REPORTER: Can you clarify something you said earlier. If Pelosi holds a vote on the floor on impeachment and commits to the rules of previous impeachment proceedings, you'll participate in that investigation?ADDED: I wonder how often Trump says "believe it or not." It might be a tell. Maybe it means: Yeah, I know this is bullshit, but try it anyway.
PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP: Yeah, if they--if the rules are fair, because I don't know how--I don't know exactly a definition. If Republicans get a fair shake, because the Republicans have been--look, we were very nice to them when Paul Ryan was the Speaker he really wouldn't give subpoenas. And I'm not saying good bad or indifferent. Here's a man that knows it very well. They go in with all of the corruption that you been reading about and all of the things that they did wrong with--with Comey and all of these people and all of the things they did wrong. When we wanted a subpoena, meaning they wanted a subpoena, it was very hard to get it. And I'm not sure he ever even issued a subpoena.
And Nancy Pelosi issues subpoenas. Come on in and get them. Gives them to Nadler, gives them to crooked Schiff. I mean, this Schiff is one crooked guy. The guy made up my phone call. Think of it. In the United States Congress he made up my phone call. And I've had people that said he didn't like the way you talked to the Ukrainian president. I said did you read my speech? No, I heard Schiff. Shifty Schiff. I heard Schiff. I said that's how I said it. I said well, let me see what he said. A lot of people saw that.
And frankly, I think if it wasn't for me, I don't know if anybody would have even noticed and called him out. He took my really, believe it or not, congenial and gentle words and he made me sound like a tyrant. It's a terrible thing. He defrauded the American public. I mean, honestly, I don't know what can happen, but there are those that say he should be prosecuted for what he did. He should certainly be impeached, but he should be prosecuted for what he did. And I think he's a very bad leader of this movement. Yes, please.
October 10, 2019
"He took my really – believe it or not – congenial and gentle words and he made me sound like a tyrant."
Said Donald Trump, talking about Adam Schiff. Context (at RCP, with video (and it really is much better played as video, with all the emotive expression)):
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74 comments:
Schiff really hurt his feelings.
He’s not wrong. Experts say diplomacy calls for congeniality, for bonhomie, for kind words. Imagine the outrage if Trump gave them the Trump they all whine about...
Ah the Schifferro0--presides over a kangaroo court.
But there is a line from an old Tim Hardin song "Reasons to Believe". It goes, "Knowing that you'd lie straight faced, I still look for reasons to believe." And there are plenty of Dems and Never Trumpers who want to believe Schiff. Still and all, Schiff has a track record that makes that hard.
FACT CHECK: True.
It's directionally correct, as Scott Adams says. That's the point of the bullshit, a direction.
Trump works by adding momentum, not by manipulating position.
That's our President Trump!
Believe it or not is a challenge to the Leftist media to report on the facts. He's asking them to set aside agendas. He's begging them to talk about why Trump is wrong, if they can.
PURPLE ELEPHANT
Maybe it means: Yeah, I know this is bullshit, but try it anyway.
Or it might mean “I know you and everybody else at your news organization are caught up in ‘Orange Man bad,’ but this is what really happened.”
If Pelosi holds a vote on the floor on impeachment and commits to the rules of previous impeachment proceedings, then the situation will go even worse for Pelosi.
She still will not get grand-jury testimony, tax records and White House documents.
Meanwhile, the House Republicans will turn the inquiry into a public circus.
Part of Trump's charm is that he expresses conventional wisdom, not "woke" wisdom. Ordinary people nod, yes, that is how it is. The woke go reeee, reeee, reeee.
Here the believe it or not means he's making a self-deprecating joke acknowledging that usually he is not kind and gentle.
What is interesting to me is that at least I Ann used to the way that Trump talks now, that he seems almost to have some folksy charm in his seemingly stream of consciousness discourses.
Shifty Schiff really is a piece of work. Both Schiff and Wadler apparently brought Lawfare attorneys onto their staffs, and have devised a way to ostensibly combine Article I, Section 1 Oversight and Article II Impeachment Powers is such a way that appears to give them the power to override Executive Privilege by throwing them together in the same paragraph in their demand letters. Lawfare all the way, little different than how they rewrote that Obstruction of Justice statute with Mueller to extend that investigation by a year or two. Really, really evil people. Willing to destroy century old norms for short partisan advantage, and, in the end, power. Power is their only god, and people like that really are evil.
