I got for curses right now but man how i hate them all so so much and don’t give a shit about any of their misery and sure as f*ck ain’t buying any of their books when they cash out.
STAY! Stay till Mueller has evidence that you colluded and conspired too.
At this point you probably HAVE so you might as well stick around.
Congressional Republicans do not need Kelly’s or anyone else’s permission to speak against Trump. It is their damn job as written in the Constitution. Republican Senator Ed Brooke (Massachusetts!) called for Nixon’s removal. Long since time these scum stopped putting GOP before USA and did the jobs we pay them to do.
Exactly this. Do your Constitutional duty or get out . I get it, they want power & money & don’t really give a damn. Which is why voting these evil POS(s) out is so important. You are either a Patriot who loves your country or beholden to Trump. It is clear after his attack of NATO & the Fan boying of a murderous dictator to the undermining of the American Intelligence Agencies you can not be both.
YES!
Sadly, many congressional Republicans (those on House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, in particular) are still doing Trump & Putin’s dirty work to help cover up Russian interference in the election (and the possible use of the NRA as a tool to implement Putin’s policies, etc.)
BFD.
Kelly only told them to criticize and they only complied in order to give the impression that they’re standing up to him, which they’re not. 45 made his lame excuse and now it is back to business as usual. They know the base doesn’t really care anyway and they’re counting on Democratic voters to be lazy at the midterms again or the Dems failing to come together with a cohesive, unifying platform that voters will get behind (hopefully it won’t still be “at least we’re not him, right?”).
Puppets are everywhere! It’s terrible that taxpayer funded elected leaders (the checks and balances of our system) are like this.
I will give the Orange credit. While standing next to his hero, he put it out there for everyone to see. Had he talked another 15 minutes, he might have discussed his personal ties or whatever it is that makes him beholden.
Kelly believes everything drump believes. He just doesn’t like the way drump says it.
He needs to resign. They all need to resign.
Kelly is a racist POS. They all are. Not one member of the Trump administration and not one member of the current incarnation of the GOP is worth a damn.
They’re all spineless traitors.
This just goes to show you how utterly fucked up our system is right now. Republicans in Congress should not be told by Whitehouse staff how to respond to the president, they should be free thinkers, his checks and balance, but they’re all compromised too and likely fear Trump. I bet they know that if any of them were to actually ACT on their “convictions”, Trump has Russians waiting to release the hacked RNC emails.
Hasn’t the rumor been that Shine was hired to replace Kelly? Shine was in Helsinki (as was Sarah Sanders), and they both knew immediately how this was playing in the press, with the American public, and around the world. What Shine wasn’t able to do was to get his Fox (former) employees in line to support Trump. It seemed like only Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity, and Laura Ingraham were supporting Trump. The earlier in the day talking heads were flabbergasted and they said so on live TV.
Fox is going to be in serious trouble when this all ends. Rupert Murdoch+Wendi Deng=Vladimir Putin. Hopefully, the connections are exposed soon. Wendi Deng+Tony Blair goes the same way.
Yep.
Sorry we are at the point where resigning doesn’t do anything. We need someone in these positions. My advice would be do the best job you can and try to make sure Trump does as little damage as possible. Trump’s people lost any moral authority a long time ago; if they had any to begin with. All of these people who were dumb enough to take these jobs in the first place their careers are toast, except maybe Nikki Haley as she has mostly managed to not look like a complete idiot, before I get bashed I said mostly. Probably because Trump has no idea what the UN does and ignored it. Although that hasn’t generally stopped him, but maybe he just hasn’t gotten to it yet. He’s busy with golf and Mara Lago and sucking up to Putin. Still keep in mind when people leave this administration we generally get someone worse. We just need to vote and elect others to reign him in and then elect a new President. I know it seems bleak, but keep in mind only a small amount of people turned this election. Anyone want to take one for the team and move to Pennsylvania, Michigan or Ohio?
I’ve moved to PA from NY. 2 more blue votes and as many as we can drive there on Election Day!
The only reason they spoke out is because they all could lose their jobs if Trump is tried for tre45on. From Pence down. They didn’t care what he said, only that it effects their job and their money train.
