White House abruptly cancelled meeting with intel chiefs

[struggle4progress]

BY TAL AXELROD - 01/31/19 10:44 PM EST

... The White House cancelled President Trump’s daily intelligence briefing Wednesday after the nation’s top intelligence officials contradicted the administration’s foreign policy in front of Congress ...

Presidents typically meet with intelligence officials daily to review threats to the nation. While those meetings are sometimes cancelled in the Trump White House, the abruptness Wednesday was unusual.

The cancellation came the day after CIA Director Gina Haspel and Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats contradicted Trump on an array of foreign policy issues ...

https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/427985-white-house-abruptly-cancelled-meeting-with-intel-chiefs-day-after

[struggle4progress]

1. Claims intel officials were misquoted

By Shane Harris
January 31 at 6:54 PM

... The directors of the FBI and the CIA, the director of national intelligence and other officials testified Tuesday about worldwide threats to U.S. national security, revealing significant differences between what the intelligence community has concluded and what the president claims about Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons, the prospect for nuclear talks with North Korea, the strength of the Islamic State and other security issues.

Trump lashed out at the intelligence chiefs on Twitter, calling their assessments “wrong” and suggesting that “Intelligence should go back to school!”

But on Thursday, Trump claimed the intelligence chiefs had told him their remarks had been taken out of context, and he asserted that there was no distance between him and his advisers ...

A representative for the CIA declined to comment. A representative for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence did not respond to a request for comment ...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/intelligence-officials-were-misquoted-after-public-hearing-trump-claims/2019/01/31/339952ce-25a7-11e9-ad53-824486280311_story.html?utm_term=.335e934aadce

[Hermit-The-Prog]

2. Demented Donnie -- alone against the world

Poor lil Donald. Everybody is against him. Only he can fix it.

[scarytomcat]

11. he said "I don't need no stinkin' intelligence"

just a big mac with cheese

[srobertss]

7. This is the most frightened I've felt...

...since the election. Unless I’m just not remembering anymore. But this 180 shift from Wed to Thursday seems so much more demented than anything else we’ve experienced. Maybe it’s just a function of the change in Chief of Staff, the fact that Mulvaney isn’t trying to rein him in at all. But I’m scared that he’s feeling scared, alone, and unable to come up with decent lies anymore. On top of this I listened to Terry Gross’ Fresh Air interview with David Sanger on cyber threats from China and it really feels like like the ground is churning under our feet.

[Hermit-The-Prog]

13. Senator Warner's comments

From the article:

“The media didn’t make the President wake up on Wednesday and trash the intelligence community on Twitter,” Sen. Mark R. Warner (D-Va.), the panel’s vice chairman, said in a statement. “This is the same President who stood on stage in Helsinki and told the world he believed Vladimir Putin over his own intelligence leaders,” Warner said, referring to a summit meeting last year between Trump and the Russian president. “No tweet or Oval Office photo-op can undo two years of the President’s total disrespect for the intelligence community.”

[gratuitous]

15. Good on Warner for reminding folks of Helsinki

Back in July, the U.S. intelligence community was telling the president that Russia had interfered in the 2016 elections. Trump met privately and secretly with Putin, who told him (along with who knows what else) that Russia hadn't done any such thing. Trump came out, and confronted with conflicting accounts from his own intelligence agencies and Vladimir Putin, Trump publicly sided with . . . Putin.

[Hermit-The-Prog]

18. Putin's puppet

Trump so desperately wants to be a dictator but those darned strings tying him to Putin keep getting in the way. Even when he does his best Mussolini impression, somebody comes along and reminds him about his boss.

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1085992608546123776.html

[...]

Trump 2014: Endorses Putin’s invasion of Crimea, ”Well, he’s done an amazing job of taking the mantle. And so smart. When you see the riots in a country because they’re hurting the Russians, OK, ‘We’ll go and take it over.’ You have to give him a lot of credit.”

Trump 2015 on Putin murdering journalists: “In all fairness to Putin, you're saying he killed people. I haven't seen that. I don't know that he has. Have you been able to prove that? Do you know the names of the reporters that he's killed? I haven't' seen any evidence..."

2016, Trump on murder of a former Russian agent. British concluded Putin “probably approved” his poisoning.
"Have they found him guilty? I don't think they've found him guilty. If he did it, fine. But I don’t know that he did it. In all fairness to Putin—I don’t know..."

[...]

[RockRaven]

3. Petulant man-baby incapable of doing his job... to a degree which endangers national security

and all we get are enablers, excusers, and opportunistic exploiters.

[Blue Owl]

4. trump's gold toilet was calling

n/t

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

5. Intelligence is elitist in MAGAt world

[Lock him up.]

6. When will they arrest that Russian agent in the WH?

After he will have finished destroying the world?

Where are the adults in the room?

[UCmeNdc]

8. Trump is incompetent.

Trump is a mess.

[tanyev]

9. I wonder if he has his rolling on the floor temper tantrums in the Oval Office or in the residence.

[Vinca]

10. Intelligence is always so much more reliable when pulled from Trump's rectum.

[NurseJackie]

12. Have you ever see a grown man pout?

[Skraxx]

14. It's Past the Point Where "They" Need to "Do Something" drastic about "It"

[Roland99]

16. Dear gawd. Although. The PDB didn't help prevent 9/11

But that was another Repuke at the helm

[lindysalsagal]

17. And still the Senate sleep walks through the hurricane.

They're gonna pay for it in 2 years if not sooner.

[UCmeNdc]

19. Trump is incompetent.

Trump is a mess.