I don’t think that Wadler is any more honest that Shifty Schiff, but the latter may be a bit smarter. He has been lying on a regular basis to the American public. He appears to have received the Steele Dossier before the 2016 election. He appears to have been involved in SpyGate from as early as Day 1, and should have been recused from everything Russian related starting then. But, of course, only Republicans are honest enough, or dumb enough, to recuse themselves, esp like in Sessions’ case, the recusal was a setup to get him out of the way (which allowed Mueller). Schiff seems to have topped himself here, by apparently having his staff essentially write the whistleblower complaint that is the basis for his “impeachment” investigation. (According to House rules, his committee shouldn’t have jurisdiction in the first place) And then make sure that his narrative is safe by preventing the Republican members of his committee to interview witnesses, call their own. Bigger setup on his part than Mueller and SpyGate. Winning is everything. Tactics don’t matter as long as you win. And cheating is expected, and even extolled. After all, #OrangeManBad.
Schiff would make a great bobblehead if they don't already exist.
Why, under these circumstances, are Republicans even showing up for Schiff? Deny him a quorum because he is illegitimate. Stop all committed work until Schiff is removed. This is hardball and shows once again how the Dangerous Party uses rules and ignores them too to trample the Stupid Party, which is supine and flaccid.
The WaPost Fact-Checker gave Adam Schiff 4 Pinocchios for his lies about Trump.
Adam Schiff is a liar. Plain and simple.
Anyone disagree? Speak up, if you do.
Today Trump is addressing his congenial and gentle words to Turkey. I guess he’s telling them they can beat the Kurds, but not too badly.
Believe it or not is a challenge to the Leftist media to report on the facts
As Jo Biden said
We Democrats chose Truth over facts
If Pelosi holds a vote on the floor on impeachment and commits to the rules of previous impeachment proceedings, then the situation will go even worse for Pelosi.
I think she does not hold that vote because she is not sure she will win.
Deny him a quorum because he is illegitimate. Stop all committed work until Schiff is removed.
I think there is a probability that they will boycott hearings held under these new rules. Democrats do it all the time.
Is there anyone in America with more than two functioning brain cells who has not yet figured out that the Dems will do anything, say anything, dare anything, trample anything to get power?
There are no rules, other than 218 votes in the House. All of you who participated in getting Democrats 218 or more votes in the House are culpable.
Trump is missing a big chance here. He should go very very hard about China, Uighurs, and American lickspittles like Apple, the NBA, ESPN, Blizzard. This seems like pure win win for Trump. Consider
1 he stands up for persecuted Muslims, destroying thousands of narratives
2 he completes the ongoing branding of Free Speech as a GOP issue
3 he gets to act against adversaries, like the examples I listed
4 he can tie it in to his trade war
Nothing to see here:
Two Giuliani Associates Who Helped Him on Ukraine Arrested on Campaign-Finance Charges
You can always tell when the lefties are beaten on the subject at hand; they resort to red herrings like Left Bank with his Turkey burger. You want to talk about the Kurds? There's a thread for that. But thanks for your tacit admission that you've got bupkis on this topic.
If I'm reading the situation right, which is a question, here's what I'm seeing:
1. Pelosi/Schiff moved forward with an "impeachment inquiry" by pronouncement and began issuing subpoenas.
2. White House took the stance it was illegitimate and they would only comply with a house-voted-on impeachment inquiry.
3. Pelosi & Schiff declare that alone to be impeachable obstruction of justice, say they might hold such a vote but they don't need to but they totally have the votes (no one in major media challenge them on this)
4. Major republicans go more and more into hiding...
Either the Republicans are actually crafting an amazing trap for the democrats or they really are craven fools.
Denounce Trump all you want for what's happening with the Kurds, but the impeachment inquiry is a blatant abuse of power and actual quid pro quo with a foreign government - captured on film no less - by a democratic frontrunner is being ignored.
My guess is Republicans are craven and too many of their own families do similar things to Biden's, and they'd rather this whole Trump era be behind them.
Schiff would make a great bobblehead if they don't already exist.
Or one of those dolls you squeeze to make the eyes bug out.
Since Schiff pulled that idiotic stunt, Trump brings it up every single chance he gets. He won't let it go. He won't let the media sweep it under the rug or supress it. He won't let people forget it.
It really underscores how stupid and lazy the Democrats have become in a lot of ways. There was a time when they could get away with these sorts of lies. A Dem Pol could blantanly lie and the media would cover for them. Remember Harry Reid and the whole Mitt Romney's tax thing? How many regular voters do you think are aware of that? How many voters believed that lie? How many regular voters were simply unaware a lie was told or the significance of it?
Trump is well aware of all these things. Trump realizes that in order to penatrate all the noise and all the medias attempts at obfuscation he has to repeate it over and over again to the point that it's practically a mantra. He understands that you really have to hammer it home so people fully grasp and understand that this happened. Repeat, repeat, repeat. Otherwise the media can change the subject, change the narrative. Otherwise people's attention will wonder. They'll forget or dismiss it.
