Bingo

President Trump’s head popped up during his top-secret intelligence briefing in the Oval Office on Jan. 28 when the discussion turned to the coronavirus outbreak in China.

“This will be the biggest national security threat you face in your presidency,” national security adviser Robert C. O’Brien told Trump, according to a new book by Washington Post associate editor Bob Woodward. “This is going to be the roughest thing you face.”

[...]

Ten days later, Trump called Woodward and revealed that he thought the situation was far more dire than what he had been saying publicly.

  WaPo

Why didn't Woodward tell us then? Oh, yeah. Book. Money.

“You just breathe the air and that’s how it’s passed,” Trump said in a Feb. 7 call. “And so that’s a very tricky one. That’s a very delicate one. It’s also more deadly than even your strenuous flus.”

“This is deadly stuff,” the president repeated for emphasis.

At that time, Trump was telling the nation that the virus was no worse than a seasonal flu, predicting it would soon disappear and insisting that the U.S. government had it totally under control.

[...]

Trump admitted to Woodward on March 19 that he deliberately minimized the danger. “I wanted to always play it down,” the president said. “I still like playing it down, because I don’t want to create a panic.”

[...]

[Infectious-disease expert Anthony S. Fauci] at one point tells others that the president “is on a separate channel” and unfocused in meetings, with “rudderless” leadership, according to Woodward. “His attention span is like a minus number,” Fauci said, according to Woodward. “His sole purpose is to get reelected.”

Fauci is sure to be shitcanned now.

In their final interview, on July 21, Trump vented to Woodward: “The virus has nothing to do with me. It’s not my fault.”

[...]

Aside from exploring Trump’s handling of the pandemic, Woodward’s new book, “Rage,” covers race relations, diplomacy with North Korea and a variety of other issues that have arisen during the past two years.

The book also includes brutal assessments of Trump’s conduct from former defense secretary Jim Mattis, former director of national intelligence Daniel Coats and others.

[...]

On June 3, two days after federal agents forcibly removed peaceful protesters from Lafayette Square to make way for Trump to stage a photo opportunity outside St. John’s Episcopal Church, Trump called Woodward to boast about his “law and order” stance.

Why is the idiot calling Bob Woodward, ffs?

In another conversation, on June 19, Woodward asked the president about White privilege, noting that they were both White men of the same generation who had privileged upbringings. Woodward suggested that they had a responsibility to better “understand the anger and pain” felt by Black Americans.

“No,” Trump replied, his voice described by Woodward as mocking and incredulous. “You really drank the Kool-Aid, didn’t you? Just listen to you. Wow. No, I don’t feel that at all.”

[...]

In another conversation about race, on July 8, Trump complained about his lack of support among Black voters. “I’ve done a tremendous amount for the Black community,” he told Woodward. “And, honestly, I’m not feeling any love.”

[...]

Trump shared with Woodward visceral reactions to several prominent Democrats of color. Upon seeing a shot of Sen. Kamala D. Harris of California, now the Democratic vice-presidential nominee, calmly and silently watching him deliver his State of the Union address, Trump remarked: “Hate! See the hate! See the hate!” Trump used the same phrase after an expressionless Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) appeared in the frame.

[...]

“I don’t think Obama’s smart,” Trump told Woodward. “I think he’s highly overrated. And I don’t think he’s a great speaker.” Trump added that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un thought Obama was “an asshole.”

[...]

Even as U.S. intelligence chiefs warn that North Korea is unlikely to ever surrender its nuclear weapons and that Trump’s approach is ineffective, the president told Woodward that he is determined to stay the course and dismissively says the CIA has “no idea” how to handle North Korea.

“I met. Big fucking deal,” Trump told Woodward, waving off criticism of his three face-to-face meetings with Kim. “It takes me two days. I met. I gave up nothing.”

Foreign affairs experts say Trump gave up much — including by postponing and then scaling back the U.S. joint military exercises with South Korea that had long angered North Korea, as well as by granting Kim the international stature and legitimacy the North Korean regime has long craved.

And here's why Trump is enamored of Kim (who obviously knows just how to play Trump):

Kim welcomed Trump’s overtures with over-the-top prose in letters. Kim wrote that he wanted “another historic meeting between myself and Your Excellency reminiscent of a scene from a fantasy film.” And he said his meetings with Trump were a “precious memory” that underscored how the “deep and special friendship between us will work as a magical force.”

In another letter, Kim wrote to Trump, “I feel pleased to have formed good ties with such a powerful and preeminent statesman as Your Excellency.” And in yet another, Kim reflected on “that moment of history when I firmly held Your Excellency’s hand at the beautiful and sacred location as the whole world watched with great interest and hope to relive the honor of that day.”

[...]

Trump remarked that he was awestruck meeting Kim for the first time in 2018 in Singapore, thinking to himself, “Holy shit,” and finding Kim to be “far beyond smart.” Trump also boasted to Woodward that Kim “tells me everything,” including a graphic account of Kim having his uncle killed.

Trump did not share his letters to Kim — “Those are so top secret,” the president said — but Woodward obtained them independently. He writes that Trump sent Kim a copy of the New York Times featuring a picture of the two men on the front page. “Chairman, great picture of you, big time,” Trump wrote on the paper in marker. (Trump falsely boasted to Woodward: “He never smiled before. I’m the only one he smiles with.”)

[...]

“It’s funny, the relationships I have, the tougher and meaner they are, the better I get along with them,” he told Woodward. “You know? Explain that to me someday, okay?”

[...]

“I have built a nuclear — a weapons system that nobody’s ever had in this country before. We have stuff that you haven’t even seen or heard about. We have stuff that Putin and Xi have never heard about before. There’s nobody — what we have is incredible.”

Woodward writes that anonymous people later confirmed that the U.S. military had a secret new weapons system, but they would not provide details, and that the people were surprised Trump had disclosed it.

They couldn't possibly be surprised. He blabs everything he's told - if he was paying attention and if he can remember it.

Mattis quietly went to Washington National Cathedral to pray about his concern for the nation’s fate under Trump’s command and, according to Woodward, told Coats, “There may come a time when we have to take collective action” since Trump is “dangerous. He’s unfit.”

That time passed a long time ago, bub.

