Plan B Forum

Trump, in CIA visit, attacks media for coverage of his inaugural crowds

On his first full day in office, President Trump visited the Central Intelligence Agency’s headquarters to express his gratitude for the intelligence community, which he had repeatedly railed against and recently likened to Nazis.

What Trump delivered Saturday was a campaign-style, stream-of-consciousness airing of grievances — at the Senate for delaying confirmation of his nominees; at critics for questioning whether he smarts and vigor; and at journalists, whom he called “the most dishonest human beings on earth” and accused of lying about the size of his inauguration crowd.

Trump claimed falsely that the crowd for his swearing-in stretched down the National Mall to the Washington Monument and totaled more than 1 million people. It did not. Trump accused television networks of showing “an empty field” and reporting that he drew just 250,000 people to witness Friday’s ceremony.

“It looked like a million, a million and a half people,” Trump said, falsely claiming that his crowd “went all the way back to the Washington Monument.”

During his 2009 inaugural address, President Obama’s crowd extended that far, and there were estimates of 1.8 million people in the audience. Trump’s crowd was plainly well short of that.

“It’s a lie,” Trump said of the crowd estimates for Friday’s event. “We caught [the media]. We caught them in a beauty.”

Trump also misrepresented what happened to the weather during his swearing in. He said he felt a few drops of rain as he started delivering his address, but then, “God looked down and, and he said we’re not going to let it rain on your speech.. . .The truth is it stopped immediately.”

Light rain continued to fall through the first few minutes of the speech — and VIP’s at the dais took out ponchos, including former president George W. Bush — and then quit. Trump said there was a downpour right after he finished, which did not occur.

Speaking from the lobby of CIA headquarters in Langley, before a wall of stars honoring intelligence officers who died in service, Trump declared, “I have a running war with the media. They are among the most dishonest human beings on earth, right?”

The audience that included about 400 intelligence officers as well as some of Trump’s White House aides applauded in approval. At one point, Trump claimed that most of the people in the room had voted for him.

“They sort of made it sound like I had a feud with the intelligence community,” Trump said. “I just want to let you know, the reason you’re the number one stop is it is exactly the opposite.”

In fact, Trump repeatedly vilified the intelligence community throughout much of his transition in an attempt to push back against what he saw as politically charged conclusions by the CIA and other agencies about Russia’s hacking of Democratic Party emails to interfere with the 2016 election.


Trump has taken particular issue with the CIA’s determination that Moscow intervened not only to disrupt this country’s election, but to help Trump defeat Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.

At a Jan. 11 news conference, Trump accused U.S. intelligence officials of being behind a Nazi-like smear campaign against him. He has put quotation marks around the word “intelligence” in referring to such officials. And last weekend, for instance, Trump attacked CIA Director John Brennan — who resigned Friday at the conclusion of President Obama’s term — in a pair of tweets, suggesting he was “the leaker of Fake News.”

Trump journeyed to Langley on Saturday — his first in what aides said would be a series of visits to federal departments and agencies — to show his solidarity with career intelligence officials.

“There is nobody that feels stronger about the intelligence community and the CIA than Donald Trump,” Trump said. “There is nobody.”

He added, “I am so behind you. I know maybe sometimes you haven’t gotten the backing that you’ve wanted and you’re going to get so much backing. Maybe you’re going to say, ‘Please, don’t give us so much backing. Mr. President, please, we don’t need so much backing.’”

At military ball, Trump keeps target on old foes

It began with President Donald Trump and first lady Melania slow-dancing to a rendition of Frank Sinatra's "My Way."

But the night of glamorous inauguration ball-hopping usually reserved for unity and celebration ended with Trump using deployed troops as a cudgel to bash the media – and the nation’s 45th commander in chief driving home the message that he overcame insurmountable odds to handily win the election.

Engaging with troops in Afghanistan who congratulated him via satellite at the Armed Services Ball, the final event of the night, Trump touted the generals in his Cabinet, boasted of his military support and used the troops to knock the press.

“It’s a 10-second delay, but I like them much better than I like the media, right?” he said.

Even as he addressed a crowd of military officials, the president largely talked about himself, his crowds, his campaign or his victory.

“You’re amazing people. And I like you for a lot of reasons,” Trump told them. “Also, I like the fact that you all voted for me, right? You all voted for me.”

