Donald Trump had a big day on Thursday.
With the Fed having finally capitulated in the interest of pacifying nervous investors, the onus for keeping the train on the tracks now falls to the White House. Markets (and Americans in general) are obviously concerned that another government shutdown is imminent and the world is on tenterhooks ahead of the March deadline on the trade talks.
It still seems just as likely as not that renewed gridlock in DC after February 15 will end up raising concerns about the debt ceiling and that those concerns will ultimately collide with the expiration of the 90-day truce with China beyond which tariffs on $200 billion in Chinese goods will more than double to 25%.
Nancy Pelosi made it clear on Thursday that there will be no wall money for Trump who, in turn, reiterated threats to declare a national emergency in the course of lambasting Democrats for being – and this is a quote – “the Party of late term abortion, high taxes, Open Borders and Crime!”
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Draft Of Democratic Border Proposal Surfaces: There Is No Wall Money
Trump had some press availability following his morning Twitter tirade and the clips are just as amusing you’d imagine they would be. Frankly, the two-front war with Pelosi and Xi is taking a visible toll on Trump’s already fragile mental state. His gesticulations and facial contortions were even more pronounced than usual on Thursday.
He kicked things off by addressing that other elephant in the room, where that means suggesting he knows more about national security than the CIA and the Director of National Intelligence (who last year literally laughed at Trump in public for inviting Putin to the White House after Helsinki).
Got that? Time will “probably prove” that Trump is “right” (and, implicitly, that the CIA is wrong) when it comes to North Korea and Iran.
This “debate” is mind-boggling, to say the least. This is a President who was (and likely still is, assuming Mueller folded the investigation into his own probe) under investigation by the FBI for being a possible Russian intelligence asset, who confiscates the notes of his own interpreters to make sure nobody knows what he discusses when he’s alone with the Russian President and who ignored the assessments of the CIA and Turkish intelligence during the Jamal Khashoggi debacle, claiming that Dan Coats and Gina Haspel are “probably” wrong about Pyongyang and Tehran. Later, Trump would claim on Twitter that the media “distorted” what Coats and Haspel said. He even posted a picture of himself staring at them.
Just concluded a great meeting with my Intel team in the Oval Office who told me that what they said on Tuesday at the Senate Hearing was mischaracterized by the media – and we are very much in agreement on Iran, ISIS, North Korea, etc. Their testimony was distorted press…. pic.twitter.com/Zl5aqBmpjF
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 31, 2019
On the border, Trump actually tried to claim that Nancy Pelosi will one day “beg” him for a wall and as you’ll hear/see below, he is now completely delusional about this situation.
Next, Trump tried out a brand new pitch for the wall, centered around a hypothetical situation where “all walls”, all around the world are “taken down”, a scenario he (correctly) suggests would lead to “a mess like you’ve never seen before”.
The President then ran through a list of his “accomplishments”. As anyone who is familiar with how he usually goes about this knows, he doesn’t seem to understand the difference between an “accomplishment” and a plain old noun. Recall this classic tweet:
Mr. Prez, "strong military" isn't an "accomplishment." it's just a noun with an adjective in front of it. like "big truck" or "baby bird"
— Heisenberg Report (@heisenbergrpt) October 22, 2017
The latest example of this phenomenon finds Trump saying he “accomplished the military.” In the clip below, he also tries to take credit for the US having “the number one economy in the world” and as usual, that’s either not attributable to him or else manifestly false, depending on what he means by “number one”. The US has had the world’s largest economy for as long as anyone can remember and if he’s talking about GDP growth, the US isn’t even close to “number one”.
Asked why the deficit has ballooned on his watch, he cited the lag time between signing trade deals and when they “kick in” which, he says, “won’t be for a while”.
And here’s a fun looped video of him pounding the table and doing something strange with his hands for no readily apparent reason.
Finally, when asked whether he’s concerned about “legal challenges” to what everyone now just assumes is an inevitable national emergency declaration, Trump said simply this:
As you can see, it does not appear that there will be any kind of bipartisan agreement on border security that will keep the government open past February 15 and indeed, Trump explicitly says in one of the clips above that he won’t even bother to read any deal that doesn’t include money earmarked specifically for his wall.
On the trade talks with China, Trump called recent efforts on the part of Beijing to purchase more US soybeans a “fantastic sign of faith” and claimed Lighthizer made “tremendous progress” in talks with Liu He. Steve Mnuchin will reportedly travel to China soon. Huawei hasn’t been discussed yet, “but it will be”, Trump said.
As for whether the March deadline is negotiable, the answer is apparently “no”. Trump “reiterated that the 90-day process agreed to in Buenos Aires represents a hard deadline, and that United States tariffs will increase” barring a deal, a White House statement on the negotiations reads.
In any case, the problem with all of the above is that it still isn’t clear there’s anything Democrats could do to pacify Trump on the border battle and, in the same vein, it’s even less clear there’s a way out of the trade war for China.
We would continue to suggest that Trump feels like he needs to have battles to fight somewhere in order to preserve his political capital and keep the Roseanne base energized. If that’s the case, all of this is pointless.
Trump is a complete idiot, but he’s learned 2 things: Repeat something (anything) often enough and folks tend to get onboard. Not everyone of course, but enough to keep his train rolling down the tracks. And if something goes against you, go twice as hard ‘right back at ya’ (ie, deny & counter-sue).
So, despite the daily insanity, I believe he continues to build his ‘brand’ bigger than ever, and will likely be a formidable candidate in 2020. Repubs have shown they’ll push back (effectively) on NOTHING he says or does, and the way Dems are going, they appear highly unlikely to come up w/ a worthy (ie, winning) opponent.
Fed caved, and no matter what happens w/ China I think Trump wants this done more than China, so he’ll announce a “tremendous deal!” to keep this party going. Talking my book…
He might have to send U.S. Troops in to Venezuela, which would be a disaster on all counts, just to distract the Public’s attention away from Mueller’s tightening ‘noose.’ Trump can’t be trusted on any ‘deal’ he makes, viz., Steel and Aluminum tariffs.
click
I think the strategy, after Trump realized he had won the presidency, was from day one to go as long as possible with the desperate hope that Congress would completely bar him. This way, there would be an out for failing to accomplish anything.
But that didn’t happen. TCJA happened, DPRK happened, and now the wall might happen. Re-election might even happen. Imagine the clicks!
Every day I wonder how otherwise rational people become irrational when it comes to trump. Today would make any rational person question his competency and honestly his mental wellness. It is astonishing that people have not yet demanded better from him. The bar has never been this low for any previous president. Imagine what Repubs would have said if Pres Obama said and did these things………………..
What do you think the Repubs say about Trump behind the scenes? I suppose they are they just riding this train as far as it will carry them. But surely the sane among them are terrified of what this inept and insane man will get us into. Their ability to remain silent and acquiesce is mind boggling to me.
Yup it’d be pretty damn cold without any walls in my condo