This is a belated post, but in reading The Guardian's reaction to Donald Trump's January press conference in conjunction with President Trump's highly erratic and clueless grasp of his new position, I thought it was appropriate to use some excerpts from the newspaper's provocative take on Trump's "trainwreck" of a press conference. The article was published on January 11, 2017 and was entitled "Trump's trainwreck press conference ushers in a clueless presidency."
The press conference opened with Sean Spicer, the incoming press secretary, condemning the media coverage of Trump's compromised relationship with Russia as "frankly outrageous and highly irresponsible."
In any crisis you generally try to deflect attention from your own misconduct. Instead, Team Trump seems happy to shine a bright light on its own monumental mistakes.
That included the wonderful personal testimony from the incoming vice-president, Mike Pence, who introduced his boss by assuring us that he was full of what he called "energy." Perhaps Pence has been spending too much time with someone who liked to criticize his primary opponents for having low energy.
Besides, if you need your vice-president to attest to your character, you're such damaged goods that your executive position is already in jeopardy.
Without any sense of shame or patriotism, the president-elect celebrated the Russian hacking of the DNC and all those leaked emails. He even bragged about his closeness to the Russian president before claiming -- somehow -- that Hillary Clinton was the real poodle.
Trump will never learn from his mistakes. Suspecting the recent Russia revelations are the work of the intelligence agencies, Trump continues to wage war on his own spies. He could offer no proof of such a betrayal but continued to trash the CIA in public all the same.
After a rambling introduction about carmakers, veterans affairs and his inaugural celebrations, Trump finally arrived at his topic of the day: the non-resolution of the conflicts of interest hat will embroil his presidency from now until he leaves the Oval Office.
A table stacked with yellow envelopes was supposed to represent all the documents Trump signed to disentangle his business affairs from his presidency, by passing management control of the Trump Organization to his sons.
Rather like a suitcase supposedly full of cash, it was hard to tell if any of the documents were real without, you know, releasing them to the press like his tax returns. Instead, we were forced to listen to his personal attorney assuring us there was a wall being built between the president and the Trump Organization.
As the Trump attorney explained, a fire sale of Trump assets would be unfair to the president-elect and it was impossible to find an independent trustee competent enough to do so anyway.
Oh yes, and such a divestment wold involve a lot of third-party debt, despite Trump's claims that he has no debt.
ADDENDUMS:
*Steve Bannon has said, "As things get better, they're going to fight" (meaning liberals and the opposition media). "If you think we're going to give the country back without a fight, you are already mistaken."
*A Trump adviser says 14% of non-citizens are registered to vote.
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