As I’m writing this, “Pocahontas” is trending on Twitter because Donald Trump referred to Sen. Elizabeth Warren as that name yet again in a tweet. While Sen. Warren could have absolutely handled her distant Native American ties differently, it’s entirely painful to see the political class shrug whenever Trump used the blatantly racist term to mock a sitting senator. It’s even worse that Trump uses this casual racism as a way to deflect from the bigger story, which is still the Russian bounties on American soldiers in Afghanistan. The White House press secretary Kayleigh Mcenany did a briefing yesterday and over the course of defending Trump, she argued that of course Donald Trump reads his briefings because of course Trump can read. Huge if true.
The White House used a last-minute briefing Tuesday to continue defending President Donald Trump against accusations he let languish intelligence about Russia paying bounties to the Taliban for killing American troops. Announced an hour ahead of time, the briefing came as Trump’s election-year rival Joe Biden accused the President of shirking his duties as commander in chief by not acting on the intelligence when it first appeared in the President’s Daily Brief, the highly classified summary of the nation’s secrets.
The White House has insisted the information was neither verified nor credible, and said it didn’t reach Trump because there was no consensus within the intelligence community about its veracity. Yet the information about Russian bounties was included in a President’s Daily Brief sometime in the spring, according to a US official with direct knowledge of the latest information. That assessment, the source said, was backed up by “several pieces of information” that supported the view that there was an effort by the Russian intelligence unit — the GRU — to pay bounties to kill US soldiers, including interrogation of Taliban detainees and electronic eavesdropping.
Trump is not known to fully or regularly read the PDB, something that is well-known within the White House. He is instead orally briefed two or three times a week by his intelligence officials. Without confirming whether the information was included in the written document — something she claimed she would never “sit here and confirm or deny” — press secretary Kayleigh McEnany insisted Trump does read.
“The President does read and he also consumes intelligence verbally,” she said when questioned why Trump isn’t reading the PDB. “This President, I will tell you, is the most informed person on planet Earth when it comes to the threats we face,” McEnany added, pointing to regular phone calls between Trump and his national security adviser Robert O’Brien. “He is constantly being informed and briefed on intelligence matters. But I’m not going to allow The New York Times to dictate when we give top-secret information and don’t give top-secret information.”
“Trump is not known to fully or regularly read the PDB, something that is well-known within the White House.” I like that CNN acknowledged that, honestly. It IS widely known that Trump doesn’t read. He doesn’t read briefing papers. He doesn’t read his daily intelligence memos. He doesn’t read anything from medical experts. Because he can’t read. And no, he’s not “the most informed person on planet Earth” about anything.
He’s calling the bounty story “fake news” even though a dozen other legitimate outlets (internationally) confirmed the story with their own sourcing. Trump did nothing about the fact that Russia and the Taliban were and are targeting American soldiers.
The Russia Bounty story is just another made up by Fake News tale that is told only to damage me and the Republican Party. The secret source probably does not even exist, just like the story itself. If the discredited @nytimes has a source, reveal it. Just another HOAX!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 1, 2020
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red and Backgrid.
There is no bottom with this creep. There are no depths too low. He is an absolute soulless monster. Please let the American people come through in November. 🙏🙏
It is really unconscionable that Trump is saying this is a hoax. They found financial information that confirmed the Taliban was being paid out of bank accounts in Russia that belong to Russian military intelligence (GRU).
He’s doxxing the American people about the crimes committed by Russia.
And yet this animal is running our country. WTF??????
Hey, don’t compare beautiful animals to this POS.
I stand corrected. Thanks! 🙂
This could have been ended by John Bolton last year but the idiot would not testify before congress at the impeachment. This criminal could be out of office.
She doesn’t seem to be much of a reader herself.
“He also consumes intelligence verbally [sic]”. Case closed.
He eats the briefings? Probably not the best way to go about it. I doubt osmosis is the right way to do it.
Her software needs an update.
She makes the Jersey Shorers look like Einsteins.
She is just unreal. I feel like lying as much as possible, as outlandishly as possible, on the fly, is a game for her. I can’t think of any other explanation.
But, but, but she’s not going to lie to us. Notice, she doesn’t say what he reads. Just that he reads.
She use to be a Never Trump Republican, but clearly there is something so deficient about her morality that she saw opportunity in working with his administration, particularly so late in his first (and possibly last) term. Moral bankruptcy aside, I am curious if her end game is worth it, because being young, pretty and blonde are not enough to escape his stench once this is over.
“The President does read and he also consumes intelligence verbally.” Did she mean audibly? You can’t intake information if you are the one talking…
I just think about past presidents, like Obama… voracious readers and critical thinkers. Even if the person in office made bad decisions, at least we could trust they were TRYING to get all the facts. Trump has a dozen bullet points on that daily briefing. And he doesn’t even read that. He spends all his time tweeting trash!
Just sick of this man. Ready for somebody intelligent and compassionate to take that office.
