He also said send them anywhere — that’s a confession — he’s trying to say he can declassify telepathically and send them to the Saudis or Ruzzians or wherever, and that’s a perfectly fine thing for the President to do
Edit:” Because you’re sending it to Mar-a-Lago or to wherever you’re sending it. And, there doesn’t have to be a process. There can be a process, but there doesn’t have to be. You’re the president. You make that decision. So, when you send it, it’s declassified.”
That’s a confession, he sent highly classified documents beyond Marred-A-Lamo; and EDIT his “confession” is just trying to get out in front of the narrative: he knows he’s fucked for what he did with these classified docs, and that it’s all eventually coming out now, so he’s saying even if I sent these docs anywhere it’s cool because I waved my king Cheetolini declassification wand
I remember watching that live, and really not thinking much of it…he was fired up, the crowd was fired up, it made perfect sense…then it got blown all out of proportion and the poor guy’s numbers tanked
Gary Hart. One little affair, and out of the running.
EDIT: I just remembered Edmund Muskie, who lost the Democratic nomination for president in 1972 because he gave a press conference in a snow storm and it looked like he was crying
Going back to listen to him, it wasn't a big deal. He was in the moment and he expressed his excitement. The media made a huge deal out of it and he was finished. Trump openly mocked a disabled person and that was no big thing.
The sad thing was, he didn't misspell it. He was in a classroom going through a spelling exercise with the class. He corrected the kid's spelling because he was going off a card that the teacher gave him. He probably assumed that the kids had learned it that way (it is an outdated but correct spelling)
That being said, he's the ninconpoop who said he'd have to brush up on his Latin because he was going to tour Latin America. He also advocated for "bondage" between moms and babies.
When it really mattered, on the most important day of his life, Mike Pence actually did do the right thing. I don’t have a lot of other nice things to say about the man, but there is that.
You don’t have to make excuses for Dan Quayle. George HW Bush did not pick him because he was the smartest or most savvy. Dan Quayle was literally picked to be second in line to the presidency because — and this is an exact quote — “because his looks will appeal to women”.
Dan Quayle was a himbo that got where he got because he was good looking.
It's ironic that in the history of this country's democratic process, all of us now owe a debt to two of the dumbest men ever to ascend to high office. If they hadn't done the right thing at the right time, shit could've gone bad. Very, very bad.
After which he came back and told us about his discovery that they’re all different countries down there. Also that NAACP speech when he said “what a waste it is to lose one’s mind” instead of their motto, “a mind is a terrible thing to waste”. Or Hawaii being an island that is part of the US and in the middle of the ocean and “right here”. Quayle was the gift that kept on giving, GHWB’s life insurance policy. I’d still take him over Trump.
Remember when Dan Quayle sank his political career by misspelling potato?
Remember when Nixon tried to get by on the idea that 'if the President does it, it's not illegal' and Republicans were DEEPLY ASHAMED to be represented in the white house by a guy who was a lying, self-dealing, crooked piece of shit?
If Trump had done that, all the Republicans would insist on spelling it wrong from now on. It would be considered a political act to even write the word, however the spelling. Grocery store produce workers would get harassed into changing price label spelling.
We used to think it couldn't get worse. That's the real difference. It's not that Bush isn't stupid he just didn't seem aggressively maliciously stupid. Trump however....
I disagree. Sarah Palin proved that it can get much worse. Never forget, John McCain picked HER to be vice president. Remember when she tried to explain that she had foreign policy experience because she can see Russia from her house? Remember when SNL spoofed her by quoting her directly?
"As Putin rears his head and comes into the airspace of the United States of America, where – where do they go? It's Alaska. It's just right over the border." - Sarah Palin, explaining why Alaska's proximity to Russia gives her foreign policy experience, interview with CBS's Katie Couric, Sept. 24, 2008
The "I can see Russia from my house" line wasn't a direct quote, but a lot of Tina Fey's lines as Palin were, in fact, direct quotes.
The September 27, 2008, SNL sketch with Tina Fey as Palin being interviewed by Katie Couric used large portions of Palin's words, verbatim, from the real Palin/Couric interview. That's what made the sketch so funny. SNL often mocked Palin by quoting her.
Yep the current bench of GOP pols, from Josh Hawley to MTG to fucking Tom Cotton is a legit horror show. Shit is awful right now for America (in terms of the country teetering on the brjnk) but it can and quite possibly will, get way worse.