Blogger Mike (MJB Wolf) said...
"Why, under these circumstances, are Republicans even showing up for Schiff?"
It is important to have witnesses to the testimony and proceedings. If you have no witnesses to the Democrat antics they can do whatever they want and lie about what happened.
donald's gonna be impeached
and if he doesn't protect the Kurds, he just might be removed by the senate lol
Kurds are the new babies in cages for democrat party members. Trump should invite them into Democrat party sanctuary cities.
"He took my really, believe it or not, congenial and gentle words and he made me sound like a tyrant . . . ADDED: I wonder how often Trump says "believe it or not." It might be a tell. Maybe it means: Yeah, I know this is bullshit, but try it anyway."
Well, we can all read what he said, or a close approximation thereof. They were congenial and gentle words, between leaders who agreed with each other, particularly since the point of president Z's election was to go after Ukrainian corruption. We can also read what Schiff said, which was a nasty pseudo-parody, so Trump is also right about the Dem shenanigans.
Maybe the ADDED is a tell, by timid Althouse trying to dish out a gratuitous insult to Trump every once in a while, for balance and protection. Maybe it means: yeah, I know this is bullshit, but try it anyway.
Believe it or not, Trump's use of those words is likely just a verbal tic. A filler.
People use those all the time "at the end of the day".
"As I said". "Listen" is one of Warren's ticks. As if she is telling the bored classroom to "Listen UP!"
Verbal tics to buy you time to think when you are speaking "off the cuff", "You know" "If you know what I mean" that is.
If Pelosi holds a vote on the floor on impeachment and commits to the rules of previous impeachment proceedings, then the situation will go even worse for Pelosi.
Michael K said I think she does not hold that vote because she is not sure she will win.
She doesn't want to hold a vote because the vulnerable Dems in Red States or who won by a skinny hair will be exposed!
If they vote NO impeachment, which would be what their districts and constituents want (no impeachment) then the Progs will be all over they.
If they vote YES then they are exposed. On record and no hiding that they voted for this mess.
Either way. The Blue Dogs/Middle of the Road Democrats(if there are any left) don't want to go on record. This way. Nancy and Shifty get their show and the other cowards can hide.
Adam Schitt spent 2.5 years on Maddow insisting the "walls were closing in" on Trump because he was Putin's puppet and Adam Schitt had direct insider proof. Adam Schitt spent 2.5 years lying on behalf of Rachel Maddow and her corporate-Hollywood corporate media overlords - on behalf of Hillary Clinton, and all the deep state employees and donors who didn't get the big pay-off.
“She still will not get grand-jury testimony, tax records and White House documents.”
Assuming a formal impeachment is initiated by recorded vote in the House, they are still unlikely to get grand jury testimony, except/unless I think they can show with particularly how specific testimony would advance their impeachment investigation. Tax records have no purpose, except possibly to embarrass the President, so real Impeachment won’t help them there either. White House documents, on the other hand, while almost completely unavailable using the House’s Oversight power (where they are today) are possibly in reach with their Impeachment power, under the Nixon precedent.
“Meanwhile, the House Republicans will turn the inquiry into a public circus.”
Which is as it deserves. The entirety of the impeachment justification so far seems to be that he won 8n 2016, and the usual #OrangeManBad.
ARM: "Nothing to see here:
Two Giuliani Associates Who Helped Him on Ukraine Arrested on Campaign-Finance Charges"
ARM thinks we don't know precisely what is going on here. But then again, lefties always depend on others being completely ignorant to win the day.
Where are the Senate Republicans? Surely by now they should be holding investigations and issuing subpoenas on the House Democrat staffers to see who they are working with. They are obviously working with and coordinating with outside groups. The Senate Republicans should also be investigating Biden and his corruption and Obama's ties to that.
Left Bank of the Charles: "Today Trump is addressing his congenial and gentle words to Turkey. I guess he’s telling them they can beat the Kurds, but not too badly."
Yesterday's leftists: How dare Trump not fully support our NATO allies!!
Today's leftists: OMG!! Trump refuses to oppose our NATO allies!!
LOL
My guess is Republicans are craven and too many of their own families do similar things to Biden's, and they'd rather this whole Trump era be behind them.
BINGO
Today Trump is addressing his congenial and gentle words to Turkey. I guess he’s telling them they will get their asses beat by the Kurds, badly.
