Trump in Transition (v31)

Here we watch the president try and transition from a liar to an honest person who just made a mistake.

You know, he just misspoke.  Here, I'll show you.

Thank you, everybody. Yesterday, I returned from a trip from Europe where I met with leaders from across the region to seek a more peaceful future for the United States. We’re working very hard with our allies, and all over the world we’re working. We’re going to have peace. That’s what we want; that’s what we’re going to have. I say peace through strength.

See - peace through strength, just like Ronald Reagan. And Hadrian.

I have helped the NATO Alliance greatly by increasing defense contributions from our NATO Allies by over $44 billion.  And Secretary Stoltenberg was fantastic.  As you know, he reported that they’ve never had an increase like this in their history, and NATO was actually going down as opposed to going up.  And I increased it by my meeting last year — $44 billion.  And this year will be over — it will be hundreds of billions of dollars over the coming years.

Damn, that pesky inflation.  Just last week, president Trump claimed that he was responsible for a $33 billion increase, now it's a $44 billion increase?  This man is a GENIUS, I tell you!

And I think there’s great unity with NATO. There’s a lot of very positive things happening. There’s a great spirit that we didn’t have before, and there’s a lot of money that they’re putting up. They weren’t paying their bills on time, and now they’re doing that. And I want to just say thank you very much to Secretary Stoltenberg. He really has been terrific. So we had a tremendous success.

Even though some of the people present disagree with his characterization, but hey - he sells the story he wants to sell.

I also had meetings with Prime Minister May on the range of issues concerning our special relationship, and that’s between the United Kingdom and ourselves.  We met with the Queen, who is absolutely a terrific person, where she reviewed her Honor Guard for the first time in 70 years, they tell me. We walked in front of the Honor Guard, and that was very inspiring to see and be with her. And I think the relationship, I can truly say, is a good one.  But she was very, very inspiring indeed.

So, he left out the part about bashing the Prime Minister, which I hope was one of the issued concerning our special relationship that they talked about. And he lied about the Queen reviewing her honor guard, but hey -- who cares, right? It's like breathing: in with the good air, out with a lie.

Most recently, I returned from Helsinki, Finland, and I was going to give a news conference over the next couple of days about the tremendous success. Because as successful as NATO was, I think this was our most successful visit. And that had to do, as you know, with Russia.

And Vlad - it had to to with Vlad.

I met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in an attempt to tackle some of the most pressing issues facing humanity. We have never been in a worse relationship with Russia than we are as of a few days ago, and I think that’s gotten substantially better. And I think it has the possibility of getting much better. And I used to talk about this during the campaign. Getting along with Russia would be a good thing. Getting along with China would be a good thing. Not a bad thing; a good thing. In fact, a very good thing.

Now, we have no clue what "some of the most pressing issues facing humanity" include, because  someone, or several someones, inexplicably let Trump and Putin have two hours alone, with translators. A number of senators are calling for Trump's translator to testify before Congress to tell them what the hell Trump might have promised.

We’re nuclear powers — great nuclear powers.  Russia and us have 90 percent of the nuclear weapons. So I’ve always felt getting along is a positive thing, and not just for that reason. I entered the meeting with the firm conviction that diplomacy and engagement is better than hostility and conflict.

And I feel that with everybody. We have 29 members in NATO, as an example, and I have great relationships — or at least very good relationships — with everybody. The press covered it quite inaccurately.  They said I insulted people.  Well, if asking for people to pay up money that they are supposed to pay is insulting, maybe I did.  But I can tell you, when I left, everybody was thrilled.  And that’s the way this was, too.

The press? Yeah, that's the enemy of the people. The insult part? That's in the eyes of the beholder, and the other people who were there, and of course the very hangry General Kelly.

My meeting with President Putin was really interesting in so many different ways because we haven’t had relationships with Russia for a long time, and we started. Let me begin by saying that, once again, the full faith and support for America’s intelligence agencies — I have a full faith in our intelligence agencies.

Whoops, they just turned off the light. That must be the intelligence agents. (Laughter.)  There it goes. Okay. You guys okay? Good. (Laughter.) That was strange. But that’s okay.

So that was the only part that had anyone laughing.

