Speaking at CIA headquarters over the weekend, President Donald Trump sought to not only downplay tensions with the US intelligence community, but to insist that it was by and large manufactured by the media, saying he is at war with the media and that reporters are “among the most dishonest people on earth.”
There was no mention in Trump’s speech of Russia, or of the time he likened a leak by the intelligence community to living in Nazi Germany, but did take time out to defend the attendance numbers in his inauguration as having been much larger than what the press would lead you to believe.
Former CIA Director John Brennan declared himself “deeply saddened and angered” by Trump’s speech, insisting that he “should be ashamed of himself” for his “despicable” comments. The CIA does not presently have a director, with Congress having delayed the vote on Rep. Mike Pompeo (R – KS).
During the speech, Trump also emphasized the importance of fighting ISIS, saying the intelligence community had been “restrained” during the fight so far, denying the US the use of its “real abilities that we have.” He did not elaborate on what that meant.
Well, it was good that he visited the CIA. But yes, once it has a new director, another visit to the CIA would be in order where he’s lays out things more clearly and be more forceful.
You’re just not getting it at all are you!
Considering that the CIA made a concerted effort to delegitimize Trump and create an environment for a possible coup (their speciality) his weak and conciliatory speech is very surprising. Maybe he got the message that his challenges and criticism of the CIA have consequences (think JFK).
Back off the melocrama for a while. This is easily explainable. Trump, being an uninformed loud mouth acting like a 7 year old, simply spoke out of turn. What he was saying was for nothing else but appealing to the lowlife he needed to support him.
Now he’s starting to learn something about the work of the CIA and how it’s necessary for the fulfillment of the US agenda of aggression and war abroad.
This will prove out to be true when we don’t hear of more cracks between the Trump regime and the spook agencies. A bit of a shuffle at the top, which he will be advised to make mostly for appearance sake and all will be well.
luv from Canada.
Yes, of course, proper behavior is paramount, sounds more like a British comment than Canadian.
Trump is not a just appealing to the working class or, as you call them, the “lowlife” (is that you Hillary?). The truth is that the intelligence community has been targeting Trump before and after the election and he needs to either respond aggressively or capitulate. It seems that he has done the later.
Although the IC stated that they could not confirm that anything In the 35-page Trump “dossier” was factual, they included a 2-page summary of the “Golden Showers” and other lies in an intelligence briefing. By including it in an official government document that allowed CNN and others to justify referring to it or link to the original document. The dossier has been floating around Washington, D.C. for most of 2016 but no news organization could verify anything in the document and would not publish it. It took the CIA to allow the propaganda to be broadcasted to the public and get the MSM to repeat the propaganda until it gained some credibility (CIA speciality). This smear campaign was done after the election when he didn’t need any of the “lowlife’s” electoral support; it was a warning shot (in the proud tradition of J. Edgar Hoover) to Trump and it seems to have worked.
The dossier was not a warning shot from the CIA. That would have been out of character and completely unnecessary.
The only problem was that Trump shot his face off, probably necessary from the stump in order to be elected. The Dems used it against him, and rightfully so, but it was intended to be forgotten. The CIA and the other spook agencies only worked to get it buried and forgotten as soon as possible and so it would have been against their best interests to have anything to do with making it public.
Cooperation between the spooks and the president is the agenda of course, and that will be accomplished quietly now, even though the Dems will try to keep something going. Wise up!
luv from Canada.
“That would have been out of character”
I might have chalked your comments up to a difference of opinion but after that comment I now know this is a clueless foreigner. It’s just too hilarious.
Believe what you like that makes you feel good. When the CIA needs to do damage to Trump, it won’t be a little thing like this. It’s not going to be necessary for the CIA to damage him but if it becomes so, buhbuh Trump. And instance of that becoming necessary would be Trump following through on his stump ramblings of becoming friends with Russia. It won’t happen so Trump will be with us for at least 4 years. Maybe a couple of those years may not be him looking out from the WH.
Lets stop pretending the white working class voted for Trump for “jobs”. It was purely a racist vote along with a generous sprinkling of ignorance, xenophobia, white nationalism and bigotry. “Jobs” was just an outer packaging.
Lots of different people voted for Trump for lots of different reasons. Among those reasons were jobs — which, as a number of people, including Michael Moore, Darcy Richardson and myself warned was happening months ahead of the election, made the difference in the rust belt states. There’s quite a bit of xenophobia wrapped up in the jobs issue and Trump knew how to exploit that.
He presumably also got most of the votes of the handful of avowed racists, including white nationalists, who vote in American elections.
Yes, lots of reasons but racism would have to be equal at least to any of them in respect to numbers. It would probably be a worthwhile exercise to name all the major reasons why Trump was elected.
My list in order of size of voting bloc: Racism and anti-establishment for #1 and #2 but could be #2 and #1. Then jobs as #3, followed by Muslim hate which would be it’s own bloc as #4. It’s distinct from racism. Then that ridiculous promise of the border wall that only those with room temp IQ’s bought into
I would be cautious of putting ‘friendly relations’ with Russia in as #6 because it would be a distant 6. Trump won’t have any trouble with his supporters flipflopping on that one and he won’t wait long either. It’s only that it’s being played on so heavily right now that he has to keep up the appearance until things quiet down.
Americans are not antiwar and they will demonstrate very little feeling for that Trump promise. It likely brought Trump only 1 or 2 % and that could have been cancelled out by the hawks and prowar rabble amongst the other categories.
It’s damaging to the US’s image and one has to wonder why it wasn’t avoided. Could it be that Trump was viewed as such an impossible longshot for president that he wasn’t briefed as a candidate on proper behaviour?
In any case, the only problems with Trump/CIA/spook agencies we are going to hear about now will be those generated by the Dem sore losers.
In other news which appears ahead of the curve, RT has some stories up on the US congress starting to make some waves with talk of pullout of the UN. Mostly a bluff that’s meant to prop up Trump’s tough talk at the moment, but totally unnecessary. The small pittance that could be pried out of other countries is insignificant and not worth making waves over, except for appearance sake to make it look like Trump was serious.
You can read the story there or just wait for Jason Ditz to bring it here. There’s no great urgency other than it ties in with Netanyahu strutting around like a banti rooster. That was needed for him to show some strength due to the US lack of support on the recent UNSC resolution.
(which story has made it here: Netanyahu……)
“Could it be that Trump was viewed as such an impossible longshot for president that he wasn’t briefed as a candidate on proper behaviour?”
You don’t understand how any of this stuff works, do you?
Maybe? I’ll have a shot at it though. When it’s down to the last two candidates they are likely pre-tuned for the job. What I do know is that the CIA and other spook agencies serve the president and the president will be onside with them.
The country’s agenda will be relatively seamless from one president to the next simply because it’s not the president’s agenda, it’s the country’s. It’s nice to have a figurehead to lay the blame upon and that was doubly so with Obama. However, Trump will continue with much that same moves as Obama which is the US agenda that is passed to him.
For example: The drone attacks will continue much the same under Trump because they’re efficient and cause relatively little loss of lives on both sides. There may be an attempt to “spin” it to look like they’re being curtailed or accelerated,whatever Trump decides to do in order to ‘finetune’ but drone use won’t change in any significant way.
I just took the time to give you that example among many possible because it’s indicative of how it’s going to work. (don’t tell too many people because they like to think they elect a president who will do what they want him to do.
The only small difference in this case is that Trump shot his face off out of school. He’s been briefed now and there won’t be anymore problems with him.
No modern day US president has varied much from that theme. You may not believe that because you would be expecting one of the longshots to come in and make huge changes. Not the way it works: Say if Johnson or the doctor was elected, they would be given a few chances to fall into line and then they would have been offed. Not suggesting that any of the longshots would ever have a chance though.