Well it turns out that no one knew what Trump was going to do on Thursday when he rattled global markets and infuriated America’s trade partners by announcing tariffs on steel and aluminum imports.
Of course all you really needed to do to understand that this was yet another example of Trump flying off the handle was look at the sequence of headlines. Recall how this played out yesterday:
- 8:53: TRUMP IS SAID TO ANNOUNCE TARIFFS AT MORNING MEETING: CNBC
- 10:42: CNBC: TRUMP EVENT AT 11AM WILL BE ON TRADE, NOT TARIFFS
- 12:30: TRUMP SAYS 10% TARIFF FOR ALUMINUM; TRUMP SAYS 25% TARIFFS FOR STEEL
Clearly, Trump simply went rogue as he’s prone to do and just like all the other times he’s come unglued and made a rash decision with global implications without coordinating with his aides, lawyers, and cabinet, he doubled down on Twitter the next morning in an effort to try and make it seem as though he hadn’t made a mistake.
On Friday afternoon, NBC is out reporting that according to an internal White House document, “Trump’s policy maneuver was announced without any review by government lawyers or his own staff.” To wit:
According to two officials, Trump’s decision to launch a potential trade war was born out of anger at other simmering issues and the result of a broken internal process that has failed to deliver him consensus views that represent the best advice of his team.
On Wednesday evening, the president became “unglued,” in the words of one official familiar with the president’s state of mind.
A trifecta of events had set him off in a way that two officials said they had not seen before: Hope Hicks’ testimony to lawmakers investigating Russia’s interference in the 2016 election, conduct by his embattled attorney general and the treatment of his son-in-law by his chief of staff.
Trump, the two officials said, was angry and gunning for a fight, and he chose a trade war, spurred on by Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and Peter Navarro, the White House director for trade.
Yes sir, that’s what you want!
You want the President of the United States losing his mind on a random Wednesday evening after i) one of his closest confidants testified about collusion with a hostile foreign power, ii) his Chief of Staff cracked down his son-in-law who is under investigation for all manner of possible shenanigans, and iii) his Attorney General suggested that the DoJ will no longer sit idly by as the Oval Office attempts to bully them into conducting baseless investigations into political rivals.
And you certainly want to discover that the President’s mental breakdowns are being used against him by the likes of Wilbur Ross and Peter Navarro who, in case you might have forgotten, is all kinds of crazy himself.
According to NBC, Ross had already invited steel and aluminum executives to the White House by the time Trump lost his shit, but Wilbur didn’t tell the White House who those executives were. So, they were not vetted and they were not cleared by the Secret Service and apparently, John Kelly was kept in the dark about who they were as well.
But it gets worse. “There were no prepared, approved remarks for the president to give at the planned meeting, there was no diplomatic strategy for how to alert foreign trade partners, there was no legislative strategy in place for informing Congress and no agreed upon communications plan beyond an email cobbled together by Ross’s team at the Commerce Department late Wednesday that had not been approved by the White House,” NBC goes on to report, before adding that “no one at the State Department, the Treasury Department or the Defense Department had been told that a new policy was about to be announced or given an opportunity to weigh in in advance.”
This is what it’s come to folks. This is what counts as “governing.” Trump’s advisers are taking advantage of his ignorance and instability to push their own agenda with no regard whatsoever for the consequences of effectively lighting the fuse on a live bomb (Trump) and lobbing it into the void.
Not only were Congress, State, DoD, and Treasury left out of this, even the White House itself outside of Trump, Ross, and Navarro was kept in the dark.
Bear in mind: this is the guy with the fucking launch codes.
So this is how The Donald rolls when his shorts are in a twist.
It reminds me a bit of Slick Willie about 20 years ago (when his were around his ankles). He needed a convenient bad guy to use as a distraction. The next thing you know, we’re at war with an obscure despot named Slobodan Milosevic because of some Balkan hellhole no one had ever heard of.
And we proceeded to make an ugly mess…
Heisenberg, you’re analysis is good.. except for when your politics creeps into it. Avoid polluting your otherwise decent info and pointing out you’re whiny like all the other “writers” and “journalists”. You’re on the wrong side pal.
It must take an impressive amount of cognitive dissonance to choose to read someone’s personal blog, complain about the content because it offends your delicate sensibilities by espousing a different political point of view, and then accuse THEM of being whiny.
Why don’t you kindly head back to your preferred conservative confirmation bias hugbox where you don’t have to worry about being exposed to alternate viewpoints? I heard that Hillary Clinton and Ben Ghazi are personally designing a line of “happy holidays” Starbucks cups for Easter!