He probably does consume it verbally. Intelligence tries to brief him on what is going but he tells them what’s going on. He probably just talks the whole time because he has the most intelligence of any president ever. He’s got the biggest words and the best knowing of things that anyone ever had. He doesnt have to listen to other people, other people has to listen to him.
In fact, I think I may have solved where his misinformation comes from. He hears his own incoherent ramblings and forgets he said it, and takes it as a long held fact, because he heard it somewhere.
I think you nailed it, LK
It has been reported that most of the other extent ins of the WH do not like to hold briefings with him because he talks over them and it’s a vicious cycle of him talking and nothing getting through to him. He also only holds briefings once or twice a week, when Obama held them everyday and was always on top of his daily PDB.
On another note that isn’t being spoken about, is the fact that the British military are also targets of the Taliban. They also have bounties on them as well, so it doesn’t sound much like a hoax to me!
Yes I was listening to two Obama advisors this morning on a podcast and the contrast could not be more stark. Trump never had any business being anywhere near the office of POTUS.
Lock. Him. Up.
Dr. Seuss books only count for grade schoolers 🤣
Nope, it’s back issues of Hustler.
HAHA!
He’s a malignant narcissist, I cannot even hear his horrendous voice, he literally makes my stomach upset. He needs to go away forever!
I know. And that header photo. He looks like he fell face first onto a red clay tennis court. He’s a ghoul.
Only when the beautiful and wonderful Sarah Cooper does it can I listen to his voice.
The only time I can stand hearing his voice is when Sarah Cooper is lip synching. (She is a national treasure!)
I’m sure he can list every item from the KFC or McDonald’s menu, but that’s it.
He struggles with the KFC menu’s title page.
So it’s official. He is a dictator. Only dictators get this kind of propaganda.
He used the slur against Warren while saying he would block her bill to rename military bases and forts that were named for confederate generals so it’s racism on top of racism.
The Supreme Court is at the end of its 2029-2030 term; it has gone into July for the first time in 25 years. They could add days but today is the last day marked on the calendar for decisions – including the fate of his tax returns. He is freaking out this morning
And the military was open to discussing the name changes until Trump shut down the whole idea.
He is now tweeting that painting “Black Lives Matter” on Fifth Avenue denigrates the luxury street.
LP, It’s getting to the point where Twitter makes my blood instantly start boiling. This latest Russian Bounty insanity would have sunk any other POTUS. Instead it’s just another day for Trump.
I’m following this as well. Poll numbers tanking, GOP can’t save him, Mary Trump’s book on the horizon, Roberts siding with the liberals in five cases, Black Lives Matter to be painted in front of Trump Tower within a few days, Pence and McConnell wearing masks. 🙂
The Federal court has been shelved, at the moment, Mary Trumps book, a legal obstruction brought on by her other uncle.
Do you mean they have to release decision about taxes today?!?! I’ve been holding my breath for 2 weeks now. Ugh!!!!
If the press would only refuse report all of the things he says that are a) not true and b) unverifiable, that would stop enabling him and be a step in the right direction. The press has been relatively good about editorializing, and about giving data, but not about analyzing it critically.
I’m sure that if the daily brief were presented to him wrapped around a cheeseburger he would happily consume it.
I can also believe that he is the “most informed” President because he has to be told constantly to behave like a President. In this case, he is history’s “most frequently informed that he is occupying the office of” President.
I do not believe that he composed that tweet himself though. I have seen no evidence that he understands grammar or sentence structure. His speeches normally lack logic and coherence.
Yup. He’s the bigliest reader that ever was.
I can’t believe we’ve come to the point where we have to wonder if our president reads crucial intelligence reports, if he can even read, or if he even has the atention span to do so. It’s really sad day in American history.
At what point do people start calling him a true traitor? He likes to use loaded terms to attack his “enemies” but this seems like a true betrayal of the troops and the country. He is all for using the troops when black people kneel during the anthem but when it is time for him to actually help them he looks away? This year is the culmination of his malfeasance and incompetence. We simply cannot survive another year of this criminal
“At what point do people start calling him a true traitor?”
I’ve read/heard plenty of people doing it already, including former military people. and it’s accurate.
He’s called a traitor by VoteVets, who made the video below. It’s a damning indictment. They have been blocked by the current occupant of the Oval Office, so people are now tweeting this video at him so he sees it.
I hope the link works.
https://twitter.com/votevets/status/1277295496105807873?s=20
It’s 100% real because his use of ‘hoax’ is the tell.
Exactly!
It’s the codeword isn’t it? Hoax = absolutely true. What a dystopian nightmare we live in.
It’s as if Trump has given up all hope of winning a second term, so he is going to take as many Republicans who are up for election with him. Thank God! I took my flag down when he was elected, and I hope I can put it back up in November! Trump and his minions are a cancer on this country. This Kayleigh- look for her to be on Dancing with the Stars or Celebrity Big Brother- or become a Minister LOL!
Well. It is good to know our President can read. Thank you Kayleigh Lewinsky.