Earlier, the first couple was introduced inside the Walter E. Washington Convention Center, the site of the inaugural Liberty and Freedom balls. They danced together at each ball before heading to the National Building Museum for the Armed Services Ball, where they danced together for the final time, as well as with a service member.

“Well, we did it. We did it,” Trump, who wore a black tuxedo and a bow tie, said to applause at the first ball. “We began this journey and they said we — we, and me — we didn’t have a chance, but we knew we were gonna win. And we won. And today, we had a great day.”

Trump participated in a host of events Friday, including tea with the Obamas, his official swearing-in at the U.S. Capitol and the inaugural parade to the White House, among others. He also signed an executive order and commissions for two of his Senate-confirmed Cabinet nominees.

Trump told of how “nice” people were to him as president Friday and spoke of an “unbelievable” crowd, although the inauguration’s attendance was noticeably smaller than the turnout for now-former President Barack Obama in 2009. Trump, however, apparently saw it differently, falsely claiming that “even the media said” his inauguration crowd “was massive.”

Trump at least did manage to escape the forecast of rain until his address, which he detailed as he spoke to the guests at the first ball.

“God was looking down on us, I will tell you,” he said of his good fortune, before thanking his supporters, including his wife — who was clad in an elegant ivory gown by designer Carolina Herrera’s former creative director Hervé Pierre — “my No. 1 supporter.”

dales wrote:Is that one of you wet dreams, lib?

liberty wrote:What would you guys do if the army backed President trump in a take over to make him president for life?

And we all know that Trump craves adulation; that is no great secret; not everyone can be Ronald Reagan after all. All he has to do to get that adulation is do the things he said he would do or at least try. That would be an improvement over Obama who said forget about those good paying jobs their gone and not coming back. That is code for want money, become a politician or flip those burgers boy.

Scooter wrote:Maybe I am slow, but I am beginning to think that BSG has it actually and exactly right - the man is mentally ill. How else can you explain his willingness to lie about something which is instantly verifiable? Narcissistic, thin skinned and a fucking liar to boot. Yes all politicians lie but Trump may be trying to challenge that wonderful Lincoln rule, and he really does think he has found a way to fool all of the people all of the time.

Lord Jim wrote:If anybody thought that actually becoming President might somehow finally get him to behave with some minimal level of dignity, grace and class, (after becoming a major party nominee and becoming President-elect didn't do it) they should now be disabused of that false hope...

This is a very small and insecure little man whose self-absorption is so all consuming and all-defining, that he is incapable of even pretending to be anything more...

• At military ball, Trump keeps target on old foes
  
  It began with President Donald Trump and first lady Melania slow-dancing to a rendition of Frank Sinatra's "My Way."

• • • "And now, the end is near,
      And so I face the final curtain..."

• Kruse: Michael, in your book, and other places, too, he has talked about how much he enjoys fighting. And he certainly fought a lot of people throughout the campaign, and he hasn’t stopped fighting. From Meryl Streep to the intelligence community, he’s still picking fights. Do you think he is going to pick fights with leaders of other countries? In other words, is there any indication that he would be able to separate the interests of the country now from his own personal pique?
  
  Blair: Zero.
  
  O’Brien: Absolutely not. There will be no divide there. The whole thing has been a vanity show from the second he ran to the Republican Convention. I think we can expect to see the same on Inauguration Day. He’s been unable to find a clean division between his own emotional needs and his own insecurities and simply being a healthy, strategically committed leader who wants to parse through good policy options and a wide series of public statements about the direction in which he’ll take the country.

• Kruse: So, last question. At night, when it’s dark and it’s quiet and he’s not sleeping at the top of Trump Tower, do you think Donald Trump is worried that he’s in over his head?
  
  Blair: Not in the least. No.
  
  D’Antonio: I would say not in the least.
  
  Blair: No, no. He’s like, “This is the best thing that’s ever happened.” He’s won the biggest contest there is. He’s got the world’s attention solid for the next four years.
  
  D’Antonio: I think about how Obama has talked about the problem in Syria being one that made it hard for him to sleep and was something he considered every night and every morning. I don’t know that Trump has the ability to think that way. He’s focused on his performance as a ratings machine. So if he gets more Twitter followers and imagines himself to be a star when he takes the stage at press briefings or appears in ceremonial events, that will be enough for him. He’ll think that he’s a success.