7 minutes ago, Kz! said:

Agreed on Obama. The Middle East is certainly far, far more stable now than it was under him, so if we're comparing apples to apples, Trump probably has to get one.

You can’t even admit both are ridiculous? You don’t have to heap praise on the dear leader 24/7. It’s ok 

3 minutes ago, Kz! said:

Google US deaths in the middle east by year. Game over. Thanks for playing.

So the only deaths that matter are American ones? Syria is a failed state under crisis, and Yemen is engaged in Civil War, but not many Americans died so all is good, peace on Earth?

Just now, toolg said:

So the only deaths that matter are American ones? Syria is a failed state under crisis, and Yemen is engaged in Civil War, but not many Americans died so all is good, peace on Earth?

Trump resisted the swamp's attempt to throw more lives and money at Syria (which would also contribute to destabilizing an already effed country and wind up costing more lives of both Syrians and US soldiers). For that alone, he should probably get two prizes. Maybe three.

in 6 months we'll find out that cheeto held up aid to norway unless they nominated him for the nobel.   

27 minutes ago, Dave Moss said:

Agreed.  Trump being nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize diminishes the award.

😉

Well I meant Barr attempting to defend Trump but the peace prize nomination as well. 

6 minutes ago, mr_hunt said:

in 6 months we'll find out that cheeto held up aid to norway unless they nominated him for the nobel.   

and the fanboys here will still lap up his dna. 

8 minutes ago, mr_hunt said:

in 6 months we'll find out that cheeto held up aid to norway unless they nominated him for the nobel.   

That would be a total boss move lmao.

3 minutes ago, DrPhilly said:

Well I meant Barr attempting to defend Trump but the peace prize nomination as well. 

Yeah, I know.  That’s why I used the winking emoji.

1 hour ago, Kz! said:

Google US deaths in the middle east by year. Game over. Thanks for playing.

We have to fight them over there, so we don't have to fight them here. 

1 hour ago, toolg said:

So the only deaths that matter are American ones? Syria is a failed state under crisis, and Yemen is engaged in Civil War, but not many Americans died so all is good, peace on Earth?

I don't want anyone to die anywhere, but do I want to continue to risk American soldiers' lives to stop centuries-old blood feuds in the middle east that will undoubtedly resume whenever we leave? No. No, I don't.

2 hours ago, Dave Moss said:

Yeah, I know.  That’s why I used the winking emoji.

Was reading on my phone and running between meetings and didn't see it.

 

 

2 hours ago, mr_hunt said:

in 6 months we'll find out that cheeto held up aid to norway unless they nominated him for the nobel.   

They're creating all of their anonymous sources as this is being typed.😉

1 minute ago, lynched1 said:

They're creating all of their anonymous sources as this is being typed.😉

are the two lovers involved?   

 

 

 

no....not strzok & page.  i'm talking about dave moss & gannon!

 

bam!

 

    

Some really incredible quotes in here from and about Dear Leader. I mean, none of the content is surprising in the least, but to see these in plain words is still astonishing.
 

Quote

Woodward book: Trump says he knew coronavirus was ‘deadly’ and worse than the flu while intentionally misleading Americans

By

Robert Costa and 

Philip Rucker

September 9, 2020 at 11:55 a.m. EDT

President Trump’s head popped up during his top-secret intelligence briefing in the Oval Office on Jan. 28 when the discussion turned to the novel coronavirus outbreak in China.

"This will be the biggest national security threat you face in your presidency,” national security adviser Robert O’Brien told Trump, according to a new book by Washington Post associate editor Bob Woodward. "This is going to be the roughest thing you face.”

Matthew Pottinger, the deputy national security adviser, agreed. He told the president that after reaching contacts in China, it was evident that the world faced a health emergency on par with the flu pandemic of 1918, which killed an estimated 50 million people worldwide.

Ten days later, Trump called Woodward and revealed that he thought the situation was far more dire than what he had been saying publicly.

"You just breathe the air and that’s how it’s passed,” Trump said in a Feb. 7 call. "And so that’s a very tricky one. That’s a very delicate one. It’s also more deadly than even your strenuous flu.”

"This is deadly stuff,” the president repeated for emphasis.

At that time, Trump was telling the nation that the virus was no worse than a seasonal flu, predicting it would soon disappear, and insisting that the U.S. government had it totally under control. It would be several weeks before he would publicly acknowledge that the virus was no ordinary flu and that it could be transmitted through the air.

Trump admitted to Woodward on March 19 that he deliberately minimized the danger. "I wanted to always play it down,” the president said.