So I’ll begin by stating that I have full faith and support for America’s great intelligence agencies. Always have. And I have felt very strongly that, while Russia’s actions had no impact at all on the outcome of the election, let me be totally clear in saying that — and I’ve said this many times — I accept our intelligence community’s conclusion that Russia’s meddling in the 2016 election took place. Could be other people also; there’s a lot of people out there.

So, you see what he did there, right? He lied about accepting our intelligence community's conclusion, because no one in the intelligence community - 17 agencies or whatever the count is - has ever suggested it was anyone other than Russia. Just Russia. No one but Russia. Russia alone. You know, like Trump alone can fix this. So, for him in the same breath to say "I accept" and "could be other people too" is impossible. I mean, a lot of impossible right there.

There was no collusion at all.  And people have seen that, and they’ve seen that strongly.  The House has already come out very strongly on that. A lot of people have come out strongly on that.

Every day, every several times a day he mentions there was no collusion, is he trying to convince me or trying to convince himself?

I thought that I made myself very clear by having just reviewed the transcript. Now, I have to say, I came back, and I said, “What is going on? What’s the big deal?” So I got a transcript.  I reviewed it. I actually went out and reviewed a clip of an answer that I gave, and I realized that there is need for some clarification.

The 'big deal' he's talking about is that even people on his own network were slamming him for his comments at the press conference, where he refused to challenge Putin on election interference.

It should have been obvious — I thought it would be obvious — but I would like to clarify, just in case it wasn’t. In a key sentence in my remarks, I said the word “would” instead of “wouldn’t.” The sentence should have been: I don’t see any reason why I wouldn’t — or why it wouldn’t be Russia. So just to repeat it, I said the word “would” instead of “wouldn’t.” And the sentence should have been — and I thought it would be maybe a little bit unclear on the transcript or unclear on the actual video — the sentence should have been: I don’t see any reason why it wouldn’t be Russia. Sort of a double negative. 

So you can put that in, and I think that probably clarifies things pretty good by itself.

 And I laughed and laughed, because everyone knows that's a load of crap. Everyone.

I have, on numerous occasions, noted our intelligence findings that Russians attempted to interfere in our elections.  Unlike previous administrations, my administration has and will continue to move aggressively to repeal any efforts — and repel — we will stop it, we will repel it — any efforts to interfere in our elections. We’re doing everything in our power to prevent Russian interference in 2018.

Pretty sure he was going to repeal and replace something with that part, don't you think?  And we're doing everything in our power except calling out the guy who did it, right? And we're doing everything in our power, including scaring our allies. And we're doing everything in our power except we're not really doing anything, are we, other than our damnedest to undermine the efforts of our intelligence community and our justice community, but hey...

And we have a lot of power.  As you know, President Obama was given information just prior to the election — last election, 2016 — and they decided not to do anything about it.  The reason they decided that was pretty obvious to all: They thought Hillary Clinton was going to win the election, and they didn’t think it was a big deal.

That was part of it -- and not wanting to interfere, and strongly warning Putin multiple times, and more. But that's not important.

When I won the election, they thought it was a very big deal.  And all of the sudden they went into action, but it was a little bit late. So he was given that in sharp contrast to the way it should be. And President Obama, along with Brennan and Clapper and the whole group that you see on television now — probably getting paid a lot of money by your networks — they knew about Russia’s attempt to interfere in the election in September, and they totally buried it. And as I said, they buried it because they thought that Hillary Clinton was going to win. It turned out it didn’t happen that way.

Dear God, man - we know you won the election for Pete's sake.

By contrast, my administration has taken a very firm stance — it’s a very firm stance — on a strong action. We’re going to take strong action to secure our election systems and the process.  Furthermore, as has been stated — and we’ve stated it previously and on many occasions:No collusion.

N-n-n-no-collusion. N-n-n-no- collusion. N-N-N-NO-COLLUSION

So I just wanted to clear up, I have the strongest respect for our intelligence agencies headed by my people. We have great people, whether it’s Gina or Dan Coats, or any of them.  I mean, we have tremendous people, tremendous talent within the agencies.  I think they’re being guided properly. And we all want the same thing; we want success for our country.

And I think he thinks if he says it enough times, he'll believe it. And we'll believe it, too.

Don't.