Mattis told Coats, “The president has no moral compass,” to which the director of national intelligence replied: “True. To him, a lie is not a lie. It’s just what he thinks. He doesn’t know the difference between the truth and a lie.”

[...]

Coats, a former senator from Indiana, was recruited into the administration by Vice President Pence, and his wife is quoted as recalling a dinner at the White House when she interacted with Pence.

“I just looked at him, like, how are you stomaching this?” Marsha Coats said, according to Woodward. “I just looked at him like, this is horrible. I mean, we made eye contact. I think he understood. And he just whispered in my ear, ‘Stay the course.’ ”

[...]

When Dan Coats considered resigning because of Trump’s handling of Russia, Pence urged him to “look on the positive side of things that he’s done. More attention on that. You can’t go.”

[...]

“Not to mention my fucking generals are a bunch of pussies. They care more about their alliances than they do about trade deals,” Trump told White House trade adviser Peter Navarro at one point, according to Woodward.

Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and senior adviser, is quoted by Woodward as saying, “The most dangerous people around the president are overconfident idiots.”

Look in the mirror, you smug dipshit.

Kushner was a frequent target of ire among Trump’s Cabinet members, who saw him as untrustworthy and weak in dealing with heads of states. Tillerson found Kushner’s warm dealings with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “nauseating to watch. It was stomach churning,” according to Woodward.

[...]

Woodward writes that Kushner advised people that one of the most important guiding texts to understand the Trump presidency was “Alice in Wonderland,” a novel about a young girl who falls through a rabbit hole. He singled out the Cheshire cat, whose strategy was endurance and persistence, not direction.

More like Malice in Wonderland.

UPDATE:

Imagine doing it twice in two years.

UPDATE:

Jesus H Christ!  He made the phone calls himself!

UPDATE:

This is your president

This article is adapted from “A Very Stable Genius: Donald J. Trump’s Testing of America,” which will be published on Jan. 21 by Penguin Press.

[...]

[S]ix months into [Trump's] administration, Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis, Director of the National Economic Council Gary Cohn, and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson had grown alarmed by gaping holes in Trump’s knowledge of history, especially the key alliances forged following World War II. Trump had dismissed allies as worthless, cozied up to authoritarian regimes in Russia and elsewhere, and advocated withdrawing troops from strategic outposts and active theaters alike.

  WaPo

Even if he had any knowledge of history, he wouldn't give a shit.

Trump organized his unorthodox worldview under the simplistic banner of “America First,” but Mattis, Tillerson, and Cohn feared his proposals were rash, barely considered, and a danger to America’s superpower standing. They also felt that many of Trump’s impulsive ideas stemmed from his lack of familiarity with U.S. history and, even, where countries were located. To have a useful discussion with him, the trio agreed, they had to create a basic knowledge, a shared language.

So on July 20, 2017, Mattis invited Trump to the Tank [a windowless and secure vault where the Joint Chiefs of Staff meet regularly to wrestle with classified matters] for what he, Tillerson, and Cohn had carefully organized as a tailored tutorial. What happened inside the Tank that day crystallized the commander in chief’s berating, derisive and dismissive manner. [...] Rather than getting him to appreciate America’s traditional role and alliances, Trump began to tune out and eventually push away the experts who believed their duty was to protect the country by restraining his more dangerous impulses.

[...]

Mattis, Cohn, and Tillerson and their aides decided to use maps, graphics, and charts to tutor the president, figuring they would help keep him from getting bored.

Stop right there. It is both sad and reprehensible that the president of the United States would get bored in a session to learn the history of the country he's leading.

Mattis opened with a slide show punctuated by lots of dollar signs.

Unbelievable.

Mattis devised a strategy to use terms the impatient president, schooled in real estate, would appreciate to impress upon him the value of U.S. investments abroad. He sought to explain why U.S. troops were deployed in so many regions and why America’s safety hinged on a complex web of trade deals, alliances, and bases across the globe.

[...]

Mattis then gave a 20-minute briefing on the power of the NATO alliance to stabilize Europe and keep the United States safe. Bannon thought to himself, “Not good. Trump is not going to like that one bit.” The internationalist language Mattis was using was a trigger for Trump.

“Oh, baby, this is going to be f---ing wild,” Bannon thought. “If you stood up and threatened to shoot [Trump], he couldn’t say ‘postwar rules-based international order.’ It’s just not the way he thinks.”

Not only that, but he couldn't say it because he couldn't string that complex a phrase together.

For the next 90 minutes, Mattis, Tillerson, and Cohn took turns trying to emphasize their points, pointing to their charts and diagrams. [...] Cohn spoke for about 20 minutes about the value of free trade with America’s allies.

[...]

[Trumps] ricocheting attention span led him to repeatedly interrupt the lesson. He heard an adviser say a word or phrase and then seized on that to interject with his take. For instance, the word “base” prompted him to launch in to say how “crazy” and “stupid” it was to pay for bases in some countries.

Typical narcissist. Can't listen. Must talk.

Trump’s first complaint was to repeat what he had vented about to his national security adviser months earlier: South Korea should pay for a $10 billion missile defense system that the United States built for it. The system was designed to shoot down any short- and medium-range ballistic missiles from North Korea to protect South Korea and American troops stationed there.

[...]

“We should charge them rent,” Trump said of South Korea. “We should make them pay for our soldiers. We should make money off of everything.”

This is why I balk at the idea we need a business person for president. It's such bullshit. A government is not - nor should it be - a business.

Trump proceeded to explain that NATO, too, was worthless. U.S. generals were letting the allied member countries get away with murder, he said, and they owed the United States a lot of money after not living up to their promise of paying their dues.

[...]

Then he scolded top officials for the untold millions of dollars he believed they had let slip through their fingers by allowing allies to avoid their obligations.

“We are owed money you haven’t been collecting!” Trump told them. “You would totally go bankrupt if you had to run your own business.”

Pity the person who tried to tell him that's not how NATO costs work.

[General Mattis] tried to calmly explain to the president that he was not quite right. The NATO allies didn’t owe the United States back rent, he said. The truth was more complicated. NATO had a nonbinding goal that members should pay at least 2 percent of their gross domestic product on their defenses. Only five of the countries currently met that goal, but it wasn’t as if they were shorting the United States on the bill.