Monica was foolish, but no way she was ever as dumb as this kayleigh twat.
That’s where we are at. We know that our president can read and drink water with one hand. Sigh.
And hey even if you didn’t get the briefing and didn’t know-NOW you know. What are you doing about it now? The report came out on Friday and the next day Trump went golfing. Then texted about shading your intelligence agencies and Hunter Biden and white supremacy. The press secretary went off about leaks and how that was the worst thing.
It was also reported that his crew went around removing the stickers in OK that stated to “wear your mask” around the arena where he was speaking? Plus, the big firework “show” at the Rushmore monument will not require 7,500 from wearing a mask! Of course people will probably have to sign a waiver to release Drumpf and the monument from any legal action against him/them.
Well he’s spent the last few days running around screaming about how no one ever told him about this Russia intelligence, so one could reason he is NOT the most informed person on the planet…
The decline and fall of … He’s late night tweeting, and per Noel Casler who worked on the Celebrity Apprentice he is still using drugs. Drumpf is well into the victim perpetrator role, now calling himself, The Lone Warrior in tweets. The only difference between DT and Nixon, GOP aligned with Dems to tell him to resign or be impeached. Nixon had both an alcohol and drug problem. More and more Repubs plan to vote for Biden. GOP politicians are looking at 2024. The only question for me at this point, do the GOP politicians convince him to resign or is he hospitalized for medical reasons. Pew Research poll, 87% of Americans do not like the direction in which were headed.
OMG – Love Drumpf!!!
That you used that as his name I mean, I just reread and realized that could be taken as I like him… I honestly don’t know how American’s do it…
Drumpf was his family name. His family migrated from Germany and he hates the name. I do not use it as an insult to Germany and it’s citizens or as a term of endearment. We Americans do enjoy our sarcasm, truth telling. 🙂
Is this the evil plot of the GOP? The country is currently in freefall, so they will Let Dems take control of all 3 branches for a few years. Then blame all of this decline on the Dems. It’s worked before. Republican voters have very short memories. Example: Bush left the country in shambles, they blamed it on Obama and their voters believed it. Watch, in a few years they will blame the pandemic on Dems. They will pin this bounty scandal on Biden. And their voters will believe it and come out in droves to give them back total control. Republicans destroy everything, Dems get us back on the right path, and the Republicans use lies and brainwashing to get back into power. Wash, rinse, repeat.
They truly did that with the financial crisis. Bush did several things before the election that were later blamed on Obama. Faux News was always doing this, as if viewers did not remember the timeline.
He’s an infected boil. And Congress is the staphylococcus aureus.
Oh thanks for telling us he actually can read, because It doesn’t show.
For the love of anything left of the US that is good and kind and just, can’t we get rid of this POS yet? November is so far away plus the change doesn’t happen until January which is even further away. I don’t know how to continue
And I’m sure he won’t go softly into the night 😫
someone buy Donald a “World’s #1 President” mug. that’s really all he wants.
Did someone buy the oversized five year old some colorforms?
Cat. Bat. Hat. Traitor…
I read that early on, his security advisors had to reduce his briefings to only the simplest bullet points, and include his name prominently to get him to take an interest in anything.
Can you imagine if you spent your life working in high-level intelligence analysis in order to serve your country, and you end up spending your time adding “flair” to the presidential briefing in the hopes of keeping Americans safe.
He also is known to share the PDB really widely, including with his potentially compromised son in law (in debt to an alarming amount of shady world powers) and the Russians. If Bolton hadn’t claimed to brief him last year, I would have assumed the intelligence community didn’t tell him for fear he would sell them out.
He lacks the interest, management skills, and basic understanding to do this job.
The guy could not be a CEO at anything other than a fully family-owned company. A responsible board of directors would fire someone this inept and incendiary within the first day on the job.
I’m starting to feel intensely not happy about this man. When he got elected, I was….in shock, I didn’t sleep for days. But I finally accepted it. Avoided the news, I feel like I have zero control over any of this. Sometimes whether you like it or not, politics is truly out of our control. We are drawing near. This is my problem. I don’t necessarily like Joe Biden, or any of our other options. I can’t stop feeling the uncertainty.
You don’t have to “like” Joe Biden, but the new president is responsible for the appointment of roughly 4,000 department staff; heads and by association subheads and senior staff. Health and Human Services, Department of the Interior, Environmental Protection Agency, etc. All of whom will be competent at their job, and he will take their advice seriously. And he will fund the CDC and WHO. This isn’t about “liking” someone. It’s about hiring someone who can do the job. Who reads and understands intelligence briefings. Who knows how to deal with foreign leaders and not be manipulated.
Team sports are not won buy “liking” everyone on the team, but by putting aside personal differences to achieve a goal. You don’t have to personally like your airline pilot, but you need a competent person to fly the plane.
I’m not hiring Biden to be my friend or my husband. I’m hiring him to run a giant organization. And no one has to show him around the WH on his first day.
Very well said