Trump's very bad week

Little Anthony Trump wants to see the world burn, because not everybody will say he's a good boy.

Feeling exasperated and feisty as he awoke in the White House residence, President Trump fired off his grievances on Twitter about how the media had been covering his Helsinki summit. And, refusing to be cowed, Trump gave national security adviser John Bolton an order: to schedule a second summit and officially invite Russian President Vladi­mir Putin to visit Washington.

[...]

Bolton sprang into action to make it official, making an overture to the Kremlin. By ­midafternoon the White House announced that planning was underway for a fall summit in Washington.

  WaPo

Does he think the coverage will be better the next round? Can't wait to find out what he's got in store for THAT. Buy your gas masks and store your provisions in the basement.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Just as Trump prepared to decamp to his New Jersey golf course for the weekend and turn the page on a full week of Russia controversies, more bad news arrived Friday. Reports surfaced, first in the New York Times, that the FBI had a fall 2016 recording of Trump and his then-personal attorney, Michael Cohen, discussing payments to silence a former Playboy centerfold who alleged that she had an extramarital affair with Trump.

[...]

The trouble started Monday in Helsinki, though the magnitude did not set in for Trump for several hours.

  WaPo

Can we believe he's really that clueless?

Delighted with his own performance, he stepped offstage after his freewheeling, 46-minute news conference alongside Putin — in which he seemed to accept Putin’s denial of Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election campaign over the conclusions of U.S. intelligence agencies. The president felt he had shown strength, an impression buoyed by two friendly interviews he did with Fox News Channel personalities before boarding Air Force One to return home from the Nordic capital.

Perhaps we can.

But roughly an hour into the flight, Trump’s mood darkened and grim reality set in as he consumed almost universally negative cable news coverage and aides began reviewing pages upon pages of printed-out statements from fellow Republicans lambasting the president. Trump called his former chief of staff, Reince Priebus, to discuss the trip and his news conference, and he also huddled with White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders in his cabin at the front of the plane to strategize.

Tell me the fired Priebus didn't cowtow. Yeah, no doubt he did.

Much of the initial scrutiny focused on Trump’s taking the side of Putin over his own intelligence community, so Trump and his aides first settled on the president’s sending a tweet that reiterated, “I have GREAT confidence in MY intelligence people.”

That was his idea, no doubt.

But that did not silence the uproar, and aides knew they had a big problem.

Trump himself was flummoxed. He waxed on about his impressions of Putin up close — strong, smart and cunning, in Trump’s assessment — and told associates that he viewed the Russian as a formidable adversary with whom he relishes interactions.

At which point they knew they had an even bigger problem, eh?

Trump himself was flummoxed. He waxed on about his impressions of Putin up close — strong, smart and cunning, in Trump’s assessment — and told associates that he viewed the Russian as a formidable adversary with whom he relishes interactions.

Trump further grumbled about the tough question he was asked by Jonathan Lemire, an Associated Press correspondent, wondering why that reporter had been called on rather than someone who might have asked an easier question.

What a wuss! And, who the hell called on Lemire, anyway?

Lemire asked whether Trump would denounce Russia’s election interference to Putin’s face, “with the whole world watching,” and the president demurred.

Lemire will never get another opportunity, but boy, he chose the wording of his only chance wisely.

Aides tried to explain to Trump that nearly any journalist would have asked a similarly pointed question in that moment.

I doubt it.

Later in the week, he told CNBC, “I had some of these fools from the media saying, ‘Why didn’t you stand there, look him in the face, walk over to him, and start shouting at him?’ I said, ‘Are these people crazy? I want to make a deal.’ ”

[...]

Vice President Pence, Chief of Staff John F. Kelly, counselor Kellyanne Conway, deputy chief of staff for communications Bill Shine, senior policy adviser Stephen Miller, Bolton and Sanders [on Tuesday morning] met with Trump to draft a statement that he would deliver that afternoon seeking to clarify his Helsinki remarks.

[...]

Trump personally reviewed first the transcript and then the video of his news conference and came up with the “double-negative” explanation that he ultimately provided — that when he said in Helsinki he saw no reason that the election hackers “would” be Russian, he had meant to say “wouldn’t.”

And nobody in the world - other than some newscasters (unless they were lying) - believed him. Not even the MAGAheads believed that. They may say they did, but they didn't.

Initially, the president worried that his statement would be viewed as backing down or not toughing out the criticism...

Or lying?

... — the sort of concessions he is loath to make. But senior advisers reassured him that if he had really meant to say that he didn’t see why Russian wouldn’t be to blame, he would be simply offering a clarification, not caving.

Christ what a big baby.

But there were showstoppers still to come. At Wednesday’s Cabinet meeting focused on the economy, as staffers were ushering reporters out of the room, ABC News’s Cecilia Vega asked Trump whether he still believed the Russians were targeting the United States.

Amid the chaos, Trump looked at Vega and uttered one word: “No.”

[...]

And the White House had a fresh crisis on its hands.

[...]

“I talked to the president,” [Sarah] Sanders told reporters. “He wasn’t answering that question. He was saying, no, he’s not taking questions.”

Trump's best whore.

And, remember that "interesting" and "fascinating" idea Putin had about being allowed to interrogate US officials about Russian interference? The Whore of Babblin' said this:

[A]after discussing the matter with Trump, Sanders issued the president’s final verdict, saying he disagreed with Putin’s proposal.

Interesting and fascinating though it was.