Wednesday, March 02, 2016

President Trump's First Meeting With the Head of the Joint Chiefs Will Be Amazing


From The Hill:
Trump: Ryan can get along with me or 'pay a big price'

Donald Trump warned Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) that he'll have to pay the price if he doesn't get along with a President Trump after Ryan repudiated him for failing to disavow backing from David Duke.

"I'm going to get along great with Congress. Paul Ryan, I don't know him well, but I'm sure I'm going to get along great with him," the front-runner for his party's nomination said during his Super Tuesday speech. "And if I don't, he's going to have to pay a big price."
...
Trump:  How many people you got here, Speaker?

Ryan: The House has 435 members.  Then there are the chiefs of staff, deputy chiefs of staff, legislative directors, assistants, communications directors, office managers, the tech guys, district coordinators and so forth.  Say...5,800 people if everyone was at their desks.  

Trump: Be a shame if someone was to set fire to them.

Ryan: Set fire to them?

Trump: Fires happen, Speaker...

11 comments:

Jimbo said...

The same GOP Establishment that prattled on ad on about the need to run the Federal Government like a business is FREAKING OUT at the possibility of electing a Big Businessman as President. Such a bunch of cynical and yet clueless wonders. In any event, the last Republican President was an MBA and a serial-failure businessman who made a horrible mess over both domestic and foreign affairs. Running a big business is an autocratic, non-democratic process, especially American businesses. Being a successful businessman is probably a liability as a Presidential qualification, in fact, since the temperament breeds short-term opportunism and passive aggressive behavior towards the rule of law.

bowtiejack said...

Perfect!

boba said...

@Jimbo Your assesment is true only as all generalizations are true. I worked with some outstanding flag officers who would fit in the same position you describe, the are in charge and they tell a group of people what to do and those people do it no questions asked. Then that same flag officer has to turn around and deal with our country hosts (Germany and Turkey were my experiences) who do not listen to him at all, rather tell him what to do and what his people will do, and he worked with them. And I know successful business - industry types that owe their success at dealing fairly honorably with the local polity (no bribes, real on the up and up stuff). So executives in autocratic positions are better off not behaving as autocrats when you don't need to act as such. And sometimes they need to exercise that authority, and failing to do so can be as bad.

Now the Dub and Trump show, those are something out the Peter Principle milleau, it's gonna happen that you are incompetent from the start, but because you start from advantage, you continue on regardless of ability. Trump is quite the smooth operator and those close to Dub were not bad themselves. We respond first to emotion and then it gets another pass on the way out, so emotionally appealing stuff, like that benevolent dictator, are going to have a position of advantage.

Now one question. With the understanding that discussion of felonies is not a trivial thing, nor in the realm of civility, isn't it just viscerally appealing to think of a couple of guys with flame throwers wandering through the Rayburn Building? The RAF and US Army Air Forces did a marvelous job of urban renewal in Germany, that came out OK. The only way to fight thugs is to beat them into submission, and that very traumatic experience of watching your chief of staff being immolated, well, it tells you who is in charge.

ELSKY said...

Say what?!!

squatlo said...

"And now for something completely different!"

Unknown said...

Hey, Driftglass, I have little doubt that the scenario you play out here would occur, or something very like it, if Trump were elected president. Nothing the man has said on the campaign trail suggests to me that he has the slightest appreciation of separation of powers or what the legal duties of the US president are.

I think the son of a bitch would go straight for some kind of "Enabling Act of 1933" given his "mandate" and the "crisis" that the country faces. As a brief aside I note that the German statute, translated, reads "Law to Remedy the Distress of the People on the Reich." Substitute "the United States" for "the Reich" and that's all the justification Trump would need.

We would have an instant constitutional crisis on our hands 15 minutes after he took the oath of office.

Robt said...

I just can't resist,,,,

Trump telling Ryan to "feel the Burn"...!

And Mr President, I would like to introduce the Tea Potters.


Freedom Cock asses. Oh and David Koch is on the phone and David Duke is in the Rose Garden.

But I think it is time to begin speculating on a TrumpF vice Pres. pick.
And Jesse Ventura is not allowed.

trgahan said...

I'd be more entertained to watch Trump's first overseas summit.

Trump is a man who has spent is entire adult life being the most important person in the room due to his money and fame. What will happen when he is surrounded by people who neither need him or fear him?

I envision Merkel disdainfully ignoring him, the Chinese tricking him into selling Hawaii, the Israel/Saudi's getting convincing him to bomb Iran, and Putin putting a cigarette out in Trumps drink while telling him Russia's invading northern Iraq/Turkey tomorrow.

Robt said...

I see that the Romulan Mitt torpedo was deployed today.

Such a conservative presidential stature of the continuing trash talk and, strawman accusations with a tinge of disdain.

dinthebeast said...

"Guys who have made a lot of money in business tend to have a very hard time working in a system of checks and balances." -Molly Ivins on H. Ross Perot.

-Doug in Oakland

Unknown said...

Gold! Absolute gold!