More broadly, Mattis argued, the NATO alliance was not serving only to protect western Europe. It protected America, too. “This is what keeps us safe,” Mattis said. Cohn tried to explain to Trump that he needed to see the value of the trade deals. “These are commitments that help keep us safe,” Cohn said.

[...]

Trump then repeated a threat he’d made countless times before. He wanted out of the Iran nuclear deal that President Obama had struck in 2015.

[...]

“It’s the worst deal in history!” Trump declared.

“Well, actually . . .,” Tillerson interjected.

“I don’t want to hear it,” Trump said, cutting off the secretary of state before he could explain some of the benefits of the agreement. “They’re cheating. They’re building. We’re getting out of it. I keep telling you, I keep giving you time, and you keep delaying me. I want out of it.”

Before they could debate the Iran deal, Trump erupted to revive another frequent complaint: the war in Afghanistan, which was now America’s longest war. He demanded an explanation for why the United States hadn’t won in Afghanistan yet, now 16 years after the nation began fighting there in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Trump unleashed his disdain, calling Afghanistan a “loser war.”

[...]

“You’re all losers,” Trump said. “You don’t know how to win anymore.”

[...]

Trump questioned why the United States couldn’t get some oil as payment for the troops stationed in the Persian Gulf. “We spent $7 trillion; they’re ripping us off,” Trump boomed. “Where is the f---ing oil?”

[...]

Trump mused about removing General John Nicholson, the U.S. commander in charge of troops in Afghanistan. “I don’t think he knows how to win,” the president said, impugning Nicholson, who was not present at the meeting.

[...]

“Mr. President, that’s just not . . .,” Dunford started. “We’ve been under different orders.”

Dunford sought to explain that he hadn’t been charged with annihilating the enemy in Afghanistan but was instead following a strategy started by the Obama administration to gradually reduce the military presence in the country in hopes of training locals to maintain a stable government so that eventually the United States could pull out. Trump shot back in more plain language.

“I want to win,” he said. “We don’t win any wars anymore . . . We spend $7 trillion, everybody else got the oil and we’re not winning anymore.”

Trump by now was in one of his rages. He was so angry that he wasn’t taking many breaths.

[...]

“I wouldn’t go to war with you people,” Trump told the assembled brass.

Addressing the room, the commander in chief barked, “You’re a bunch of dopes and babies.”

Jesus. And they didn't all get up from the table and hand in their resignations?

This was a president who had been labeled a “draft dodger” for avoiding service in the Vietnam War under questionable circumstances.

[...]

[T]his was the gravest insult he could have delivered to these people, in this sacred space. The flag officers in the room were shocked. [...] “How does the commander in chief say that?” one thought. “What would our worst adversaries think if they knew he said this?”

[...]

Tillerson in particular was stunned by Trump’s diatribe and began visibly seething. For too many minutes, others in the room noticed, he had been staring straight, dumbfounded, at Mattis, who was speechless, his head bowed down toward the table. Tillerson thought to himself, “Gosh darn it, Jim, say something. Why aren’t you saying something?”

It's that old military rank bullshit at play.

But, as he would later tell close aides, Tillerson realized in that moment that Mattis was genetically a Marine, unable to talk back to his commander in chief, no matter what nonsense came out of his mouth.

Exactly.

From the start of the meeting, Pence looked as if he wanted to escape and put an end to the president’s torrent. Surely, he disagreed with Trump’s characterization of military leaders as “dopes and babies,” considering his son, Michael, was a Marine first lieutenant then training for his naval aviator wings. But some surmised Pence feared getting crosswise with Trump. “A total deer in the headlights,” recalled a third attendee.

Others at the table noticed Trump’s stream of venom had taken an emotional toll. So many people in that room had gone to war and risked their lives for their country, and now they were being dressed down by a president who had not. [...] [Tillerson] was furious and decided he couldn’t stand it another minute. His voice broke into Trump’s tirade, this one about trying to make money off U.S. troops.

“No, that’s just wrong,” the secretary of state said. “Mr. President, you’re totally wrong. None of that is true.”

Thus marking the beginning of the end of Rex Tillerson in the Trump administration.

“The men and women who put on a uniform don’t do it to become soldiers of fortune,” Tillerson said. “That’s not why they put on a uniform and go out and die . . . They do it to protect our freedom.”

[...]

The meeting soon ended and Trump walked out, saying goodbye to a group of servicemen lining the corridor as he made his way to his motorcade waiting outside. Mattis, Tillerson, and Cohn were deflated. Standing in the hall with a small cluster of people he trusted, Tillerson finally let down his guard.

“He’s a f---ing moron,” the secretary of state said of the president.

[...]

“We were starting to get out on the wrong path, and we really needed to have a course correction and needed to educate, to teach, to help him understand the reason and basis for a lot of these things,” said one senior official involved in the planning. “We needed to change how he thinks about this, to course correct. Everybody was on board, 100 percent agreed with that sentiment. [But] they were dismayed and in shock when not only did it not have the intended effect, but he dug in his heels and pushed it even further on the spectrum, further solidifying his views.”

He is a man who refuses to learn. He needs to be removed from office.

The Tank meeting had so thoroughly shocked the conscience of military leaders that they tried to keep it a secret.

And then massage it for the public, just like the media do his wacko speeches, rather than inform everyone their president is a fucking moron, which is their duty.

“He asked a lot of hard questions, and the one thing he does is question some fundamental assumptions that we make as military leaders — and he will come in and question those,” Dunford told [NBC News correspondent Andrea] Mitchell on July 22. “It’s a pretty energetic and an interactive dialogue.”

[...]

Trump once again gathered his generals and top diplomats in December 2017 for a meeting as part of the administration’s ongoing strategy talks about troop deployments in Afghanistan.

[...]

“All these countries need to start paying us for the troops we are sending to their countries. We need to be making a profit,” Trump said. “We could turn a profit on this.”

Dunford tried to explain to the president once again, gently, that troops deployed in these regions provided stability there, which helped make America safer. Another officer chimed in that charging other countries for U.S. soldiers would be against the law.

[...]

“We need to get our money back,” Trump told his assembled advisers.

That was it. Tillerson stood up. But when he did so, he turned his back to the president and faced the flag officers and the rest of the aides in the room.

[...]

