Discussion: After Criticizing Puerto Rico Leadership, Trump Pivots, Calls Out 'Fake News'

He fails. He strikes out. He defends himself. He blames others. See a pattern here.

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Can’t wait for cogressional repulbicans to squirm and fret about this, and then do less than nothing about it.

Just when the hell is enough enough? I can imagine a few months ago people saying “Well, at least he hasn’t attacked disaster victims.”

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“It’s never innapropriate for the President to support our troops and the flag.”

“But sarah, he’s attacking victims of a hurricane.”

“It’s a black and white issue, April.”

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Until the media develops a set of balls, they will continue to be belittled by trump and company. The media is cowered by this bunch and shows that corporate America controls the levers of news we receive, not much different than any third world dictatorship.

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Living on the west coast, in the area that could be devastated by a Cascadia subduction zone earthquake, this response is something I have been terrified of since he became president - if the earthquake hits help would be slow in coming and things would get much worse because we didn’t vote for him. Those of us in Oregon and Washington may just be SOL. What a small and inhumane person. Amazing how someone can thrive in life without a shred of human decency.

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The “fake news” is going to crucify him this weekend.

He just committed a really, really bad error. By tweeting this crap out, he has guaranteed wall to wall coverage all weekend on Puerto Rico. Worst possible time. The WH communications staff isn’t prepared to get surrogates out to defend this bullshit, and the talking heads will be discussing nothing else. Its an easy position for them to take…Save Lives.

So he is looking at 48 hours of non stop criticism, with very little, or at best, very limited, ability to respond. And the thing about disasters like Maria? They don’t get better when you ignore them and change the subject on Monday…they get worse. Ask W. regarding Katrina, which broke his presidency. The Bush WH never recovered from that. This is going to a disaster of even larger magnitude.

The GOP have confirmed a level of idiocy I didn’t think possible, Because again, there is no realistic path forward where this WH “pivots” or “corrects its trajectory”. It only gets steadily worse.

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Reminded elsewhere of Josh’s post yesterday per leveraging the rebuilding as a massive privatization scheme. Recalled some awful things reported on in the implosion of Enron regarding privatization in third world countries. Look particularly at what happened in The Dominican Republic when Enron got control of Utilities. From 2002:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/2002/09/25/the-enron-of-the-developing-world/21f4c823-5d09-4b32-bc15-25eaed50b985/?utm_term=.aaa9c16b4f36

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You don’t even have to look at the Dominican Republic. Just look at what Enron did to California. A particularly sore spot for me, personally, as I was consulting for a green field company subsidiary of PG&E’s holding company, literally my dream job in Portland, OR, when they forced PG&E into bankruptcy because of the manipulations of the energy out there. They were screwing the power grid every which way to Sunday, to make a buck and because they could.

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if the earthquake hits help would be slow in coming and things would get much worse because we didn’t vote for him.

Good point. If the San Andreas fault in CA goes any time soon, we’re toast.

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He realized that he had stepped in it with the critical tweet, but is unable to admit that he had made an error. Instead, he has to blame the media, not only because he can’t ever take responsibility, but because he knows his supporters will love it.
Hope he enjoys his golf game.

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He’s supposedly going on Tuesday, but I wonder if he’ll cancel due to non-positive reactions from the populace (sort of like he can’t go to England because there are threatened riots).

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He is a germophobe, “What was the middle part, did you say: Cholera ?”

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Maybe someone will finally ask the question about the impact of the proposed massive tax cuts. With huge amounts needed for hurricane relief in TX, FL, PR, and the U.S. Virgin Islands, where is that money coming from? It was going to be a burden with current taxes in place, how will it even work when corporations and the ultra wealthy contribute even less?

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If he does show up, the mayor should fill a glass with tap water and invite him to drink it down in front of the cameras.

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Major kudos to TPM’s headline writer for the most accurate use of the word “pivots” I have ever seen in a Trump story.

An infantile blame-shifting auto-toggle between the people he is failing to help and the people who are illuminating his failures is the only “pivot” he has ever been capable of.

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The taps aren’t working. Make that water poured out of a much used plastic bottle filled down at the creek. Or a plastic bucket, previous use undetermined.

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And don’t forget…those golf weekends and private planes for his Cabinet don’t pay for themselves :wink:

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good point. Somehow, I don’t think we’ll see a Papillon-at-the-leper-colony moment.

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Sep 29

Edit: short quote from above that is not showing (unless clicked upon) that goes with tweet-

“Ultimately the government of Puerto Rico will have to work with us to determine how this massive rebuilding effort … will be funded and organized, and what we will do with the tremendous amount of existing debt already on the island,” Trump said.

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