Day 2 was mostly devoted to voicing his frustration that his staff and lawyers have not yet figured out how he can obliterate the 1st amendment to the United States Constitution and banish all press and media by Presidential executive order. Oh, yeah, he also spent a good bit of the day lying through his teeth. As we have learned, it does not take much to get his hackles up and cause him to throw a hissy fit temper tantrum which would shame any four year old. Here is what set him off this time.
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| Aerial photo of Capitol Mall on January 20, 2017 during Trump Inaugural Ceremony |
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| Looking south on Capitol Mall toward the Washington Monument on January 20, 2017 during Trump Inaugural Ceremony |
We know DJT was stewing about this all night and beginning early on Saturday because he went to the headquarters of the Central Intelligence Agency and told some 400 of our best spies that he had accidentally turned on an unnamed television network (let's guess which CNN that might have been) when he woke up and apparently saw an image not unlike the two above. He then told the "Intelligence" officers a whopper of a lie that the crowd the day before was more like a million and a half people and stretched all the way to the Washington Monument. In other words, they should not believe their lying eyes.
Presumably, our CIA officials and employees are pretty smart folks and have decent or lens-corrected vision and can discern for themselves that DJT was telling them and himself a bald-faced lie. Not a terribly effective way to establish your credibility if you are getting ready to tell an even bigger lie. Which is exactly what Trump did. He told the CIA audience that he is going to give the agency "so much backing" and that he has no feud with the U. S. intelligence community -- something made up by the media who are "the most dishonest human beings on earth". Given his whopper only moments below, the irony of that accusation is overwhelming. Then, perhaps, Trump made an absolutely true statement to the group when he said, "there is nobody that feels stronger about the intelligence community and the CIA than Donald Trump." Remember that only ten days earlier, in berating that same intelligence community over their briefing paper about the Russian interference in our election and the possibility that Vladimir Putin had assembled a dossier of compromising information about Trump, DJT tweeted this --
Intelligence agencies should never have allowed this fake news to "leak" into the public. One last shot at me.Are we living in Nazi Germany?— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 11, 2017
I guess you do have pretty strong feelings about our intelligence agencies when you accuse them of behaving like Nazi Germany.
But, let's step back a minute because yesterday's performance is really not about Trump's id, as petty and infantile as it might be. I agree with immediate past CIA director John Brennan that DJT's trip to the CIA was beyond despicable. Imagine the gall it must take to stand in front of that hallowed wall of stars honoring fallen CIA officers and give a whiny political speech about himself and voice his vendetta against the press and to tell lie after lie to the very Federal employees he now claims to respect and have their backs after blasting them for weeks on end using the verboten Nazi analogy. To stand in that place and launch a fact-free attack against the 1st amendment and the institution of a free press is unbelievable. Well, I take that back. I guess every newspaper and media outlet in the country publishing an absolutely truthful image and account of the crowd attending one of our nation's most important ritual ceremonies is a much more serious affront and offense than the Russian government attacking our democracy -- perhaps with the complicity or at least encouragement of Trump's campaign staff. I wonder if Donald Trump has the back of the CIA and FBI in connection with those investigations.
It would have been bad enough if this sorry experience had ended there -- no, not even close. Later in the afternoon, the brand-spanking new White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer demonstrated his cool and calm demeanor and superb people skills by summoning the White House press corps to the very first press briefing and scalding screaming session. Our very own SS launched a blistering attack on a wide-eyed and disbelieving group of reporters about their shameful, hateful, dangerous, irresponsible, reckless, and dishonest coverage of his boss. He let them know in no uncertain terms what they should and should not be writing about. SS then proceeded to double down on DJT's earlier lies about the size of the prior day's crowd on the Capitol Mall (are these folks obsessed or what?). First, SS said that neither the National Park Service nor anyone else has any numbers regarding those attending the inaugural (I swear we heard his boss spouting numbers less than a few hours before). Then, because he was not satisfied to merely claim a crowd of 1.5 million like DJT had earlier, SS said, "This was the largest audience (I thought there were no numbers) to ever witness an inauguration, period, both in person and around the globe." (The photos belie that statement, and the Nielsen TV ratings barely put Trump in 3rd place behind both Barack Obama and Ronald Reagan) SS then proceeded to describe his boss' visit to the CIA earlier as a "love fest" that ended with a "five-minute standing ovation" and ended the press briefing with a threatening "I'm here to tell you that it goes both ways. We are going to hold the press accountable, too."
In case the press and media did not get the message, the threats against a free press continued into DJT Day 3. Reince Priebus, DJT's chief of staff, told Fox News Sunday that "We are not going to sit around and take it [referring to the photos and news reports of the inaugural crowd size]. We're going to fight back tooth and nail and twice on Sunday." I guess he meant that "twice on Sunday" part literally because, shortly thereafter, Kellyanne Conway, a senior White House counsel to the President, was railing at Chuck Todd on Meet the Press about the same news reports. She said the Trump White House is going to need to rethink entirely its relationship with the press. Don't forget they have already proposed moving the White House press corps out of the White House and said on deep background that "we need to get those people out of here". When confronted with what Chuck Todd described as "falsehoods" by SS at the press briefing the day before, Kellyanne (who will henceforth be referred to as "Princess Liera", pronounced Lie-ra) scolded Todd for being dramatic and said SS was merely giving "alternative facts".
Sorry to disappoint all you Trump supporters out there but it appears that his first days in office are not going to be devoted to draining the swamp or rebuilding America's infrastructure or cutting your taxes or any of the other things he promised you during the campaign. Instead, they are focusing their efforts on laying the groundwork for a declaration of war against the 1st amendment and a free press. Tellingly, given DJT's adolescent personality, the vehicle for the initial volleys in that war has been an incredibly idiotic "dick-measuring contest" over Obama's and Trump's crowd-drawing prowess. Won't it be interesting to see how DJT reacts to the Women's Marches of yesterday when he is told and sees that the ladies outdrew and got better coverage and ratings than both Obama and Trump combined?
By the way, Princess Liera made it official today -- surprise, surprise -- we will not be seeing Donald Trump's tax returns when the audit is completed, or ever for that matter. She has informed us that we don't care about them anyway.
Come on, man.
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