“I’ve never put on a uniform, but I know this,” Tillerson said. “Every person who has put on a uniform, the people in this room, they don’t do it to make a buck. They did it for their country, to protect us. I want everyone to be clear about how much we as a country value their service.”

Tillerson’s rebuke made Trump angry. He got a little red in the face. But the president decided not to engage Tillerson at that moment. He would wait to take him on another day.

[...]

Tillerson, Dunford, and Mattis [...] failed to rein in Trump’s impulses or to break through what they regarded as the president’s stubborn, even dangerous insistence that he knew best. Piece by piece, the guardrails that had hemmed in the chaos of Trump’s presidency crumpled.

[...]

In March 2018, Trump abruptly fired Tillerson while the secretary of state was halfway across the globe on a sensitive diplomatic mission to Africa to ease tensions caused by Trump’s demeaning insults about African countries. Trump gave Tillerson no rationale for his firing, and afterward acted as if they were buddies, inviting him to come by the Oval Office to take a picture and have the president sign it. Tillerson never went.

Mattis continued serving as the defense secretary, but the president’s sudden decision in December 2018 to withdraw troops from Syria and abandon America’s Kurdish allies there — one the president soon reversed, only to remake 10 months later — inspired him to resign.

[...]

The media interpretation of Mattis’ resignation letter as a scathing rebuke of Trump’s worldview brought the president’s anger to a boiling point. Trump decided to remove Mattis two months ahead of the secretary’s chosen departure date. His treatment of Mattis upset the secretary’s staff. They decided to arrange the biggest clap out they could. [...] They wanted a line of Pentagon personnel that stretched for a mile applauding Mattis as he left for the last time.

[...]

“No, we are not doing that,” [Mattis] told his aides. “You don’t understand the president. I work with him. You don’t know him like I do. He will take it out on Shanahan and Dunford.”

Dunford stayed on until September 2019, retiring at the conclusion of his four-year term as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. One of Dunford’s first public acts after leaving office was to defend a military officer attacked by Trump, Army Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman, a National Security Council official who testified in the House impeachment inquiry about his worries over Trump’s conduct with Ukraine.

[...]

By then, however, Trump had become a president entirely unrestrained. He had replaced his raft of seasoned advisers with a cast of enablers who executed his orders and engaged his obsessions.

And here we are.

Maybe call Rex Tillerson as a witness

“A Very Stable Genius” — a 417-page book named after Trump’s own declaration of his superior knowledge — is full of [...] vivid details from Trump’s tumultuous first three years as president, from his chaotic transition before taking office to special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s Russia investigation and final report.

[...]

Many of the key moments reported in the book are rife with foreign policy implications, portraying a novice commander in chief plowing through normal protocols and alarming many both inside the administration and in other governments.

[...]

Early in his administration, for instance, Trump is eager to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin — so much so, the authors write, “that during the transition he interrupts an interview with one of his secretary of state candidates” to inquire about his pressing desire: “When can I meet Putin? Can I meet with him before the inaugural ceremony?” he asks.

  WaPo

Did he need Putin to tell him what to say at the ceremony?

After the two leaders meet face-to-face for the first time — 168 days into his presidency at the Group of 20 summit in Hamburg — Trump promptly declares himself a Russia expert, dismissing the expertise of then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who had worked closely with Putin since the 1990s.

[...]

“ ‘I have had a two-hour meeting with Putin,’ Trump told Tillerson. ‘That’s all I need to know. . . . I’ve sized it all up. I’ve got it.’ ”

In spring 2017, Trump also clashed with Tillerson when he told him he wanted his help getting rid of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, a 1977 law that prevents U.S. firms and individuals from bribing foreign officials for business deals.

Say what?!?

“It’s just so unfair that American companies aren’t allowed to pay bribes to get business overseas,” Trump says, according to the book. “We’re going to change that.”

The president, they go on to explain, was frustrated with the law “ostensibly because it restricted his industry buddies or his own company’s executives from paying off foreign governments in faraway lands.”

Hmm.

One government aide tells the authors that Trump has destroyed the gravity and allure that used to surround the presidency, regardless of the Oval Office occupant.

“ ‘He’s ruined that magic,’ this aide said of Trump,” Rucker and Leonnig write.

Personally, I don't think that's a bad thing.

“ ‘The disdain he shows for our country’s foundation and its principles. The disregard he has for right and wrong. Your fist clenches. Your teeth grate.’ ”

Yes, that.

At one point, after the department blocks the release of what the president believes was a pro-Trump memo, he calls Kelly ranting. “ ‘This is my Justice Department. They are supposed to be my people,’ Trump told Kelly,” the authors write. “ ‘This is the ‘Deep State.’ . . . Mueller’s all over it.’ ”

[...]

Early in his presidency, Trump agrees to participate in an HBO documentary that features judges and lawmakers — as well as all the living presidents — reading aloud from the Constitution. But Trump struggles and stumbles over the text, blaming others in the room for his mistakes and griping, “It’s like a foreign language.”

English?

Governing by the mob playbook

As much as getting someone else to do it because he knows it's wrong, like the mob boss sending someone out to do a hit and distancing himself from the act, he's doing it because it tests the other person's loyalty and puts them in the position of him having something illegal to hold over their head.  

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

Everybody's always shocked; nobody ever does anything*

President Donald Trump pressed then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to help persuade the Justice Department to drop a criminal case against an Iranian-Turkish gold trader who was a client of Rudy Giuliani, according to three people familiar with the 2017 meeting in the Oval Office.

Tillerson refused, arguing it would constitute interference in an ongoing investigation of the trader, Reza Zarrab, according to the people. They said other participants in the Oval Office were shocked by the request.

Tillerson immediately repeated his objections to then-Chief of Staff John Kelly in a hallway conversation just outside the Oval Office, emphasizing that the request would be illegal.

[...]

The White House declined to comment. Kelly and Tillerson declined to comment via representatives. Another person familiar with the matter said the Justice Department never considered dropping the criminal case.

  Bloomberg

It was still impeachable, if not criminal, for Trump to ask for the favor.

Zarrab was being prosecuted in federal court in New York at the time on charges of evading U.S. sanctions against Iran’s nuclear program. He had hired former Attorney General Michael Mukasey and Giuliani, who has said he reached out repeatedly to U.S. officials to seek a diplomatic solution for his client outside the courts.