Hey Milt, what’s the matter? Have no way of contradicting what Mr.H reports about the orange demented clown that you voted in to MAGA? Contradict his reporting/analysis (which you cannot), otherwise, shut-up trying to tell H what he can’t write about.
Question: How can one contradict a report from two anonymous, unnamed sources? I suppose if the burden of proof you’re willing to rely upon is that low, I put forth the following: I hereby contradict the report because I have 3 unnamed, anonymous sources, with connections to the A White House, that say Trump enacted the tariffs because Obama secretly paid him $100m and Condoleeza Rice was the courier for this transaction.
Did I do that right, can we publish that on NBC now?
Journeyman,
Since NBC, like any legitimate news organization, relies on its reputation for its very existence, the fact that NBC reported it tells you the only reason they make it anonymous is protect their sources. Contrast that with the BS you wrote.
So you’re stating that because NBC has built a reputation, better read: Brand, you respect you are willing to accept the information they report at face value even if the sources aren’t made public and are inaccessible?
Again, you’re stating that the news team that brought you Brian Williams, a man who lied about being fired upon by and RPG (and subsequently admitted his bold lie) and never fact checked his HARROWING story that he told (and fabricated) for years is beyond reproach? These are the guys/gals in which you put your blind faith?
I would rather be skeptical of anonymous sources when it comes to important data/news/alleged conversations. Perhaps you should understand better what it means to develop a discerning eye when it comes to the difference between facts, opinions and conjecture.
Not blind faith. Just playing the odds, that’s all. It fits in nicely with the clown’s history.
My guess is that Heisenberg is not a fascist. We all choose sides.
hey Milt, guess what? this site is about politics and finance. if, for whatever reason, I want it to be all politics, all day, then that’s what it will be. you don’t make editorial decisions here. and if you keep trying, you won’t be reading anything here either.
I came for the Finance, I stayed for the Politics. Keep it up H.
The incipient Trade War is all about diverting attention from POTUS’s troubles with the Russian investigation. It confirms his Cabinet Secretaries’ calling Trump “an Idiot” and a “F@#$%@#! Moron.” To add insult to injury, Trump’s BFF Putin announced yesterday a new super ICBM Cruise Missile aimed at the U.S.
I watched the smarter talking heads discuss that today — seems those ICBM’s are nothing new and his tough guy talk was really aimed at reinforcing his standing in Russia – an election year for him. The “aimed at Florida” comment is because they all hate trump there too. His Russian buddies really loved that!
The telling part of that story is that OUR lying leader completely ignored it, no comment. Looks like he and Putin have the same Play Book. BullShit their way to keep control. And Putin has something really good on trump — can’t wait to find out what it is!
How about child sex rings in a pizza shop’s basement? Sandy Hook and San Bernardino were a government hoax and staged? QAnon (interestingly written about by Jeff Greenblatt in Futures magazine – I now know where he stands.)? Look them up. And on and on and all bullshit, brought to you by “alternate” news. You won’t find NBC’s name attached to such crap.
Trump lashed out because he lost Hope.
haha – I see what your did there! and it’s a good one too!
Let’s face it: Trump went from porn stars and Playboy bunnies to Kellyanne Conway and Sarah H. Sanders. Of course he’s pissed.
Fritz,
lol
I’ve said this before, this administration is an absolute shit-show. You’ve got the idiot-in-charge conducting policy on a whim, on personal vendettas and on what the morons on Fox & Friends say. He’s tanking the stock market, reducing the value of your pension in an effort to save a few steel jobs. Genius.
The very idea that Trump, Ross, Navarro and an unknown number of steel and aluminum executives sat around the Oval Office, banged desks and got each other (primarily Trump) worked up and frothy, and then the sitting President of the US announced a major initiative WITHOUT any ANY!! counsel, oversight, advice or insight from anyone else??! That is the most frightening thing I’ve heard from this administration yet. It’s so scary of a proposition it almost seems treasonous, in a pathetically ignorant manner.
And can you add some kind of “like” button? That joke above from Fritz was perfection.
Now that Hope has testified to Congress wrt Trump’s collusion with the Russians, his impeachment is likely this year!
I think the time is ripe for a 2018 remake of “Sunset Boulevard”.
Gloria Swanson – Donald Trump
Erich von Stroheim – John Kelly
William Holden – Hope Hicks
“There’s nothing else. Just us, and the cameras, and those wonderful people out there in the dark. All right, Mr. De Mille, I’m ready for my closeup.”