Aside from exploring Trump’s handling of the pandemic, Woodward’s new book, "Rage,” covers race relations, diplomacy with North Korea and a range of other issues that have arisen during the past two years.

The book also includes brutal assessments of Trump’s conduct from former defense secretary Jim Mattis, former director of national intelligence Daniel Coats and others.

The book is based in part on 18 on-the-record interviews Woodward conducted with the president between December and July. Woodward writes that other quotes in the book were acquired through "deep background” conversations with sources in which information is divulged and exchanges recounted without sources being named.

"Trump never did seem willing to fully mobilize the federal government and continually seemed to push problems off on the states,” Woodward writes. "There was no real management theory of the case or how to organize a massive enterprise to deal with one of the most complex emergencies the United States had ever faced.”

Woodward questioned Trump repeatedly about the national reckoning on racial injustice. On June 3, two days after federal agents forcibly removed peaceful protesters from Lafayette Square to make way for Trump to stage a photo opportunity outside St. John’s Episcopal Church, Trump called Woodward to boast about his "law and order” stance.

"We’re going to get ready to send in the military slash National Guard to some of these poor **** that don’t know what they’re doing, these poor radical lefts,” Trump said.

In a second conversation, on June 19, Woodward asked the president about White privilege, noting that they were both White men of the same generation who had privileged upbringings. Woodward suggested that they had a responsibility to better "understand the anger and pain” felt by Black Americans.

"No,” Trump replied, his voice described by Woodward as mocking and incredulous. "You really drank the kewl-aid, didn’t you? Just listen to you. Wow. No, I don’t feel that at all.”

As Woodward pressed Trump to understand the plight of Black Americans after generations of discrimination, inequality and other atrocities, the president kept answering by pointing to economic numbers such as the pre-pandemic unemployment rate for Blacks and claiming, as he often has publicly, that he has done more for Blacks than any president except perhaps Abraham Lincoln.

In another conversation about race, on July 8, Trump complained about his lack of support among Black voters. "I’ve done a tremendous amount for the Black community,” he told Woodward. "And, honestly, I’m not feeling any love.”

They spoke again about race relations on June 22, when Woodward asked Trump whether he thinks there is "systemic or institutional racism in this country.”

"Well, I think there is everywhere,” Trump said. "I think probably less here than most places. Or less here than many places.”

Asked by Woodward whether racism "is here” in the United States in a way that affects people’s lives, Trump replied, "I think it is. And it’s unfortunate. But I think it is.”

Trump shared with Woodward visceral reactions to several prominent Democrats of color. Upon seeing a shot of Sen. Kamala D. Harris of California, now the Democratic vice-presidential nominee, calmly and silently watching him deliver his State of the Union address, Trump remarked, "Hate! See the hate! See the hate!” Trump used the same phrase after an expressionless Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (N.Y.) appeared in the frame.

Trump was dismissive about former president Barack Obama and told Woodward he was inclined to refer to him by his first and middle names, "Barack Hussein,” but wouldn’t in his company to be "very nice.”

"I don’t think Obama’s smart,” Trump told Woodward. "I think he’s highly overrated. And I don’t think he’s a great speaker.” Trump added that North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un thought Obama was "an a-hole.”

"Rage” includes the first-reported excerpts of letters Trump exchanged with Kim, and quotes Trump in his interviews with Woodward using expletives to defend their pen-pal relationship. Even as U.S. intelligence chiefs warn that North Korea is unlikely to ever surrender its nuclear weapons and that Trump’s approach is ineffective, the president told Woodward he is determined to stay the course and dismissively says the CIA has "no idea” how to handle North Korea.

"I met. Big Fing deal,” Trump told Woodward, waving off criticism of his three face-to-face meetings with Kim. "It takes me two days. I met. I gave up nothing.”

Foreign affairs experts say Trump gave up much — including by postponing and then scaling back the U.S. joint military exercises with South Korea that had long angered North Korea, as well as by granting Kim the international stature and legitimacy the North Korean regime has long craved.

Trump told Woodward he evaluates Kim and his nuclear arsenal like a real estate target: "It’s really like, you know, somebody that’s in love with a house and they just can’t sell it.”

Kim welcomed Trump’s overtures with over-the-top prose in letters. Kim wrote that he wanted "another historic meeting between myself and Your Excellency reminiscent of a scene from a fantasy film.” And he said his meetings with Trump were a "precious memory” that underscored how the "deep and special friendship between us will work as a magical force.”

In another letter, Kim wrote to Trump, "I feel pleased to have formed good ties with such a powerful and preeminent statesman as Your Excellency.” And in yet another, Kim reflected on "that moment of history when I firmly held Your Excellency’s hand at the beautiful and sacred location as the whole world watched with great interest and hope to relive the honor of that day.”

Trump was taken with Kim’s flattery, Woodward writes, telling the author pridefully that Kim had addressed him as "Excellency.” Trump remarked that he was awestruck meeting Kim for the first time in 2018 in Singapore, thinking to himself, "Holy crap,” and finding Kim to be "far beyond smart.” Trump also boasted to Woodward that Kim "tells me everything,” including a graphic account of Kim having his uncle killed.

Trump did not share his letters to Kim — "those are so top secret,” the president said — though Woodward writes that Trump sent Kim a copy of the New York Times featuring a picture of the two men on the front page. "Chairman, great picture of you, big time,” Trump wrote on the paper in marker. (Trump falsely boasted to Woodward, "He never smiled before. I’m the only one he smiles with.”)

Trump reflected on his relationships with authoritarian leaders generally, including Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. "It’s funny, the relationships I have, the tougher and meaner they are, the better I get along with them,” he told Woodward. "You know? Explain that to me someday, okay?”

In the midst of reflecting upon how close the United States had come in 2017 to war with North Korea, Trump revealed, "I have built a nuclear — a weapons system that nobody’s ever had in this country before. We have stuff that you haven’t even seen or heard about. We have stuff that Putin and Xi have never heard about before. There’s nobody — what we have is incredible.”

Woodward writes that anonymous sources later confirmed that the U.S. military had a secret new weapons system, but they would not provide details, and that the sources were surprised Trump had disclosed it.

The book documents private grumblings, periods of exasperation and wrestling about whether to quit among the so-called adults of the Trump orbit: Mattis, Coats and former secretary of state Rex Tillerson.

Mattis quietly went to Washington National Cathedral to pray about his concern for the nation’s fate under Trump’s command and, according to Woodward, told Coats, "There may come a time when we have to take collective action” since Trump is "dangerous. He’s unfit.”

In a separate conversation recounted by Woodward, Mattis told Coats, "The president has no moral compass,” to which the director of national intelligence replied, "True. To him, a lie is not a lie. It’s just what he thinks. He doesn’t know the difference between the truth and a lie.”

Woodward describes Coats’s experience as especially tortured. Coats, a former senator from Indiana, was recruited into the administration by Vice President Pence, and his wife is quoted as recalling a dinner at the White House when she interacted with Pence.

"I just looked at him, like, how are you stomaching this?” Marsha Coats said, according to Woodward. "I just looked at him like, this is horrible. I mean, we made eye contact. I think he understood. And he just whispered in my ear, ‘Stay the course.’ ”

Pence was the president’s one constant booster publicly and privately in Woodward’s book. When Coats considered resigning because of Trump’s handling of Russia, Pence urged him to "look on the positive side of things that he’s done. More attention on that. You can’t go.”

The loathing was mutual. "Not to mention my F**ng generals are a bunch of p*$$iesThey care more about their alliances than they do about trade deals,” Trump told White House trade adviser Peter Navarro at one point, according to Woodward.

Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and senior adviser, is quoted by Woodward as saying, "The most dangerous people around the president are overconfident idiots,” which Woodward interprets as a reference to Mattis, Tillerson and former National Economic Council director Gary Cohn.

Kushner was a frequent target of ire among Trump’s Cabinet members, who saw him as untrustworthy and weak in dealing with heads of states. Tillerson found Kushner’s warm dealings with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu "nauseating to watch. It was stomach churning,” according to Woodward.

Kushner is quoted extensively in the book ruminating about his father-in-law and presidential power. Woodward writes that Kushner advised people that one of the most important guiding texts to understand the Trump presidency was "Alice in Wonderland,” a novel about a young girl who falls through a rabbit hole. He singled out the Cheshire cat, whose strategy was endurance and persistence, not direction.

The book charts the Trump administration’s failings and missteps on the pandemic, including the decisions and actions of Pottinger, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Robert Redfield, infectious-disease expert Anthony S. Fauci and others.

Fauci at one point tells others that the president "is on a separate channel” and unfocused in meetings, with "rudderless” leadership, according to Woodward. "His attention span is like a minus number,” Fauci said, according to Woodward. "His sole purpose is to get reelected.”

In one Oval Office meeting recounted by Woodward, after Trump had made false statements in a news briefing, Fauci said in front of him: "We can’t let the president be out there being vulnerable, saying something that’s going to come back and bite him.” Pence, Kushner, chief of staff Mark Meadows and senior policy adviser Stephen Miller tensed up at once, Woodward writes, surprised Fauci would talk to Trump that way.

Woodward describes Fauci as particularly disappointed in Kushner for talking like a cheerleader as if everything was great. In June, as the virus was spreading wildly coast to coast and case numbers soared in Arizona, Florida, Texas and other states, Kushner said of Trump, "The goal is to get his head from governing to campaigning.”

Woodward writes that Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) suggested former president George W. Bush speak personally with Trump about global vaccine efforts, but that Bush demurred.

"No. No,” Bush told Graham, according to Woodward. "He’d misconstrue anything I said.”

In their final interview, on July 21, Trump vented to Woodward, "The virus has nothing to do with me. It’s not my fault.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/bob-woodward-rage-book-trump/2020/09/09/0368fe3c-efd2-11ea-b4bc-3a2098fc73d4_story.html?arc404=true%3Futm_campaign%3Dwp_main&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook&fbclid=IwAR2GQiVYFJ9wQzekmt6xzCLeF5FSbTxQi67PErXZKvt0e7wYNAYWJkHoJHk

 

1 hour ago, mr_hunt said:

are the two lovers involved?   

 

 

 

no....not strzok & page.  i'm talking about dave moss & gannon!

 

bam!

 

    

I might need to invite Gannon to our secret left-wing message board.

  

Quote

Former director of national intelligence Dan Coats could not shake his "deep suspicions" that Russian President Vladimir Putin "had something" on President Trump, seeing "no other explanation" for the president's behavior, according to Bob Woodward's new book "Rage," which was obtained ahead of its publication next week by CNN.

Why it matters: Coats was the president's top intelligence official from March 2017 until August 2019. Woodward reports that Coats and his staff examined the intelligence regarding Trump's ties to Russia "as carefully as possible" and that he "still questions the relationship" between Trump and Putin despite the apparent absence of intelligence proof.

Between the lines: The New York Times' Michael Schmidt reported in his new book that former Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein secretly curtailed an FBI counterintelligence probe into Trump's ties to Russia, meaning the full scope of decades of the president's personal and financial dealings there has never been explored.

The big picture: The explosive Woodward book, which is based in part on 18 interviews that Trump sat for with the veteran journalist, details the "tortured" tenure of Coats and other officials described by the Washington Post as "so-called adults of the Trump orbit" — including former Defense Secretary James Mattis and former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.

• At one point, Mattis went to Washington National Cathedral to pray for the country's fate under Trump's leadership, according to the Post's report on Woodward's book. He reportedly told Coats, "There may come a time when we have to take collective action" to speak out against Trump because he is "dangerous. He’s unfit."
• In a later conversation reported by Woodward, Mattis told Coats, "The president has no moral compass." Coats reportedly responded, "True. To him, a lie is not a lie. It’s just what he thinks. He doesn’t know the difference between the truth and a lie."

The other side: "The Bob Woodward book will be a FAKE, as always, just as many of the others have been," Trump tweeted on Aug. 14, before the book had come out. This is despite the fact that the president sat for 18 interviews with Woodward.

oh my

To continue on with EaglesRocker97 Bob Woodward's next book:

Throughout the book, Trump provides insights into his view of the presidency. He tells Woodward when you're running the country, "There's dynamite behind every door."

After his 18 interviews, Woodward issues a stark verdict: Trump is the "dynamite behind the door." Woodward concludes his book with a declaration that "Trump is the wrong man for the job."

 

 

 

How long before Trump tweets out, "Bob Woodward altered the tapes!"  ???

 

 

12 hours ago, NOTW said:

 

 

Quote

"I don't want people to be frightened,” Trump told reporters on Wednesday. "I don't want to create panic, as you say."

 

On 9/9/2020 at 10:15 AM, Kz! said:

I don't want anyone to die anywhere, but do I want to continue to risk American soldiers' lives to stop centuries-old blood feuds in the middle east that will undoubtedly resume whenever we leave? No. No, I don't.

"Yes, they are dying. Look, it is what is."

1 hour ago, we_gotta_believe said:

"Yes, they are dying. Look, it is what is."

 

If Biden wins, I bet Kz moves to North Korea.

"It’ll just go away.”

24 minutes ago, Smokesdawg said:

"It’ll just go away.”

Worst crisis manager ever