The president’s request to Tillerson -- which included asking him to speak with Giuliani -- bears the hallmarks of Trump’s governing style, defined by his willingness to sweep aside the customary procedures and constraints of government to pursue matters outside normal channels.

[...]

The episode is also likely to fuel long-standing concerns from some of Trump’s critics about his policies toward Turkey and his relationship with its authoritarian president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Zarrab’s release was a high priority for Erdogan until the gold trader agreed to cooperate with prosecutors in New York.

[...]

In a phone interview this month, Giuliani initially denied that he ever raised Zarrab’s case with Trump but later said he might have done so.

[...]

“Suppose I did talk to Trump about it -- so what? I was a private lawyer at the time,” Giuliani said. “Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe at some point I dropped his name in a conversation. Or maybe one of his people talked to him about it because I was trying to do a prisoner swap.”

Giuliani said he discussed the Zarrab case with State Department officials and disclosed that two years ago, although he declined to say if he ever spoke directly to Tillerson about the case, saying “you have no right to know that.”

Typical Giuliani. If they press him, he'll be saying, "Damn right I did!"

Tillerson has said publicly that the president frequently asked him to do things that were illegal. “So often, the president would say ‘Here’s what I want to do and here’s how I want to do it,’ and I would have to say to him, ‘Mr. President I understand what you want to do but you can’t do it that way,”’ Tillerson said in an on-stage interview with Bob Schieffer in Texas last year. “It violates the law, it violates treaty you know and he just, he got really frustrated when we’d have those conversations.”

And then he fired Tillerson.

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

*Until the Ukraine-call whistleblower.

Criticism coming at him fromevery direction

Former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said Wednesday that Israeli officials "played" President Donald Trump in their conversations with him, warning that a "healthy amount of skepticism" is needed in dealings with Israel's prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.

  Politico

Cue Trump tweet claiming how dumb Tillerson is.

"They did that with the president on a couple of occasions, to persuade him that ‘We’re the good guys, they’re the bad guys,’" Tillerson said, according to the Harvard Gazette. "We later exposed it to the president so he understood, ‘You’ve been played.’”

No. No he didn't understand that. And he's going to tweet a rebuttal.

But here's his latest Netanyahu take...

President Trump appeared to distance himself from embattled Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday, declining to offer either encouragement or praise to his most enthusiastically loyal foreign ally now that he faces potential electoral defeat.

[...]

Trump said he had not spoken to Netanyahu, a man he has described as a close friend. He then noted that the election is close while playing down Netanyahu’s importance to the alliance between the United States and Israel.

“Our relations are with Israel, so we’ll see what happens,” Trump told reporters traveling with him in California.

  WaPo

Fair weather Trump.

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

The Family

In newly disclosed testimony, former secretary of state Rex Tillerson said President Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, operated independently with powerful leaders around the world without coordination with the State Department, leaving Tillerson out of the loop and in the dark on emerging U.S. policies and simmering geopolitical crises.

In a transcript of his testimony to the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Tillerson also described the challenge of briefing a president who does not read briefing papers and often got distracted by peripheral topics, noting he had to keep his message short and focus on a single topic.

“I learned to be much more concise with what I wanted to bring in front of him,” Tillerson told the House panel during a seven-hour session in May.

[...]

On several occasions, Tillerson said he was blindsided by Kushner’s discussions with world leaders.

In one instance, Tillerson said he learned that Kushner was meeting with Mexico’s foreign secretary, Luis Videgaray, because he happened to be in the same Washington restaurant while the two men hashed out a “fairly comprehensive plan of action” that Tillerson didn’t know about.

“The owner of the restaurant . . . came around and said, “Oh, Mr. Secretary, you might be interested to know the foreign secretary of Mexico is seated at a table near the back in case you want to go by and say hello to him,” Tillerson said. “And so I did.”

Tillerson said he saw the “color go out of the face” of the foreign secretary as he walked into the room.

[...]

In another instance, Tillerson explained in detail being stunned by the 2017 Persian Gulf crisis in which key Arab allies severed ties with Qatar, another key U.S. ally. He said he was in Australia at the time with then-Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, and both were caught off guard.

[...]

He also said he was not aware of meetings that had been occurring between Arab leaders and Kushner, including a private huddle May 20, 2017, between Kushner, Trump’s former adviser Stephen K. Bannon and the rulers of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

[...]

“It makes me angry,” Tillerson said. “Because I didn’t have a say. The State Department’s views were never expressed.”

Tillerson said he asked Kushner to stop making trips overseas without consulting with the embassy or the State Department.

[...]

When he raised the issue, Kushner said he “would try to do better,” Tillerson recalled. But “not much changed,” the former secretary of state said, making it difficult because everyone was not working from the “same playbook.”

[...]

Tillerson, a former ExxonMobil CEO who tried but failed to change a number of processes at the State Department, said he was startled that many career diplomats had no idea what their authority was — or what they were supposed to be doing.

“I thought: This is nuts. I mean, this is crazy. You couldn’t run a corner gas station that way,” he said.

  WaPo

We're respected again.

I wonder if Pompeo gets the same treatment.

What Tillerson told the Foreign Affairs Committee

Tillerson told members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee that Russian President Vladimir Putin out-prepared President Trump during a key meeting in Germany, putting the U.S. leader at a disadvantage during their first series of tête-à-têtes.

The U.S. side anticipated a shorter meeting for exchanging courtesies, but it ballooned into a globe-spanning two-hour-plus session involving deliberations on a variety of geopolitical issues, said committee aides.

[...]

“We spent a lot of time in the conversation talking about how Putin seized every opportunity to push what he wanted,” a committee aide said. “There was a discrepancy in preparation, and it created an unequal footing.”

  WaPo

Does Trump ever prepare for anything? I seem to recall he told us that he doesn't need to, because it's all about attitude and "a good relationship."

Tillerson, whose public remarks about the president have been sparse since his dramatic firing in March 2018, spoke to a bipartisan group of lawmakers and staffers Tuesday at the request of the chairman of the committee, Rep. Eliot L. Engel (D-N.Y.).

[...]

