He really is desperate to get away from Mueller's Trawlers. As are his handlers desperate to get him away. He normally doesn't like to be gone overnight!
They're sending the president* to Asia, where they're going to uncrate him sporadically for 12—gulp—days. This account of the preparations for the trip in Politico does not make me swell up either with national pride or unreasonable confidence. I just hope we're all alive when he gets back.
Charles P Pierce
But some of Trump’s advisers believe the time away from Washington will offer the president, who leaves Friday, a brief respite from the Russia-related revelations that have consumed him in recent days.
Politico
Come on, people. You're just thrilled to have twelve days you don't have to hide behind furniture.
Top aides have sought to keep the briefings short to avoid overloading the president with details but have scheduled dozens of them to plan public remarks and outline what he should say about North Korea on defense and China on trade.
And which will not matter one iota once he cuts loose.
“We’ve kind of tried to do it in pieces so it’s easy to keep up with,” said another administration official.
Our boss is a numbskull.
I assume they include lots of pictures and his name in every paragraph.
There are numerous ways Trump’s team could run into protocol problems in Asia, where many countries place a premium on proper behavior, said former U.S. officials who specialized in the subject.
Oh, they're doomed.
During his visit to the Philippines, Trump will have to strike a careful balance between underscoring the importance of the U.S. relationship with the nation and distancing himself from the extrajudicial killings blessed by Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte as he wages a war on drugs.
Well, that's not gonna happen. He's already tweeted out praise time and again for Duterte. He wishes he could order such abuse here.
Trump also could be thrust into the middle of a tense dispute between Japan and South Korea over so-called comfort women, the term for the women and girls who were forced to serve Japanese soldiers sexually during World War II.
I can't wait.
“That could be a disaster,” an outside adviser to Trump said.
Oh, yes it could.
Administration officials said Trump is eager to meet face-to-face again with Xi, a leader with whom he has built a close relationship.
Chocolate cake!
But Trump’s recent effusive praise of Xi has raised eyebrows among the White House’s conservative allies, who wonder which Trump will show up to Asia: the hard-charging iconoclast who declared during the campaign that China was “raping” the United States or the smooth-talking deal-maker who sees hope for improved relations.
Are you kidding? It'll be the ass-kissing, fawning suck-up.
“It’s my raging nightmare that he’s going to congratulate Xi on his ‘reelection,’” said Derek Scissors, a China expert at the American Enterprise Institute.
[...]
“People who are inexperienced with China often get played [...]” Scissors said.
Well, get ready, Derek.
This past summer, a White House news release referred to Xi as the leader of the “Republic of China” instead of the proper “People’s Republic of China,” a diplomatic blunder for which Beijing said the White House apologized.
The “Republic of China” is what Taiwan calls itself.
[...]
The upcoming trip — which includes stops in Japan, South Korea, Vietnam and the Philippines as well as China — will put pressure on Trump’s divided advisers to better define what some experts say is a muddled Asia strategy.
He has an Asia strategy?
“The biggest risk is not that he’s going to say something that spoils the U.S.-China relationship, but that he’s going to be so fawning and uncritical of China and Xi Jinping that it raises alarms in the rest of the region about a grand bargain between the U.S. and China,” said Ely Ratner, who advised former Vice President Joe Biden on Asia.
What I was just saying. I think you can count on it.
People close to Trump said the president’s apparent embrace of Xi stems from his affinity for aggressive, even authoritarian international leaders.
Men like Duterte. And Daddy.
“He’s a powerful man. I happen to think he’s a very good person,” Trump said of Xi during an interview with Fox Business Network’s Lou Dobbs last week, adding later, “People say we have the best relationship of any president-president, because he’s called president also,” he went on to say. “Now some people might call him the king of China. But he’s called president.”
Just a little taste of what's ahead, folks.
“You never know what he’ll say,” an administration official said, adding that the grueling schedule could heighten the risk of mistakes. An outside adviser to the administration concurred: “The potential for error is huge.”
And yet, here we are.
Yeah, this is going to be good. When does he leave?
