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DonViejo

(60,536 posts)
Thu Jul 20, 2017, 11:53 AM Jul 2017

Trump's deeply worrisome New York Times interview reveals a lawless president - By Greg Sargent

July 20 at 10:45 AM

THE MORNING PLUM:

President Trump’s extended, rambling new interview with the New York Times provides perhaps the clearest picture yet of his conviction that he is above the law — a conviction, crucially, that appears to be deeply felt on an instinctual level — and of his total lack of any clear conception of the basic obligations to the public he assumed upon taking office.

There are numerous worrisome moments in this interview, from his incoherence on the health-care debate (“preexisting conditions are a tough deal”) to his odd asides about history (Napoleon “didn’t go to Russia that night because he had extracurricular activities, and they froze to death”). But I wanted to highlight the sum total of the picture that results from three things Trump said:

* Trump flatly declared that if Attorney General Jeff Sessions had told him in advance that he would recuse himself from the Russia probe, “I would have picked somebody else.” Just as bad, Trump also said that Sessions’s recusal was “very unfair to the president,” i.e., unfair to him.

* Trump said clearly that if special counsel Robert S. Mueller III is examining his family’s finances, he would view that as an abuse of his role. While Trump declined to say whether he would try to get Mueller removed, he said he would view any such overstepping as a “violation.”

* In at least two exchanges, Trump was asked directly about the fact that Donald Trump Jr.’s email chain showed that the information offered to his campaign in advance of the now-notorious meeting came from the Russian government. In one of them, he strongly suggested that being open to such information was no biggie. In the other, he dismissed the offer itself as “standard political stuff.”

First, Sessions. The attorney general recused himself from overseeing the FBI probe into Russia’s undermining of our election, and possible Trump campaign collusion with Russia, because it had become obvious that he could not preside over an impartial investigation, given the lack of clarity around his own dealings with Russia while serving on the Trump campaign. Reading this interview, I think it is not clear that Trump even grasps the idea that the public deserves an investigation that follows rules and procedures designed to bolster confidence that it will be impartial.

more
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2017/07/20/trumps-deeply-worrisome-new-york-times-interview-reveals-a-lawless-president/?hpid=hp_no-name_opinion-card-e%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&utm_term=.acb82e21d2e3

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Trump's deeply worrisome New York Times interview reveals a lawless president - By Greg Sargent (Original Post) DonViejo Jul 2017 OP
Supported and encouraged by a lawless Congress. n/t woodsprite Jul 2017 #1
Have we ever seen a public servant... yallerdawg Jul 2017 #2
he doesn't have the mental capacity to consider those things. He just thinks about yurbud Jul 2017 #5
He cannot relate to being a servant - public or otherwise. Marcuse Jul 2017 #6
one problem weydowner Jul 2017 #3
Kick. dalton99a Jul 2017 #4

yallerdawg

(16,104 posts)
2. Have we ever seen a public servant...
Thu Jul 20, 2017, 11:57 AM
Jul 2017

so divisive and so disinterested in uniting the country and serving ALL the people?

He is tribal partisanship made manifest!

And a self-serving, money-centric, self-anointed criminal ready to plunder the world.

yurbud

(39,405 posts)
5. he doesn't have the mental capacity to consider those things. He just thinks about
Thu Jul 20, 2017, 05:45 PM
Jul 2017

whether the people in front of him are kissing his ass and/or making him money.

Anything else is like trying to teach calculus to a kumquat.

weydowner

(100 posts)
3. one problem
Thu Jul 20, 2017, 12:50 PM
Jul 2017

He hates the country that heaps justified criticism on him every day.
The great problem is that he can see more and more critics every day; if this goes on (and it will)he will cause great damage to the country and its institutions merely from frustration and pique.
I can't really see him making a new bloc of fans these days; unfortunately he has power; you can't reason with him when his whole life-work is becoming the centre of his whole universe and everybody elses'.

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