Committee aides peppered the former oilman with questions about the 2017 session in Hamburg. Unlike in Helsinki last summer, when Trump met with Putin without advisers present, Tillerson attended the Hamburg meeting, giving him rare insight into the two leaders’ interactions. Experts said the disparity in preparation was unsurprising but risky given Putin’s depth of experience and savvy.

[...]

In the past, Trump has downplayed the importance of preparation, saying his gut instinct and ability to read a room are paramount for a successful summit.

[...]

Committee aides said that Tillerson refrained from openly disparaging the president but that his inability to answer certain questions was revealing.

[...]

When asked about the former secretary’s remarks, a Republican committee aide said that “we believe Tillerson’s testimony best speaks for itself, and are hopeful that our Democrat Chairman will release the full transcript of the meeting to the public soon.”

[...]

Tillerson, who tangled repeatedly with Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, did not question the motives of the president’s familial adviser, but said Kushner should’ve consulted more often with State Department colleagues and that his lack of knowledge of history exposed him to being outmaneuvered, said a person who was in the room. He also said Kushner did not follow traditional diplomatic protocols, which made it difficult to understand what he was doing with world leaders.

Let me guess: setting himself up in business.

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

On the defensive

Which, to His Lardship, is being offensive.





Well, I don't travel in his online circles, but that's the first time I've heard that used about today's Dems.



Yes, I believe it's actually His Lardship who has said he won't work on anything with the Dems as long as they have any investigations of him open.



1) They already have a ton of shit that would be bad for any other president; 2) Searches for opposition purposes happen all the time, and they will continue happening.



I'm inclined to believe Nancy.  He had a temper tantrum on Twitter.  Can be easily proven:



That's a lot of exclamation points for a polite and calm person.

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

UPDATE:



UPDATE:

I guess he wasn't finished.

Rex is talking

Former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was spotted entering a congressional office building on Tuesday morning for what a committee aide told The Daily Beast was a meeting with the leaders of the House Foreign Affairs committee and relevant staff about his time working in the Trump administration.

[...]

Tillerson’s arrival at the Capitol was handled with extreme secrecy. No media advisories or press releases were sent out announcing his appearance. And he took a little noticed route into the building in order to avoid being seen by members of the media.

[...]

Since leaving his post, he has rarely made public appearances, save for speaking at a panel in Houston in December. During that appearance, he said there was “no question” Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election.

"So often the president would say, here's what I want to do and here's how I want to do it, and I would have to say to him, Mr. President, I understand what you want to do but you can't do it that way. It violates the law," Tillerson said.

  Daily Beast

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

UPDATE 5/23:



I wonder why he appointed someone "dumb as a rock" to his administration.

I also wonder how many of his followers knew that Tillerson said he was out-prepared, and how many would have never known if he hadn't tweeted it.  He often gives himself bad press in this way.

And Putin would very much agree, I'm absolutely certain.


UPDATE:

More dirt from Vicky Ward's new book

Kushner, an envoy to the Middle East for his father-in-law, is said to have been robustly challenged by both Rex Tillerson, then secretary of state, and Gary Cohn, formerly Trump’s top economic adviser.

[...]

Ward reports that Tillerson blamed Kushner for Trump’s abrupt endorsement of a provocative blockade and diplomatic campaign against Qatar by Saudi Arabia and several allies in June 2017. The US has thousands of troops stationed in Qatar.

Tillerson “told Kushner that his interference had endangered the US”, an unidentified Tillerson aide tells Ward. Tillerson is also said to have read negative “chatter” about himself in intelligence reports after Kushner belittled him to Kushner’s friend Mohammed bin Salman, the controversial Saudi crown prince.

[...]

Cohn is said to have rebuked Kushner in January 2017 after it was revealed Kushner had dined with executives from the Chinese financial corporation Anbang, which was considering investing in the Kushner family’s troubled tower at 666 Fifth Avenue in Manhattan.

“You’ve got to be crazy,” Cohn is said to have told Kushner in front of others. Kushner met the executives around the time he hosted Chinese government officials at the Fifth Avenue tower. The building was eventually refinanced by a Qatari-backed investment fund.

  The Guardian

Yes, in an attempt by the Qataris to save themselves from Trump's alliance with the Saudis.

Ward’s book portrays Kushner and Ivanka Trump as relentlessly ambitious operators who are loathed by many forced to work with them. She reports that White House staffers mocked Kushner as the “secretary of everything” for his wide-ranging meddling and derided Ivanka Trump’s team as Habi – “home of all bad ideas”.

John Kelly, formerly Trump’s chief of staff and homeland security secretary, is quoted as dismissing the couple as “just playing government”.

The book also details disagreements between them and Steve Bannon, Trump’s former campaign chief and top White House strategist.

[...]

Bannon recalls Kushner furiously shouting at him at the White House in 2017 after he confronted Kushner about holding secret talks with senators on immigration reform. “He goes from a little boy to, like, this fucking devil,” Bannon is quoted as saying.

Bannon also claims to have told Ivanka Trump: “Go fuck yourself … you are nothing” in front of her father, during an argument over who was the bigger leaker to the media. Ivanka Trump is said to have called Bannon a “fucking liar”.

For her part, Ivanka Trump is focused on cementing a Trump dynasty to rival the Kennedys and Bushes by becoming commander-in-chief herself one day, according to Ward. “She thinks she’s going to be president of the United States,” Cohn is quoted as saying.

That's what Sarah Kendzior has been saying for two years.

Kushner, Inc. is due out on the 19th.

Regarding Rex Tillerson: A reminder

I wondered why Tillerson was resurfacing now - and less so why he was making out that he'd tried to rein in Trump unsuccessfully.  Now, after being reminded by Sarah Kendzior's podcast that Tillerson had serious Russia ties, I'm wondering if he's trying to soften the publicity that may be coming his way from the Mueller probe.

Here are some excerpts from a December 2016 CNN article on Tillerson.

In 2013, Vladimir Putin awarded ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson the Order of Friendship, one of the highest honors Russia gives to foreign citizens.

The silver badge underscores the close ties that have existed for many years between Russia and Tillerson, the leading candidate to be President-elect Donald Trump's secretary of state.

The 64-year-old Tillerson, a lifetime Exxon employee, came up through the ranks by managing the company's Russia account.

[...]

