There's a New Sheriff in Town

Donald Trump’s first press conference since the summer was a surreal exercise in the assertion of immunity from accountability. He either ignored questions about his behavior, or dismissed the questions as illegitimate.

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The press conference began with Press Secretary Sean Spicer attacking BuzzFeed as a “left-wing blog” (which it is not) for its questionable decision to publish an unverified dossier collected on Trump’s dealings with Russia on behalf of rival Republicans from the primary.

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Trump was asked about reports that intelligence agencies had concluded Russia hacked his opponents for the specific purpose of helping him win. He did not answer the question. Instead he expressed his view that having good relations with Russia would be nice, and concluded by mocking his Democratic opponent: “Do you honestly believe that Hillary would be tougher on Putin than me? Does anybody in this room really believe that? Give me a break.”

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[I]nvoking Clinton served a purpose that became clear as the press conference drew on. It defined any question he disapproved of as a challenge to his legitimacy, and thus a campaign matter, and thus by definition moot.

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Asked about Senator Lindsey Graham’s proposal to introduce tougher sanctions on Russia, Trump [said] “Lindsey Graham — I’ve been competing with him for a long time." [...] “He is going to crack that 1 percent barrier one day. I didn’t realize Lindsey Graham is still at it.” [T]o Trump, any action that might challenge him is indistinguishable from a contest for power.

Perhaps most telling of all, Trump insisted that the election validated for all time his refusal to disclose his tax returns, the only way to substantiate his claims not to have any business with Russia. [... And he said] about his precedent-smashing plans to maintain ownership of his business in an un-blind trust. Selling off the Trump business, his lawyer came on to explain, would expose the president to “unreasonable losses.”

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Trump brought in supporters to cheer his answers and shout at reporters who asked tough questions. He lambasted CNN as “fake news,” a term originally applied to deliberately false stories concocted by trolls. [...] Trump’s press secretary threatened to eject CNN reporter Jim Acosta if he continued to demand the chance to ask a question, which Trump refused to grant.

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The bully has his pulpit.

  NY Magazine

And yet, here's a surprise:

Mr. Trump said that after his briefing on Friday with American intelligence officials, he now thought Russia was behind the effort to hack his election opponents. “As far as hacking, I think it was Russia,” Mr. Trump said.

  NYT

Or maybe not.

Later in the news conference, Mr. Trump wavered slightly when pressed. “But you know what, it could have been others also.”

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When asked whether he had a message for Mr. Putin, Mr. Trump said: “He shouldn’t be doing it. He won’t be doing it. Russia will have much greater respect for our country when I am leading it.” He added: “There’s no reset button. We’re either going to get along or we’re not.” But he did not address a question about whether he or anyone on his campaign staff had had contact with Russia during the campaign.

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“If Putin likes Donald Trump, guess what folks: That is called an asset, not a liability,” he said.

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“I think it was disgraceful, disgraceful that the intelligence agencies let any information that turned out to be so false and fake to get out,” he said. [...] Trump added that BuzzFeed is “a failing pile of garbage.”

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Addressing the topic the news conference was supposed to cover, Mr. Trump said he would not divest from his vast business holdings as he takes office. Instead, the president-elect will turn over the operations and control of those holdings to a trust controlled by his eldest sons, Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr.

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He said he has “great respect for freedom of the press, and all of that.”

You know. That stuff.

Trump swatted away allegations included in the uncorroborated reports. He said he instructs aides any time he goes abroad to ensure that there are no cameras spying on him.

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[H]e did not think Mr. Putin had compromising information about him or the Republican Party. “I’ll be honest, if he did have something, he would have released it,” he said.

That's not being honest. That's being stupid. If he has something, he'll use it when it will buy him the most leverage.

Sheri Dillon, a lawyer for Mr. Trump, took the stage to describe how her client would turn over his business assets to a trust. “President-elect Trump wants there to be no doubts in the mind of the American people that he is separating himself from his business interests,” she said, adding that Mr. Trump’s sons will make all decisions for the company “without any involvement whatsoever” from Mr. Trump.

Turning your business decisions over to your kids is separating yourself from it?

Mr. Trump was flanked by a table piled high with manila folders that he said contained paperwork that he had signed turning over control of the Trump Organization to his sons.

What's the purpose of that? So we'll see just how vast his business empire is?

(If those really are contract papers that divest him of interests in his businesses, what do you want to bet that they were printed one word to a page and each folder contains only one sheet?)

Ms. Dillon said that no new foreign deals would be allowed during the presidency and that new domestic deals would be subject to strict restrictions. “He will only know of a deal if he reads about it in the paper or sees it on TV.”

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Ms. Dillon argued that selling Mr. Trump’s business would prove more difficult and create more ethical quandaries than the plan that the Trump Organization had chosen. A totally blind trust, she said, would likewise be impossible under the circumstances.

The circumstances being that he's not willing to do it. But, according to Ms. Dillon, he's "pledged to donate to the United States government all profits made by his hotels from payments by foreign governments."

And, oh yeah...that wall that suddenly Mexico will be paying for "later"?

“I don’t feel like waiting a year, a year and a half, I want to start building,” he said. He reiterated that Mexico would reimburse the cost, but he added cryptically that it probably wouldn’t be in the form of “a payment.”

press conference video and transcript here