While Trump was making a mess in Hellsunki.. Ivanka was quietly dropped by Hudson Bay, Jared still does not have a security clearance that would enable him to work on Israeli/Palestinian deal. Best of all, Kushner is being sued for forcing out rent control tenant via releasing toxin in a Reno job. Cuomo is also investigating. This was on the front pages but got drowned by Big Cheetos.. that’s why Ivanka has been quiet
Ivanka has not been quiet. She’s all over Twitter blaming unemployment on people who, in her view, chose to stay “on the sidelines” and pretending to be an expert in STEM education
They’re also being sued for failing to include assets owned by 30 investment funds they have stakes in on their financial disclosure forms. Also, the family’s charitable foundation is being sued, along with its directors — the President, his sons Eric and Donald Jr. and daughter Ivanka — alleging they violated state and federal charities law. That family is a cesspool of crime.
They are and Jared The Sylph is a slumlord.
And the doj bagged a russian spy who is in cahoots with NRA and several R Pols. That is big big fish. This is also not under Mueller so Nazi and his drunken cohorts (GYM “Child Molester enabler” Jordan and DUI Gaetz) cannot kill this case.
I think it is ramping up after Helsinki.
John Kelly is the racist who came up with the “zero tolerance” policy and separating mothers and fathers from their children. THAT is why he stays. He’s getting what he wants and does not care about America.
He’s a POS just like the rest of them. But trump’s fools thinks his being in the military makes him an honorable man.
In the reunification videos, the parents are emotional but the children look stunned and in shock. They don’t hug their parents back. These children have been traumatized and abused and Kelly helped make it possible for US taxpayer dollars to be used to commit child abuse. This is his idea of America.
Those poor children look numb after what they’ve been through. I know it won’t change anything, but I’d love to see a class action suit against the administration for the harm done to them. I’d love to see a court of law, having reviewed all evidence, compel the administration to pay some kind of restitution, as well as an apology.
It’s said that it took all day to finally convince Trump to give his walk back. Even then, he was very sulky and crossed out one sentence which he was supposed to say, and wrote in his typical “there was no collusion”. He also did his arms crossed thing, and ad libbed that other countries could have been responsible.
Ashley Parker made a hilarious comment about how Trump will become increasingly resentful, turn it around and blame it on the people who “made” him give the statement, and then return to denying Russian collusion. From watching him these last two years, she said this is his predictable pattern, and she gave it 24-48 hours.
Cheetolini is so in love with the blind adoration and applause of his supporters at his “rallies” that he forgets there are a majority of Americans in this country with working brains. I think he expected all of America to react the way his base would/does. He was unsettled (to say the least) to have to face the fact that he is NOT universally loved, worshiped or supported. In fact, his supporters are a very loud and very small minority and the rest of us hate his stinking guts and his filthy lies.
Ivanka hasn’t been quiet, it’s just that the press has a short attention span and can’t focus on more than one topic at once. They have done the same thing to Flint, DACA, the Muslim Ban, Military Ban, Puerto Rico, the Parkland and March for Our Lives Kids, and the kids being separated from their parents. Once the Dotard is finished with a topic, the press doesn’t bother to cover it anymore.
Adopted? Kelly has been leaking positive stories about himself and negative stories about Jared and Ivanka since he took the Chief of Staff position. It didn’t start yesterday. Remember all those stories about how Kelly was the adult in the WH, despite the fact that at least 2 reporters wrote articles warning that Kelly was unhinged and a Trump loyalist and he was caught on a hot mic telling the Dotard to use the saber on the press?
So how long before Jared and Ivanka force Kelly out of the WH? They don’t need Kelly to implement the racist polices because they have Sessions and Steven Miller. I wish the press would pay more attention to what these 2 are doing because every time the press loses site of them, they implement something horrible and cruel. Like taking kids from their parents and putting them in tent cities.
The one thing that I learned from this incident is that Ashley Parker’s source in the WH is John Kelly. After the Dotard’s meeting with Putin, Ashley Parker made the rounds saying that the WH staff had prepared comments for the Dotard to say during his press conference with Putin, but that he went rogue and didn’t follow them. And now Kelly leaks that he was the one who got republicans to rebuke the Dotard. Kelly is throwing the Dotard under the bus, but why would he do that? Why would Kelly be worried about how the Dotard’s actions are coming across to Mueller because Kelly never cared before? Is Kelly worried because he is a subject of Mueller’s investigation or has been interviewed by Mueller? Or is Kelly just jealous because Putin has more control of the WH than he does?
The Dotard was surprised by the backlash because he thought that his bot base would drown out all of the negative comments. Wasn’t twitter purging bot accounts this week?
VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE
I saw him talk right after he took over as the DHS Secretary, just a quick second after he retired from a lengthy military career. I’m still trying understand why he would leave DHS so quickly for this orange turd. Maybe he naively thought he could make a difference.
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