Once he became CEO, Exxon bet billions on Russia's vast but notoriously-elusive oil resources through a bold partnership with Russian oil giant Rosneft. Putin himself attended the 2011 signing ceremony for the deal with Rosneft, which is majority owned by Moscow.

[...]

In 2014, Exxon was hit hard by a round of U.S. and European Union sanctions that targeted Russia for its intervention in Ukraine. Exxon said it could have lost up to $1 billion due to the sanctions, according to regulatory filings.

Exxon would likely stand to gain if sanctions are lifted on Russia by the new administration.

  CNN Business

Exxon and Russia. The lifting of sanctions was the number one issue for Russia in its bid to get Trump elected.

And here are some excerpts from a New Yorker article this past March.

One subject that [Christopher] Steele is believed to have discussed with Mueller’s investigators is a memo that he wrote in late November, 2016, after his contract with Fusion had ended. This memo, which did not surface publicly with the others, is shorter than the rest, and is based on one source, described as “a senior Russian official.” The official said that he was merely relaying talk circulating in the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, but what he’d heard was astonishing: people were saying that the Kremlin had intervened to block Trump’s initial choice for Secretary of State, Mitt Romney. [...] The memo said that the Kremlin, through unspecified channels, had asked Trump to appoint someone who would be prepared to lift Ukraine-related sanctions, and who would coöperate on security issues of interest to Russia, such as the conflict in Syria. If what the source heard was true, then a foreign power was exercising pivotal influence over U.S. foreign policy—and an incoming President.

As fantastical as the memo sounds, subsequent events could be said to support it. In a humiliating public spectacle, Trump dangled the post before Romney until early December, then rejected him. There are plenty of domestic political reasons that Trump may have turned against Romney. Trump loyalists, for instance, noted Romney’s public opposition to Trump during the campaign. Roger Stone, the longtime Trump aide, has suggested that Trump was vengefully tormenting Romney, and had never seriously considered him. [...] In any case, on December 13, 2016, Trump gave Rex Tillerson, the C.E.O. of ExxonMobil, the job. The choice was a surprise to most, and a happy one in Moscow, because Tillerson’s business ties with the Kremlin were long-standing and warm. [...] After the election, Congress imposed additional sanctions on Russia, in retaliation for its interference, but Trump and Tillerson have resisted enacting them.

  New Yorker

So, maybe Tillerson is trying to get out ahead of some bad news.

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

LOL We were waiting

That didn't take long.



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

Rex Tillerson surfaces - Part 2

More on Tillerson's Houston appearance.

The fired secretary of state, who while in office reportedly called Trump a “moron” (and declined to deny it), expounded on his thoughts on the president in a rare interview with CBS News’s Bob Schieffer in Houston.

It wasn’t difficult to read between the lines. Tillerson said Trump is “pretty undisciplined, doesn’t like to read” and repeatedly attempted to do illegal things. He didn’t call Trump a “moron,” but he didn’t exactly suggest that Trump was a scholar — or even just a steady leader.

“What was challenging for me coming from the disciplined, highly process-oriented ExxonMobil corporation,” Tillerson said, was “to go to work for a man who is pretty undisciplined, doesn’t like to read, doesn’t read briefing reports, doesn’t like to get into the details of a lot of things, but rather just kind of says, ‘This is what I believe.’ ”

[...]

“He acts on his instincts; in some respects, that looks like impulsiveness,” Tillerson said. “But it’s not his intent to act on impulse. I think he really is trying to act on his instincts.”

  WaPo

Which may well be seen, then, as worse than his impulses.

“I didn't know how to conduct my affairs with him any other way than in a very straightforward fashion. And I think he grew tired of me being the guy every day that told him, ‘You can't do that, and let's talk about what we can do.’”

  Politico

You may have noticed that CBS clip is retweeted by George Conway.  He also retweeted the same story from NBC, Politico, and Josh Dawsey.  Conway is appparently very fond of this story, for some reason.

UPDATE 2:00pm:  LOL, His Lardship has seen the reports.

Rex Tillerson surfaces

Russia interfered with the 2016 U.S. elections, former Secretary of State and Exxon Mobil CEO Rex Tillerson said during a Thursday evening visit to Houston.

Making his first public appearance in nearly nine months, Tillerson spoke at a fundraiser for the MD Anderson Cancer Center, where he participated in a conversation with CBS News veteran Bob Schieffer.

When asked if he believes that Russia interfered in the presidential elections, Tillerson replied “there's no question” and that it was well-documented by intelligence agencies.

[...]

Describing Russian President Vladimir Putin as a “very calculating” and “very opportunistic” leader, Tillerson said Putin’s strategy is to undermine the U.S. influence around the globe.

[...]

When asked about his federal service, Tillerson told the crowd Thursday that he had never actually met Trump until he was invited to the White House by Vice President Mike Pence for a meeting that ended with him being asked to become secretary of state.

The honeymoon didn't last long, Tillerson said. The relationship between him and Trump became strained after the president grew tired of the former Exxon Mobil CEO telling him that he could not do things the way he wanted.

Tillerson said the two had starkly different styles and did not share a common value system.

"So often, the president would say here's what I want to do and here's how I want to do it and I would have to say to him, Mr. President I understand what you want to do but you can't do it that way. It violates the law," Tillerson said.

[...]

"I'd say here's what we can do," Tillerson said. "We can go back to Congress and get this law changed. And if that's what you want to do, there's nothing wrong with that. I told him I'm ready to go up there and fight the fight, if that's what you want to do."

Tillerson said Trump rose to power by tapping into something that the American people felt very strong about and using the tools of the day such as Twitter to do it.

[...]

"I don't want that to come across as a criticism of him," Tillerson said. "It's really a concern that I have about us as Americans and us as a society and us as citizens"

[...]

"I will be honest with you, it troubles me that the American people seem to want to know so little about issues, that they are satisfied with a 128 characters," Tillerson told Schieffer.

  Houston Chronicle

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

UPDATE 2:00pm:  LOL, His Lardship has seen the reports.

The cowardly firing again

Recall that James Comey learned he was fired from a television report while he was out of town, and that Rex Tillerson reportedly learned he was fired from Trump's tweet.  It's now reported that McCabe learned of his firing from a press release.

Sleaze balls.

