"Shitshow": Trump's closed-doored meetings in Brussels were way worse than the public performance.

[kpete]

..............

“Oh, it was like a total shitshow,” said one source, who spoke on condition of anonymity as they weren’t authorized to discuss the closed-door dinner.

“The dinner was far worse than the speech,” said a former senior U.S. government official briefed on dinner. “It was a train wreck. It was awful.”

NATO headquarters declined to comment on the dinner. “This was a confidential dinner of allied leaders and we respect their confidence,” a NATO spokesperson said.

Trump’s actions during his Brussels visit, both in public and behind closed doors, shed light on how the transatlantic relationship has soured in just the few short months since Trump took office.



the restL
http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/06/09/trump-discovers-article-5-after-disastrous-nato-visit-brussels-visit-transatlantic-relationship-europe/

[Ilsa]

1. Can you imagine the relief most

of Europe will feel after Dolt 45 resigns or is impeached?

[NurseJackie]

2. ... so will I.

[Warpy]

5. So will anyone who is really paying attention

The international boards I post on tend to be left-o but even the occasional Conservative or Tory who wanders in can't stand him.

[Hortensis]

3. NO. What's happening here isn't one man.

It's an attempt by right-wing extremists to fundamentally change America, and with it our LIBERAL relationship with the rest of the planet, a LIBERALLY FOCUSED relationship of mutual assistance and suppression of aggression that has been used by 100 nations and more to for the most part maintain peace for 70 years.

Rump's populist movement, widescale voter suppression, mass media manipulation in-country, the same from Russia, and timely assistance from agents like the AP, major media, including the NY Times and CNN, and the director of the FBI: All used by CONSERVATIVE extremists to gain what voters would never choose to give them -- enough power to try to make their control effectively permanent, too strong for voter groups warring with each other to break. Bannon's a big mouth, he says what others keep behind closed doors: His goal is to destroy liberalism and secularism as powers in western government. Most of them would settle for just destroying the liberalism our nation and all its current international alliances were founded on.

[Ilsa]

4. Well, you're right, of course.

It'll be fleeting because everyone will need to be extra vigilant.

[yardwork]

8. No, because President Pence wouldn't be an improvement.

This is not going to go away easily.

[HarmonyRockets]

6. It's behind a paywall

Anyone have any idea what this article says?

[Hortensis]

9. If you sign up for their weekly email, you should get access

to the articles listed on it, and perhaps more. I just hope they don't change that public service since we're in our limited-income years now.

Here's some of the beginning. (Article 5 is YOOGE and Rump didn't commit to it in any of the meetings but instead, as indicated here, casually gave a yes to a journalist's question.)

"At long last, U.S. President Donald Trump endorsed NATO’s bedrock collective defense clause, Article 5, in a press conference Friday. “Absolutely, I’d be committed to Article 5,” he said Friday in response to a question from a journalist, speaking beside Romanian President Klaus Iohannis at the White House. It gives nervous NATO allies something they’ve yearned for since he came to office in January after disparaging the alliance and openly praising its top geopolitical foe, Russia.

But it may not be enough to patch things over with his NATO allies after his visit last month to Brussels, where Trump gave a public tongue lashing that surprised NATO leaders and his national security team alike — because behind closed doors, things were even worse.

After a public showing on May 25 in which Trump refused to endorse NATO’s collective defense clause and famously shoved the Montenegrin leader out of the way, leaders of the 29-member alliance retired to a closed-door dinner that multiple sources tell Foreign Policy left alliance leaders “appalled.”

Trump had two versions of prepared remarks for the dinner, one that took a traditional tack and one prepared by the more NATO-skeptic advisors, Stephen Miller and Steve Bannon. “He dumped both of them and improvised,” one source briefed on the dinner told FP. During the dinner, Trump went off-script to criticize allies again for not spending enough on defense. (The United States is one of only five members that meets NATO members’ pledge to spend 2 percent of GDP on defense.)"

**************

We all know how astoundingly, bizarrely, childishly ignorant Rump reveals himself to be when he's off script. We can assume he displayed a complete lack of understanding of or appreciation for the immense value of the NATO alliance even to ourselves, much less the nations facing Russian aggression and the rest of the planet. Or even what it IS. If they didn't truly believe in the depth of his mental disorder before, they certainly do now.

[Warren DeMontague]

7. I bet.

[Achilleaze]

10. Just what the Russians ordered

The Republican draft dodger in chief is expert at fulfilling the Russian commands to destroy NATO and weaken America

[workinclasszero]

11. Putin's premiere weapon against western liberal democracies

Sits on his fat ass in our white house.

[LittleGirl]

12. watching Fox and CNN

and doing battles between them. It's disgusting.

We have a senior guy with a remote in his hand and the nuclear codes in a briefcase nearby. We are not the leaders of the free world anymore. Not even large sums of money can buy that guy common sense. Stump turtle. That's #45. Doesn't have a clue what he got himself into.

[workinclasszero]

13. I think its pretty obvious to all by now that

Trump is to damn stupid and ignorant with the personality of a pissed off two year old to be making any of the insane policies he has put out so far.

Plus I believe he is in the beginning stages of dementia/Alzheimer's to boot.

There is a higher power behind the throne telling him what to do IMO.



MRGA baby!