He won't let it go. He won't let the media sweep it under the rug or supress it
Confirmation this morning the media is trying to do just that- more of that second order With all the things that have gone on with Trump shit from CNBC and a panel of Time for Him To Gos. What is it that's gone on exactly? I've read the transcript and the White House counsel's response to the House. It does look to me like it's time go for a few others, but not the President...
Why, under these circumstances, are Republicans even showing up for Schiff? Deny him a quorum because he is illegitimate. Stop all committed work until Schiff is removed.
A few years ago the Republicans were screaming & whining how denying a quorum was considered "fleeing", and that lawmakers who engaged in such behavior should be arrested and dragged back at gunpoint so a vote could be forced.
"Believe it or not" in this instance means that if you only listen to Democrats and the media you might not know what I actually said. That is precisely true. People are still repeating the lies about what he said, including that he supposedly asked for the investigation 8 times, which is a goddamned lie that was told over and over before the transcript came out, and even now that it's been disproven, they are still telling the lie.
Left Bank of the Charles reporting for duty with the Neocon Keyboard Warriors Regiment
Every time I speak of the haters and losers I do so with great love and affection. They cannot help the fact that they were born fucked up!
In all fairness, that IS about as "congenial and gentle" that most New Yorker's are capable of being...
Thanks for the link. I listened to the part about Schiff, but I was pretty moved by the rest of it. Love this guy.
Thanks for the link. I listened to the part about Schiff. But the rest was really moving. I love this guy.
Have any subpeonas really been issued? Just wondering.
AllenS said...
Today Trump is addressing his congenial and gentle words to Turkey. I guess he’s telling them they will get their asses beat by the Kurds, badly."
I suspect that you are correct. Trump just might be that devious. Erdogan threatens to dump 3.6 million refugees in Europe. Trump steps aside and lets him attempt that. Erdogan fails. He also gets caught up in a low level guerilla war in Syria draining resources from an already weak Turkish economy. The EU and NATO have to deal with Turkey in a manner that isn't in Erdogan's interest. The Kurds tamp down their Communist fraction and after the Turks flounder for a while, the Kurds get what is the best they can get- semi-autonomous regions in Iraq and Syria.
I think it's entirely possible that most of the DC GOP-- hacks, frauds, cowards, and cucks, whether implicated in or targeted by the DS--will prove themselves the swamp-dwellers honest people have always known them to be, and act with the rest of the toxic blob to eject the outsider.
And yeah, Trump blathers. It helps keep the focus on him, as others have noted, and lets people pull out whatever they prefer from the rambling.
Narr
Smart politics, perhaps
I spelled out connected burisma is in the European community, with prince albert hosting a conference every where, where ex foreign ministers and prime ministers gather, an extension of the Hapsburg group that paid manafort that hired podesta and mercury partners to lobby each side of the aisle,
The WaPost Fact-Checker gave Adam Schiff 4 Pinocchios for his lies about Trump.
Consulting the WaPo Fact-Checker on truth and falsehood is like consulting the Magic Eight Ball for relationship advice: unreliable at best.
Either the Republicans are actually crafting an amazing trap for the democrats or they really are craven fools.
You have to wonder if Republicans who (secretly or openly) detest Trump have family members on various corporate and foreign payrolls making TONS OF MONEY. Biden is certainly not the only one. They have to play this carefully. They are not necessarily on Trump's side, but their own.
Trump is threatening the rice bowls for the Deep State Republicans and Democrats who have been bought off. I wonder whether any enterprising journalists will ever cover this form of DC corruption.
Trump wants to make the House Dems into a laughingstock. They would be wise not to help him do so, but I doubt they can manage it.
Was I the only one who saw/heard it?
Schiff was trying to parody Trump as a mafia boss.
He was even lamely trying to sound Sicilian. "make you an offer you can't refuse".
But his performance was so inept, no one even realized what he was doing.
If the call was so damning, why the Schiff "parody"? Why the multi-hundred word gaps in the way the transcript was presented in MSM?
Biden did nothing wrong? Sez who other than D's and MSM?
Most people don't or won't really follow the details of the Ukraine(or other political) dust ups. But they KNOW that Joe's son didn't get the $50k per month because he has talents.
That is enough to make Joe's WE DID NUTTIN! defense sound pathetic.
There was a big flap yesterday in Lefty Land because Ellen Degeneres was spotted at a football game in Dallas sitting next to GW Bush, both of them laughing and having a good time as they are good friends. She was excoriated with comments such as, "How dare she be friends with a war criminal who was responsible for genocide?" That was their major criticism.
Today the same Lefty Landers are attacking Trump for not committing US forces to an endless regional conflict about which they know nothing, much like Bush and the American public underestimated the conflict between the Sunni and Shia when we removed Saddam Hussein. Getting rid of him was the easy part, dealing with Iraq was insane. You really think that settling the Kurd issue is a quick fix? It isn't.
"My guess is Republicans are craven and too many of their own families do similar things to Biden's, and they'd rather this whole Trump era be behind them." BINGO
I also interpret Trump's "believe it or not" as a direct personal attack to the reporter(s) who will ask a question but will never give Trump any credit or credence. IOW, he's saying, I already know you will never report this honestly, but these are the facts. Trump is not a weasel -- he means what he says.
My guess is Republicans are craven and too many of their own families do similar things to Biden's, and they'd rather this whole Trump era be behind them.
BINGO X 2
The insider corruption ring is mostly D, but yes - enough insiders R's do it too. The government whore gravy train.
Politics pure and simple. The impeachment brouhaha has resulted in a huge number of small ($200 and under) donations to the Trump campaign. Aside from $$, these small donations are a much better indicator of popular support than the capricious polls.
Inga must be having a couple of tough weeks
Inga must be having a couple of tough weeks
Reddit said …
Rudy Giuliani's career arc has basically been the same as Harvey Dent's
I listened to the Q and A. It's obvious from the tape that the whole thing is BS. People didn't come up to Trump and claim they learned about the Ukrainian phone call from Schiff at the hearing. The guy just lies and lies and lies. (And of course it was the House in the last Congress (early 2015) that changed the rules on unilateral subpoenas from the majority without consulting the minority to make it easier to go after the Obama administration. So all that stuff at the beginning was BS too.(
yes about that pol:
http://meaninginhistory.blogspot.com/2019/10/impeach-pollsters.html#comment-form
dialing past the ambient noise,
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2019/10/some_toxic_implications_for_impeachmenthappy_democrats_from_axios_of_all_places.html
heh;
https://thefederalist.com/2019/10/10/6-ways-the-salem-witch-trials-were-fairer-than-democrats-impeachment-inquiry/
don't you know who I am,
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/10/10/biden-campaign-throws-temper-tantrum-over-schweizer-nyt-op-ed/
just more blank pages,
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2019/10/10/another-day-another-phony-subpoena-impeachment-narrative-rick-perry-edition/
Appeal to empathy. Trump plays pin the tail on the donkey.
https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/curtis-houck/2019/10/10/cnn-hack-oliver-darcy-cheers-biden-campaign-bullying-nyt-hunter
the first link in the series, is about how the shaw group, that's who fox contracted, weighed the poll, the next is about the internals of another poll, the third is about biden summoning the pillow brigade to save him, the fourth is about yet another lawfare exercise, and the first is about how a former glenn beck hire, has turned to the dark side,
Schiff is either being treated for Graves’ disease, or he’s on that damned Adderall crap Althouse mentioned the other day
Or both. And my heart goes out to him. No one should be that fvcked up.
The arrests of Rudi’s Ukrainian connected buddies, who are defensed by former Trump attorney Dowd, appears to be an upping if the stakes. This is not an incumbent battling a rival in the upcoming election. This isn’t even the former VP and current president going at it. This is the political and legal war between the current regime and the one it replaces. Kings striking at kings. It’s getting ugly.
Watching Trump giving his version of the Strzok – Page texts… hilarious stuff!
I knew it. It was Crowdstrike that set them off.
Here's what we know about the whistleblowing:
The first whistleblower (WB1) had an issue with what s/he heard about (not heard directly) the Trump phone call to the president of Ukraine and felt Trump was out of bounds for asking Ukraine to investigate Crowdstrike and apparent Biden-family graft.
WB1 then notified Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee of his unease. House members, including both Adam Schiff and Nancy Pelosi, started revealing parts of WB1's complaint before it had been filed with the Intelligence Community Inspector General (ICIG).
Contrary to House rules, the Democrats on the committee did not share the information with the Republicans on the committee.
When WB1's complaint was actually filed, it was a well-written legal brief that, oddly, turned out to have no part that was first-hand knowledge, and even more oddly referenced a lot of public press coverage.
In an odd turn, the direction given by the ICIG's office, that whistleblower complaints must be based on first-hand information, was rescinded enabling the second-hand WB1 complaint to be considered. This rescission apparently happened in September but was backdated to August.
WB1's complaint also turned out to have a number of factual errors.
After the Democrats demanded the release of the transcript, Trump declassified the transcript, upon which the demands were changed to releasing WB1's complaint. Which Trump then did.
The House Democrats refuse to make public WB1's name, but the ICIG testified that the complaint was questionable because WB1 was not just a registered Democrat but was professionally associated with a current Democrat's 2020 campaign.
We know who he is and he was a Biden associate.
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