S*** the President Says – 12/10/2018

Ladies and gentlemen, s*** the president said during the previous week:

• “I am certain that, at some point in the future, President Xi and I, together with President Putin of Russia, will start talking about a meaningful halt to what has become a major and uncontrollable Arms Race. The U.S. spent 716 Billion Dollars this year. Crazy!” 12/3/2018 Trump tweet. Yep, crazy. Crazy because Donald Trump used to count this same $716B as a glorious accomplishment worthy of praise. This is more evidence that Trump knows nothing about his own policies and is swayed by whomever he spoke to last.
• “Does the Fake News Media ever mention the fact that Republicans, with the very important help of my campaign Rallies, WON THE UNITED STATES SENATE 53-47? All I hear is that the Open Border Dems won the House. Senate alone approves judges & others. Big Republican Win!” 12/6/2018 Trump tweet. Yeah, they’ve mentioned it. Republicans picked up two seats. Democrats were defending 26 seats (including 10 in states Trump won) to the Republicans’ nine total. This was the Republicans’ most favorable map in over 100 years and they netted two. It’s not very impressive.
• “Mike Pompeo is doing a great job, I am very proud of him. His predecessor, Rex Tillerson, didn’t have the mental capacity needed. He was dumb as a rock and I couldn’t get rid of him fast enough. He was lazy as hell. Now it is a whole new ballgame, great spirit at State!” 11/7/2018 Trump tweet. Show of hands: who’s okay with a president hiring someone lazy and dumb as a rock to serve as the Secretary of State for 1.5 years?
• “Totally clears the President. Thank you!” 12/7/2018 Trump tweet in reference to a court filing alleging the president committed felonies with his former lawyer, Michael Cohen. This type of criminal act should end a presidency. President Trump is banking purely on his followers not being made aware of this.
• “We will be doing a major Counter Report to the Mueller Report. This should never again be allowed to happen to a future President of the United States!” 12/7/2018 Trump tweet. He appears to express concern for the office here, instead of himself. He also baselessly accused his immediate predecessor of wire tapping him and ordered his attorney general to investigate his political opponent on a topic of which she was already investigated and cleared. This is not a guy taking a principled stand against unwarranted investigation.
• “The idea of a European Military didn’t work out too well in W.W. I or 2. But the U.S. was there for you, and always will be. All we ask is that you pay your fair share of NATO. Germany is paying 1% while the U.S. pays 4.3% of a much larger GDP to protect Europe. Fairness!” 12/8/2018 Trump tweet. My God, there’s so much wrong with this it deserves its own post – I’ll try to keep this short.

The idea of a European Military didn’t work out because Europe was at war with itself during both world wars.

He used “i” for WW1 and “2” for WW2.

The only reason Europe is considering a military agreement without the U.S. is because Trump has convinced them the U.S. cannot be trusted to uphold our NATO Article 5 obligation that an attack on one member requires a response by all.

Trump keeps citing other countries’ “unfair” lack of military spending to justify threats of not observing Article 5, occasionally citing the 2014 agreement that each NATO member spend 2% of their GDP on defense. What he never mentions is that was a 10-year commitment – each country has until 2024 to reach 2% and they’re making progress.

Article 5 has been invoked exactly once in NATO’s history – when everyone else came to our aid after 9/11.

The U.S. does spend way more than any other country on defense, but not all of that goes toward the NATO mission. Most other NATO countries are in Europe where most/all of their defense spending does benefit NATO.

• I’m out of breath.

• “John Kelly will be leaving – I don’t know if I can say retiring – but he’s a great guy.” 12/8/2018 at the White House. This is a perfectly normal sentiment for a change, and wouldn’t make this list if Trump didn’t feel the need to bash Obama for going through chiefs of staff just a few years ago. Further proof that there is a tweet for every occasion.
• “Watched Da Nang Dick Blumenthal in television spewing facts almost as accurate as his bravery in Vietnam (which he never saw)…” 12/8/2018 Trump tweet about Senator Richard Blumenthal. I honestly have no idea whether Blumenthal ever served in Vietnam or said he had. I do know President Trump sought a deferment from Vietnam for bone spurs in his foot, and now can’t remember which foot it was. Trump later described trying to avoid STD’s while sleeping around as “my own personal Vietnam.”
• “The Trump Administration has accomplished more than any other U.S. Administration in its first two (not even) years of existence, & we are having a great time doing it! All of this despite the Fake News Media, which has gone totally out of its mind-truly the Enemy of the People!” 12/9/2018 Trump tweet. Never mind the fascist, “Enemy of the People” garbage. It is ludicrous to think Trump’s team has accomplished more in two years than FDR accomplished in 100 days. Trump is leading the league in exactly one category: corruption.

Whew, the tweets. As always, follow the links to check out where all the quotes and claims come from, and thanks for reading. See you next week.