S*** the President Says – 3/25/2019

Ladies and gentlemen, brace yourselves for some insane rantings from our current president. This week contained an abnormally heavy load of s***, even for these times. What follows is a curated selection of s*** the president said during the previous week:As the president declares an impromptu national holiday over not being criminally guilty of the worst crime in American history, keep in mind what Mueller actually said: “While this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him.” Um, what? Last Thursday the National Security Advisor and Treasury Secretary announced sanctions on North Korea. The next day, President Trump cancels them on Twitter and no one knows why. This would normally be a weeks-long national story, lead to Congressional hearings and possibly resignations in protest, but because Donald Trump eats chaos and craps WTF there’s a great chance this is the first you’ve heard of this.

“You know, the incredible thing is that we can win an election and we have such a stacked deck. And that includes networks, frankly. You look at the networks, you look at the news, you look at the newscasts – I call it ‘fake news.’ ” 3/19/2019 at the White House. The president earned fewer votes than his opponent, won the election anyway, and still thinks the deck was stacked against him. The part of this I’m more interested in, though, is that “the networks” – NBC, ABC, CBS, CNN, etc. – are fake. There is no evidence of this.

You know all that time you spend on figuring out which words to capitalize? President Trump spends that time studying up on the history of media integrity, so he definitely knows what he’s talking about here. On a more serious note, look at the pattern. On the same day, Trump identified who the “fake news” is (see the item above) and declared them the United States’ enemy. This is the president of the United States – the man charged with protecting our country from all enemies, foreign and domestic – inciting violence against American media. It’s gross. We’ve already had a Trump supporter send bombs to CNN facilities, and a U.S. Coast Guard employee plot assassinations of media personalities and Democrats, and Trump won’t stop.

Don’t get me wrong – this is a very nice thing that Donald Trump didn’t need to do, so he deserves credit for it. It’s the victimhood I don’t like. For example, he imagines criticism from the “fake news media” if he had broken his promise by not making the donation, but then, it wouldn’t be “fake” at all to point out this broken promise, would it? As for the media not liking to write about these things, it’s worth noting that ErieNewsNow and CNN covered this, among others.

“[Late Senator John] McCain didn’t get the job done for our great vets and the VA, and they knew it. That’s why, when I had my dispute with him, I had such incredible support from the vets and from the military. The vets were on my side because I got the job done. I got Choice and I got Accountability.” 3/20/2019 Trump rally in Lima, OH. The Veteran’s Choice and Accountability Act was enacted in 2014. John McCain co-sponsored the legislation.

“I endorsed [John McCain] at his request, and I gave him the kind of funeral that he wanted – which, as President, I had to approve. I don’t care about this. I didn’t get “thank you.” That’s okay. We sent him on the way.” 3/20/2019 Trump rally in Lima, OH. Uh, perhaps he never got a thank you because John McCain is dead. Did he want someone to get him out of the casket and wave his hand around like something out of Weekend at Bernie’s?!

It’s just not true that the Electoral College requires candidates to go to many states. In 2012, all 253 general election campaign events were held in just 12 states, and 2/3 were held in just four states. In 2016, it was 94% in 12 states and 2/3 in six states. If there’s a good reason to keep the Electoral College, spreading the campaign around isn’t it.

Ah, yes he did used to like the idea of a popular vote. Specifically when he thought Obama won the Electoral College but lost the popular vote. When Trump himself accomplished that feat four years later, he deleted the old tweets and has loved the Electoral College ever since.

Turns out, there are two different ways to measure GDP growth. By either method, 2018 matched 2015 – good but not the best in 14 years. What President Trump wants to do is use the higher number for himself and the lower number for everyone else. Here’s the point: Donald Trump and the Republican Congress passed huge tax cuts to juice economic growth, blowing a $1 trillion hole in the deficit only to temporarily equal Obama era economic growth.