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

UPDATE:

John Kelly is an asshole

He's probably on the short list to be fired, himself.

But, really, the whole damned administration is a disgusting lot of slime suckers, starting with the slime-suckingest of all at the top.

I'm no fan of Rex Tillerson by any stretch of the imagination, but this is totally uncalled for.  (Of course, I read it.)

The reporters were there with senior White House officials for an off-the-record meeting with Kelly, who was attempting to tamp down speculation about an impending administration staff purge. The Daily Beast was not invited, but was briefed on its contents by three sources with knowledge of the meeting.

According to those sources, Kelly recounted a very awkward conversation with Tillerson during which he informed the secretary that President Donald Trump would very likely soon fire him. The awkwardness was less a result of the contents of the conversation than its setting.

Tillerson, Kelly told the room, was suffering from a stomach bug during a diplomatic swing through Africa, and was using a toilet when Kelly broke the news to him.

  Daily Beast

So, at least maybe there's some truth to the claim that Tillerson was ill.

Sources were stunned that, even in an off-record setting, Kelly would say this—to a room filled with White House officials and political reporters—about Tillerson, who does not officially leave the State Department until the end of the month.

Kelly is routinely touted as one of the more mature members of Trump’s top brass and has often been branded as one of the “adults” in charge.

I don't know why. Remember the Federica Wilson debacle? Not very adult.

It wasn't Kelly's only off color comment at the meeting. According to an Axios report, he also joked about incoming chief economic advisor Larry Kudlow’s former cocaine habit. Kudlow, who has been up front about his past drug problems, has been sober for 23 years. Axios also reported that Kelly said in the meeting that Trump himself was likely contributing to rumors and stories regarding chaos at the cabinet and senior staff level.

He's an asshole.

And what a terrible place to work the Trump White House must be.

UPDATE 3/17:

Little Donnie revels in surprise firings

Remember how James Comey found out he was fired when he saw it on TV?  It might be that Tillerson found out when he saw it on Trump's Twitter account. 

Tillerson was ousted barely four hours after he returned from an Africa mission and with no face-to-face conversation with the president, the latest casualty of an unruly White House that has seen multiple top officials depart in recent weeks. Citing the Iran nuclear deal and other issues, Trump said he and Tillerson were “not really thinking the same.”

“We disagreed on things,” Trump told reporters at the White House

  AP News

For instance, Trump thinks he's the smartest guy on the planet, and Tillerson thinks he's a "fucking moron."

Undersecretary of State Steve Goldstein and other State Department officials said Tuesday morning that Tillerson hadn’t learned he was dismissed until he saw Trump’s early-morning tweet, and hadn’t discussed it directly with Trump. Goldstein said the former Exxon Mobil CEO was “unaware of the reason” he was fired and “had had every intention of staying.”

Then Goldstein, hours after making those comments, was fired, too.

According to CNBC, Goldstein was fired for "contradicting the official administration account of Tillerson's firing."

Some White house officials said Tillerson was warned by Kelly on Friday and Saturday while he was still in Ethopia that he was going to be replaced if he didn't resign. Goldstein's account and subsequent firing aside, I find this account believable, because that's when Tillerson suddenly "took ill" and then cut his trip short the next day.

Appearing in the State Department briefing room for likely the last time, Tillerson’s voice quavered as he described successes of his roughly one-year tenure: an economic pressure campaign on North Korea and a new Afghanistan plan.

“I will now return to private life, private citizen, a proud American, proud of the opportunity I’ve had to serve my country.”

Yeah, Rex did a bang-up job. At least he cleaned the place out anyway. There probably aren't too many past or current State Department employees who are feeling sorry for him.  But hey, he can now admit he called Trump a fucking moron, and he can call him that again any time he wants to.

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

Regarding Pompeo replacing Tillerson

My guess is that Pompeo is more likely to kiss Trump's ass.  He isn't known for disagreeing with His Lordship.


What Trump has changed is the pace at which we are able to flip on our heads.

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

And there goes Rex

It was going to happen, all their official denials nothwithstanding.  Tillerson's been at odds with Trump time after time, including on the recent tariffs. The last straw might have been when Rex recently said he believed that Russia was involved in poisoning people in England. The official White House position condemned the attack, but pointedly refused to blame Russia.  Tillerson had to know he was pushing his luck on that one.

He sees everything as a contest with winners and losers, doesn't he? Congratulations, winners! And you, too, Rex. Now get out of the way. Pompeo will happily do His Lordship's bidding.

I absolutely agree with Glenn on that.

Trump made sure to let us know Tillerson was fired, and didn't leave voluntarily.



I wondered why Tillerson cut his trip to Africa short.  And what that illness was. I didn't post about or question it too long, thinking that I was simply having a knee-jerk conspiracy response to something else in this inept, pathetic and devious administration.  This should prove to me that I can never go wrong assuming the worst.

Perhaps Tillerson was brought home early to be fired, and his response on the poisoning was actually a last dig at Trump.  Who knows?  But with this administration, you can be sure a cigar is never just a cigar.

A good fit for a president who wants to torture more people and execute others.

IN MAY 2013, the Washington Post’s Greg Miller reported that the head of the CIA’s clandestine service was being shifted out of that position as a result of “a management shake-up” by then-Director John Brennan.

[...]

As Miller put it, she was “directly involved in its controversial interrogation program” and had an “extensive role” in torturing detainees. Even more troubling, she “had run a secret prison in Thailand” — part of the CIA’s network of “black sites” — “where two detainees were subjected to waterboarding and other harsh techniques.” The Senate Intelligence Committee’s report on torture also detailed the central role she played in the particularly gruesome torture of detainee Abu Zubaydah.

Beyond all that, she played a vital role in the destruction of interrogation videotapes that showed the torture of detainees both at the black site she ran and other secret agency locations. [...] A special prosecutor and grand jury investigated those actions but ultimately chose not to prosecute.

  Glenn Greenwald

Gina may have to prove her chops soon.  She was number 2 at CIA, below Pompeo, and Trump may have given her the number 1 job just because he hasn't actually thought about who he might put in that position.

And, by the way, do you think Mike Pompeo will fill some of those positions Tillerson let dissolve?



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

UPDATE 3/16:



UPDATE 3/17: