Quote:A week ago today, Donald Trump said he'd like to see former National Security Advisor John Bolton, among others, testify at his Senate impeachment trial. That, of course, was before the public learned about the contents of Bolton's upcoming book, in which he reportedly says Trump confessed to him about the nature of the illegal extortion scheme with Ukraine.
The president is now saying something quite different, publishing this tirade to Twitter this morning:
Quote:
"For a guy who couldn't get approved for the Ambassador to the U.N. years ago, couldn't get approved for anything since, 'begged' me for a non Senate approved job, which I gave him despite many saying 'Don't do it, sir,' takes the job, mistakenly says 'Libyan Model' on T.V., and many more mistakes of judgement, gets fired because frankly, if I listened to him, we would be in World War Six by now, and goes out and IMMEDIATELY writes a nasty & untrue book. All Classified National Security. Who would do this?"
So let me see if I have this straight. John Bolton, according to the president, was basically an unaccomplished loser, with misguided instincts. The president was advised not to hire him, but he ignored the guidance, felt sorry for the pathetic hawk who struggled to find a real job, and put Bolton in an enormously powerful and influential position.
In the months that followed, Trump proceeded to ignore Bolton's dangerous recommendations -- even while publicly praising his work and leaving him in his position for a year and a half.
Is Trump under the impression that this makes him look good?...
Benen
Edit: I should actually talk about this a bit. How could Trump imagine he could get away with contradicting himself in this manner with only a week between statements? He must believe his audience either won't notice or won't care. He must believe that the bullshit he spreads today will overpower the bullshit he spread a week earlier. But that has always been his mode of operation.
Quote:He was known to be making shocking deals now that he never could have made two months before. “Trump won’t do a deal unless there’s something extra—a kind of moral larceny—in it,” one of his rivals once said of him.
. . .“Give them the old Trump bullshit,” he told the architect Der Scutt before a presentation of the Trump Tower design at a press conference in 1980. “Tell them it is going to be a million square feet, sixty-eight stories.” “I don’t lie, Donald,” the architect replied.
Link
And he knows that his media allies at Fox will multiply and expand his bullshit and that's important
Quote:PRRI’s data broke out its responses into a variety of interesting demographics. Among them was dividing the Republican responses by education level (not an atypical grouping) and by news consumption. Although 37 percent of Republicans overall said that almost nothing could dissuade them from approving of Trump, more than half of Republicans whose primary news source is Fox News held that view. By contrast, only about 3 in 10 Republicans whose primary news source is something other than Fox were as solid in their support of Trump. Even Republicans without a college degree, a bastion of Trump’s support in 2016, and white evangelical Protestants were less likely to say that they expected to stick with Trump no matter what.
WP
All of this allows Trump enormous latitude in spreading falsehoods and in contradicting himself without most of his base noticing or giving a damn. In fact, not only will most of his base excuse or justify such blatant lying, they will deem it all further evidence that his behavior is heroic.
Trump does have a super power - he's a sociopath.