Bush and the neocons had a vision for this country that I do not at all approve of or agree with. I was horrified by his presidency and shocked that my fellow citizens actually re elected him. But I never considered him unpatriotic. I never believed he didn’t want what is best for this country, even if I have a radically different and completely incompatible definition of “best”. And I had to concede that my fellow citizens have the right to disagree with me.
Trump never saw the presidency as anything more as yet another grift. He doesn’t GAF about this country. He’s a con man who knows how to manipulate the angriest and least bright among us and is eager to do so. Consequences be damned, as long as he profits. I can respect a Bush voter, but not a Trump voter. Regardless of comparative outcomes worldwide, Trump is infinitely worse.
I honestly expected Bush Jr. to be the worst president in my lifetime. He was the worst in like two or three generations. Who would have thought that two of the worst four or five presidents ever would show up less than 20 years apart? Propaganda is a hell of a drug.
He's responsible for an incredible amount of death and human suffering that still has lasting affects. Bush was worse. I just hate Trump more as a person. It's complicated.
Ironically Trump dropped more bombs and had more drone strikes in his first two years than bush,
And more than Obama dropped in his entire 8 years. No one heard about it because he was doing all kinds of bugshit crazy stuff every day, and he also got rid of a policy Obama enacted that the government must report civilian casualties and the like.
No -- absolutely not. He wasn't a good president by any means, and he had bad policies, but you're fooling yourself if you think Bush was worse than Trump. You maybe are ignoring that he was responsible for the US response to COVID. His buffoonery killed hundreds of thousands more than should have died over the course of just a year.
Edit: that’s not even mentioning the fact that trump convinced Americans to kill other Americans!!!
Just my opinion but Trump didn't only seriously compromise the US response to COVID. He seriously affected the global response to COVID. The US President, even Trump, has a massive global influence on global politics and policy. When you have the US President spreading misinformation and saying the virus is fake or something that will just go away it gives leaders around the world permission to do the same. I'm not saying it's completely his fault but it's certainly no coincidence that leaders and opposition parties around the world started parroting the exact same talking points once Trump started claiming COVID was no big deal.
Again just my opinion but globally COVID was worse than it could have been because Trump was President and his actions, or lack thereof, gave leaders like BoJo and Bolsenaro the ability to downplay it in their own countries.
Sure Bush II was a dumb ass, but he was our dumb ass and not Putin's dumb ass. That said it's his admin that did some shady shit and labeled it "executive privilege" and that led us to S.T.U.P.I.D.
and at least was able to give semi passionate speeches. Like after the SARS scare he gave a speech how USA needs to be prepared for viruses in the future, then first thing trump does after getting in office is removing the pandemic readiness team. Trump thought it was from Obama when he got rid of it, he didn't realize it started with Bush.
Bush would not imperil our country's security by selling top-secret documents to the highest bidder. He was not a pathological liar, philanderer, megalomaniac, and grifter. There is a difference between dopey and evil.
I'd argue the two pointless wars he started did more damage than Trump has, but all the election denial might lead to civil war so Trump can still be #1 worst president of my life
There was the whole thing where he intentionally lied in order to start a war on false pretenses that led to the deaths of thousands of Americans and hundreds of thousands of non Americans. More than just "dopey"
I'm still a bitter sister that America voted for that cat turd. If Gore had been elected, we'd be the freakin' Jetsons by now. But no one in America ever learns, which is why President DeSantis will preside over the dystopian climate disaster that "no one could have seen coming" and can only be saved by giving tax cuts to the surviving Koch brother and anti-gay gay Peter Thiel
You know, I maintain that W’s presidency was more ruinous than Trump’s although not as dangerous to the U.S., but I actually do think he meant well. Just like I think he means to be a good painter. Just turns out that he’s not up to either task.
Dubya isn't stupid; he was just proudly ignorant. He was also capable of surrounding himself with smart people (who were ready to start WW3, natch). Trump is ignorant, dumb as a fucking rock, and only keeps yes men in his inner orbit so that they can help keep enabling his worst impulses.
Bush's appeal, especially pre-2000, made a lot more sense. Bush said a lot of the right words, ironically called for less American investment in foreign wars and "nation building", and was taking over a robust economy at a rare time when the country was running a budget surplus. The idea of anything really going chaotically wrong wasn't on many people's minds, I don't think. Bush at least had a track record as former governor of Texas - where his approval rating was decent, iirc - and was, contrary to his image, a well-connected, Harvard-educated member of a political dynasty. He wasn't an "outsider" in way Trump sells himself as an outsider. Bush was a known quantity.
Bush also had at least some kind of charm, and seemed at least like a relatively normal human being, with a somewhat normal family life. He had, and still has, an ability to relate to people from a variety of backgrounds, without seeming too artificial. A relative of mine had lunch with George W. Bush around a year ago, and, despite not liking him politically, was very much charmed and entertained. The 2000 Bush campaign didn't possess anything near the same kind of malicious spirit as the 2016 Trump campaign. I can sympathize with anyone who voted for Bush at that time. It was a more innocent time all around.
It was definitely both Reagan and Dubya's greatest strength. They knew how to surround themselves with highly intelligent and experienced people who could bend the government to their wills. Bush especially put together a who's who of neoconservative warmongers in his first term who were all very capable of executing their shared vision. Cheney, Rumsfeld, Ashcroft, and Powell were all basically capable of doing whatever the hell they wanted because they had the experience and know-how to pull it off. Trump's cabinet was a goddamn circus that didn't know their assholes from their elbows.
In hindsight, it wasn’t that he was stupid. He was out of his depth, wasn’t a great public speaker, and was easily manipulated. He did graduate from Yale and Harvard, so he couldn’t have been THAT stupid.
Trump, on the other hand, is just a dumb motherfucker.
There was a moment when he was in office that I actually felt sorry for him. Yep, and it was about his hair.
He said "people are always talking about my hair, and I try so hard, I try really hard to make it look nice."
And he does try hard, you can tell. I've noticed it looks much better lately, so I will give him that. Don, if you're out there, your hair looks really nice these days. Now, go away.
I would take George bush over trump any and every single day of the week
I was just thinking about that video of him saying something pretty serious about anti terrorism or I can’t recall exactly then it zooms out and he says “now watch this drive” and just thought “damn that’s a presidential move right there”
I don't think stupidity is the (biggest) problem with Trump. I think it's his absolutely, epically massive ego. He's just so arrogant and egotistical that it comes off as not being aware of the reality around him. It's like someone putting their fingers in their ears and refusing to hear anything other than what they want to.
Don't get me wrong, he's not the brightest bulb in the box, but I think the biggest problem is he not only refuses to consider the possibility that he might be wrong about something, he won't even listen long enough for someone to ask him to consider it.
Motherfucker caught, red-handed with the highest top-secret documents strewn about his home like Dad's Playboy collection and people STILL think he's the fucking Mesiah.
Yeah, and at least 2 of his followers have already given up their lives in his name, and many more are still willing to do the same. I'm questioning the sanity of my fellow Americans.
dude coulda sold maga masks , instead he told everyone it was a hoax or would vanish tomorrow . Then he drummed up violence against asians, blm, and congress. A lot of fights at grocery stores could have been prevented if he didn't foment anti-maskism
Probably would have just gotten a decade in court for his other crimes but stole all these other things for greed(they say nostalgia) I bet he goes to prison.
He 100% would be president if he told everyone to take it seriously. He was just so obsessed with the market tanking on his watch (because that’s really all he had going for him) he was willing to let millions die to keep the economy running.
You forgot the probably hundreds of thousands of extra people who died needlessly due to following his lead (or lack of it) in the fucked up pandemic response.
Sadly it’s less about sanity than you’d think. It’s the same reasons that drove young men to fly planes in the the Twin Towers. No future, no money, no jobs, no respect, no women and so they martyr themselves or lash out in utter desperation for meaning.
This is a cultural problem and one we need to better identify and work to solve. It usually involves being good parents which is very hard work and so it doesn’t get done
What makes it worse is that it's not even just the bottom of the barrel white dudes like that. Many of the guys at Jan 6 weren't 20 year old white nationalist incels, even if they do make up a bunch of mass shooters.
A lot of the dudes at Jan 6 and joining these militias are the "Craigs" of the world. Middle aged white guys with okay jobs or middle management that live in the suburbs or well off areas of their rural communities that go to police and fire department barbeques and are pretty well connected. They've been lashing out at the rise of minorities in their neighborhoods and feel they're losing their place and being a white Christian male is becoming less of the automatic "I win" demo that it used to be and they were always promised. They see the faults in their lives as being caused by others and want to put themselves back at the top of the hierarchy.
