Any Predictions As To How Many Hours It Will Take...

[Lord Jim]

(yes, hours, not days) for Trump, on his first foreign trip, to:

A. Commit some major diplomatic faux pas

B. Embarrass the country with some stunningly ignorant statement

C. Completely derail attention from what he supposedly wants to do on this trip with tweets or public statements about Russiagate, how unfairly he is treated, "the lying press", etc.

I'd bet he wont make it through his first public speech without having done at least one of those things, possibly more...

ETA:

I'm sure he's going to be very reluctant to take any questions from the US press corps on this trip...

He has to know that if he does, the first question isn't going to be, "Mr. President, do you feel you've gotten a sufficient commitment from the Saudi government to aid in the war against ISIS?"

It's much more likely to be, "Mr. President, is your son-in-law a person of interest in the FBI Russia investigation?"

In fact given everything that broke on Friday, the first 20 questions he would likely be asked would all be related to Russiagate...

[ex-khobar Andy]

If he has any sense (yes, yes, l know) he will let the Saudis handle the press conference. There will not be awkward questions.

[MajGenl.Meade]

It will be as soon as the pilot allows hand-held devices to be switched back on

[Scooter]

You just can't make this shit up:

Trump’s Commerce Sec marvels at lack of protests in Saudi Arabia

The first stop on Donald Trump’s overseas tour ended largely without incident. No one understands what was up with that orb, but in general, the American president did not cause any diplomatic crises during his brief trip to Saudi Arabia.

Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross appeared on CNBC this morning to boast about how well it went. In fact, he offered proof that Trump’s first stop went off without a hitch:

[The] thing that was fascinating to me, there was not a single hint of a protestor anywhere there during the whole time we were there. Not one guy with a bad placard.

At that point, the CNBC host interjected, reminding the secretary of Commerce that Saudis may have wanted to protest Trump, but local citizens aren’t allowed to express such criticisms publicly.

“In theory, that could be true,” Ross responded, “but boy there was certainly no sign of it.” The cabinet secretary then proceeded to brag some more about how smoothly everything went in the authoritarian country – including some “gigantic bushels of dates” he received as a gift from people he identified as Saudi security guards.

Someone might want to remind Ross that Saudi Arabia banned all protests and marches years ago. BBC News reported six years ago this month that a statement was read on state television that said “security forces would use all measures to prevent any attempt to disrupt public order.”

It’s not that Ross was wrong – I’m quite certain Trump and his entourage were confronted with nothing but polite and welcoming locals – it’s that he apparently has no idea why he’s right. There wasn’t “a single hint of a protestor anywhere” because in Saudi Arabia, public dissent is quashed by force of law. What the president’s cabinet secretary was arguing, in effect, was that he didn’t see any Saudi who was willing to put his freedom or security at risk by holding up a critical placard, which is hardly something worth bragging about.

What’s more, let’s not forget that Ross isn’t some young rookie who’s unfamiliar with the basics of international affairs. He’s a 79-year-old former businessman with an extensive record with global industries.

In other words, the Commerce secretary has no excuse for interpreting the lack of protesters as evidence of public support.

Are these idiots for fucking real? It's as if the leadership of the free world has been given over to the fucking Clampetts.

[Crackpot]

You do a huge disservice to the Clampetts

[oldr_n_wsr]

Especially Elly May.

[Scooter]

[Scooter]

So let me see if I get this. Melania and Ivanka, neither of whom are Catholic, wear these severe black dresses with a veil when they go to the Vatican, out of "respect":



but refused to make any such gesture toward local custom in Saudi Arabia, where Melania went so far as to wear pants.

Why the double standard?

I am not suggesting they are the only members of a first family to do this (they probably aren't) only that there appears to be no problem of kowtowing towards the wardrobe restrictions of a Christian state, but somehow doing so in Muslim state would be a sign of subservience, or something.

[Big RR]

Typical. What else would you expect?

[Scooter]

No comment required.

[Big RR]

that's because Obama would let a guy in address use whatever bathroom he chose.

[ex-khobar Andy]

To be fair to Donald Trump he said that Caitlyn Jenner could use whatever bathroom she wanted if she were to visit Trump tower.

[Lord Jim]

So long as Trump has stuck to his prepared set speeches, to be fair he's done okay, (at least by Trump standards)

But man, just give this guy 10 seconds to go off script and he shoves both feet in his mouth and proceeds to clog dance...

First, dealing with the one and only question he has taken from the western press on this entire trip, he says he "Never mentioned Israel" in reference to the classified information he revealed to the Russians in the Oval Office...

two things there...

First of all the Washington Post never story never said that he did. (The story only said that he had revealed information that would make it easy for the Russians to figure out the sources and methods. Standard Trump ploy; deny something he was never accused of, and then claim the "accusation" was wrong.) Second, in bringing Israel up unprompted he now just did what he hadn't done before, and publicly confirmed Israel as the source of the intel...

And then in another rare unscripted moment, while sitting in Israel with Netanyahu, Il Boobce says:

"We just got back from the Middle East."

Israeli Ambassador to the United States Ron Dermer's reaction to that was priceless (he's the one doing the face palm):



(Maybe with so many Jews in the room, he thought he was back in Miami... )


It does appears that they have kept him so busy and tired that he hasn't had time to do his usual obsessing over cable news and tweeting about it...

I'm sure when he gets back to the US, he'll have a lot of catching up to do...

[Scooter]

The bozo eruptions keep coming:

Pentagon officials are in shock after the release of a transcript between President Donald Trump and his Philippines counterpart reveals that the US military had moved two nuclear submarines towards North Korea

“We never talk about subs!” three officials told BuzzFeed News, referring to the military's belief that keeping submarines' movement stealth is key to their mission.

While the US military will frequently announce the deployment of aircraft carriers, it is far more careful when discussing the movement of nuclear submarines. Carriers are hard to miss, and that in part, is a reason the US military deploys them. They are a physical show of forces. Submarines are, at times, a furtive complement to the carriers, a hard-to-detect means of strategic deterrence.

According to a transcript of the call, released Wednesday, Trump called Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte April 29 to discuss, in part, the rising threat from North Korea. During that call, while discussing ways to mitigate North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s nuclear ambitions, Trump said: “We have two submarines – the best in the world – we have two nuclear submarines – not that we want to use them at all. I’ve never seen anything like they are but we don’t have to use this but [Kim] could be crazy so we will see what happens.”

During the same call, Trump also called the North Korea leader a “madman with nuclear weapons” and celebrated Duterte for doing an “unbelievable job on the drug problem,” even as the Filipino leader has supported the alleged extrajudicial killing of 8,000 people since taking office in June, part of his purge to rid his nation of drugs. Duterte has bragged about committing murder himself, called former President Barack Obama a “son of a bitch” and once threatened to suspend the bilateral agreement between his nation and the United States that allows US troops to visit the Philippines.

“Keep up [the] good work, you are doing an amazing job,” Trump told Duterte during the call.

A US official who had previously seen a version of the transcript confirmed to BuzzFeed News that the published version appeared accurate.

I'm sure Trump voters are ever so proud of their messiah.

[Econoline]

[Econoline]

[Gob]

So let me see if I get this. Melania and Ivanka, neither of whom are Catholic, wear these severe black dresses with a veil when they go to the Vatican, out of "respect":



but refused to make any such gesture toward local custom in Saudi Arabia, where Melania went so far as to wear pants.

Why the double standard?

Oddly I think that's a good thing.

The Saudi code is enforceable and punishable, teh Catholic one is not.

[Scooter]

If a foreign woman wants to meet the King of Saudi Arabia, she may or may not choose to observe local customs of dress. That makes it neither enforceable nor punishable.

If a foreign woman wants to meet the King of Vatican City (i.e. the Pope) she must dress that way or she will be refused an audience. That makes it both enforceable and punishable.

[rubato]

"enforceable and punishable" except in this case, where it is no more "enforceable and punishable" than the Vatican dress code, apparently.

Bullshit.


yrs,
rubato

[Gob]

Ok, Scoot, I didn't know that, I would have thought it the other way around.

Having said that, it's all a bit pick'n'mix;

German Chancellor Angela Merkel did not adhere to the strict Saudi Arabian dress code for women during talks with King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud on Sunday.

Theresa May did not adhere to Saudi Arabia’s strict dress code for women during a meeting with the nation’s Crown Prince.

The United Kingdom's Queen Elizabeth II attracted attention in 2014 for wearing a lilac suit to meet Pope Francis. That acceptance was seen as an effort by the pope to relax some rules of the Vatican.

Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, wore cream and did not cover her head when meeting Francis last month