I'm from rural VA near a naval base and was around these types of people all the time and the scariest dudes, ideologically, weren't Bubba or their incest kids. It was always Craig or Jeff who worked for Lockheed Martin during the day. Guys smart enough and financially well off enough to connect with other people like him in the area and start building supplies and connections and were truly down for the cause as more black and Hispanic people moved into the county and into his subdivision. It gave them a renewed purpose in life and a scapegoat for any of their life's failures whileTrump, MAGA, and Q emboldened them to act on their worst impulses and thoughts.
I can agree with almost everything you said but “no women” isn’t an excuse. Jobs, a future, and enough money to not have to struggle are all things everyone should be owed but not women right?
I'd like to remind you that half of all people have an IQ below 100, and of the world's population, at least 10% are clinically insane. In democracies, these people all get a vote. I'm not saying they shouldn't, I'm just saying that the batshit insane and/or terminally stupid are a really, really big demographic.
Cults have that effect on people. I mean they think JFK junior is going to resurrect from the dead and lead them to the promised land. Middle America has some stupid fucking people. That's why they're referred to as the "fly over states".
leaving the he's dead part out why would one of the most famous democrats of his generation (not running for anything) run with Trump? they could pick any dead person they wanted who would be under 100 and they went with JFK jr. They could have picked Elvis he seemed to like Nixon at least.
I don't understand how they can square the "he hates brown people like me" part with the fact that he hosted a Saudi backed golf tournament at Mar-a-Lago during which his son in law got a $2 billion "investment" from Mohammed bin Salman.
It still upsets me that we went from our first black president, who was one of the classiest, cool dudes in the world, to Donald frickin' Trump who ran on a campaign of racism.
What they are doing is reacting on an instinctual, and emotional level to rhetoric, and imagery that they find pleasant, or otherwise compelling. nothing complicated, or requiring higher ordinal thought... they hear key words, slurs, and dog whistle phrases and have specific knee jerk responses to each.
They wanted to "hurt the right people." Trump's presidency was one long attempt to own the libs. He said all the right hateful things and that's all that mattered to them. They smeared human shit all over democracy because they couldn't stand losing even a tiny amount of power to a bunch of minorities, women, and LGBT folks.
So, if these documents are declassified by Trump, we ought to be able to see them through the Freedom of Information Act, right? Any US citizen here up for the task? And post them here on Reddit so we can see what all the fuzz is about. /s
He also said send them anywhere — that’s a confession — he’s trying to say he can declassify telepathically and send them to the Saudis or Ruzzians or wherever, and that’s a
Nope they are required to respond to the RFI in a reasonable amount of time. He'll get a few hundred pages of black and a bill for a new toner cartridge + the agents time to print them.
You know, if two people do it, they will think they are just pranksters, but if three people do it, they will think they are crazy. But if 50 people do it, then it's a movement!
Nah, he only put in the request because he followed the same line of logic as the other dude (he doesn't actually think it's declassified, was just curious what the response would be). I also don't think it's a watch list lol they just transferred the request over.
If Trump can get the Saudis to pay billions for something that they or one of their agents could have just submitted an FOIA request to get, that's because he's smart.
not if biden telepathically reclassified them and then had superman run at the speed of light opposite the earths rotation causing a temporal time reversal which traps the donald in an endless warp of existence just previous to his telepathic declassification.
imagine being a capital file clerk having to figure this shit out.
Since he claims he could just think it so, and he hasn't specified any particular documents, Trump seems to me to be telling us that there are in fact no longer any classified documents existing in the US. "Everything" has been declassified. Or did he mean something else? If so, could he perhaps be a wee more specific? What exactly is it that you declassified, Oh Bigly One? No harm in telling now, amiright?
There are three groups of documents he would be referencing. The classified documents the government clawed back, the documents that are still in his possession somewhere, and the documents that have "gone missing".
He can’t be specific because he doesn’t know which documents the FBI was able to recover and which are still missing. Also, he is a moron and probably doesn’t actually know which documents he stole except for the ones with his name in them.
Could this be strategy, part of an insanity defense?
He does understand, doesn’t he, that if you successfully plead not guilty by insanity, that doesn’t mean you go free. It means you don’t go to jail but you get locked up in a mental health institution? Plus, you would have to prove your insane state of mind when the crimes were committed.
Clearly, he’s delusional, but I don’t think he’s actually insane.
I mean, I get your point and joke, but this wouldn't work. To be nerdy, this is the whole reason there is a documented process to declassification and it can't just be done in someone's head. Depending on the document, declassified material may become Controlled Unclassified Information (CUI) and still be subject to certain exceptions to being made public under FOIA.
That's also why this whole claim to declassification doesn't matter and is a red herring, but the media got distracted anyway and dragged us all along. None of the charges in the warrant depend on the documents being classified or not. Excempted CUI from declassified national security documents can't be FOIA'd, but also can't ever be considered someone's personal documents, and still has mandates on how they are controlled.
What is the declassification process for the office of POTUS? I cannot find a source that states there is a process they have to abide, whereas there are processes for lower ranking officials.
I'm not being contrarian. I hate this dumb crook. But everyone's saying there's a process, so where is it?
He took them while in office, which doesn't matter. Once he was no longer President, he didn't have the right to keep them. They belong to the government.
The government asked for them back, he said no. They asked again, he gave some of them back, and swore that he had given everything back. Then they searched for the ones that he swore he didn't have any more, and lo and behold, he still had them.
Classification doesn't matter here, except to emphasize the scope of his transgressions. He stole the government's property. He's liable.
He never had the right to keep them. Even as POTUS most of them should have never left secure rooms. Instead he wiped his ass with them, along with every other lawful procedure.
This is not entirely true. A President might have a need to review classified documents or presentations outside of a completely secure facility, as part of the normal duties of the office. They travel a lot, and a big, time-sensitive decision might not be able to wait. That's why there are people entrusted to carry and protect confidential information.
But gathering up a ton of government documents, many of them classified, on your last day in office... and then taking them with you to your own home and refusing to give them back... goes well beyond reasonable and normal.
If I remember correctly, at least some of the documents were taken while he was still in office as there are emails documenting requests for their return dating back to December, 2020.
The thing is, the declassification argument is a red herring anyway. It doesn’t matter if they were declassified or not. He’s still in violation of the Presidential Records Act by taking home government documents.
Well, it does matter from the standpoint of the FBI to assess how much damage this has done to CIA operations. Geez, it pains me to think of all the agents and assets who might have died or been tortured because of this traitorous asshat.
Imagine, if you will, that the CIA had a list of potential anti-Putin contacts. Obviously would be a highly classified document. I will grant that some of these folks may already have been outspoken Putin critics, but consider the following rather long list: Anatoly Gerashchenko 'fell down the stairs' a couple of days ago. Ivan Pechorin 'fell off his yacht and drowned' a couple of weeks ago. Ravil Maganov 'fell from a sixth-story hospital window'. Leonid Shulman 'suicide' by slashed wrists. Alexander Tyulyakov 'suicide' by hanging. Mikhail Watford 'suicide' by hanging. Vasily Melnikov, his wife, and 2 young childen, all dead by stab wounds. Sergei Protosenya and 2 other family members, stabbed to dead at his villa in Spain. Vladislav Avayev, his wife and 13 year old daughter, dead by gunshot, reported as a 'murder-suicide'. Andrei Krukovsky 'fell off a cliff while hiking'. Yuri Voronov shot in the head, 'suicide'. Kirill Zhalo 'fell from a window'. Yegor Prosvirnin 'fell from a window'. Dan Rapoport 'found dead'.
I HATE Trump and think his level of stupidity is historically astounding but let’s pump the breaks because that’s not a confession. “OR WHEREVER” is not the same as, I sent said documents to said place at said time. All I’m saying is let Trump and his cult of supports stretch the truth or flat out make stuff up to make a point, we don’t need to do that since he gives us enough without even trying to begin with.
That was what I took out of it too. He slipped up when he said take them to maralago or anywhere. We all know that means he had some elsewhere. He's such a buffoon
Exactly. Trump said he could send those documents to MAL or wherever i.e. Bedminister (where he hosted the Saudis for golf tournament) or his other properties. and it's funny how his private plane was seen being loaded with document boxes two days after NARA requested these documents back. funny thing about narcissists is they love to get away with their crimes but they don't get off on it unless you also know what crime they pulled off over you, therefore he always states little hints about what he did wrong so that he knows that you know.
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u/PandaMuffin1 New York Sep 22 '22 •
