Trump did something unique to him that I can laud

[Xelor]

Yeah, didn't really have a comment on it one way or the other.

I asked because if one understands what a MBTM is, the final remark you made -- "So more than likely this was a complete PR stunt for Nancy and Chuck who had no intention of going to the actual meeting" -- is incongruous with that understanding.

 

[WCH]

Pssst....




Shhhhh. Can you see the problem?

Ever heard of electrified?

 

[WCH]

They did not just say the wall won't work. They gave logical reasons why it is a boondoggle. You can't just say the wall is good because Trump thinks it is. Unless you are a blind sycophant that is. They are the ONLY ones that think it is a good idea. That is very telling.

They said they were satisfied with the status quo. It ain't working.

 

[sangha]

• Re-read my OP. What do I write about? The meeting dynamics, its effectiveness as a meeting.
• Above I wrote that I don't discuss policy in terms of politics, not that I'm oblivious to politics.
• Look at my posts on various political matters and you'll find that I discuss them in terms of their merits, usually as a consequence of applied positive economics or business management principles.
  • Devin nunes’s family farm is hiding a politically explosive secret
  • Something I Should Point Out to Breitbart Readers
  • What if the AGW scare is to protect the price of fossil fuel?
  • An off-topic discussion responding to a member's gripe about "profiteering" among pot producers/sellers
  • Health insurance coverage discussion
  • A "minimum wage" for hospitals
  • The Left Behind
  • Three part post series in which I expressly rebuke the use of political rhetorical imagery to promote a policy

Red:

​

Trump's running made immigration an issue that divides Americans. His ascendancy didn't make immigration an issue or a big issue.

​

• A History of Immigration Reform
• History of Immigration Laws
• Did Senate pass immigration bills in 2006, 2013 and House failed to vote on them?
• How we got here: The many attempts to reform immigration, secure the border

You are right. I misread your post. I thought you said politics does not affect support for policy when you said it does not affect YOUR support

 

[jnug]

So yet another utter Trumpian debacle from this "meeting" was Trump's complete lack of understanding for how the Legislative process functions.

Pelosi was right. If Trump had the votes for his Bill in the House then the GOP would just pass the legislation out of the House. That would push the Senate to yea or nay a Bill of some sort. If yea the two Houses would then hold Reconciliation Hearings between the relevant Committees of the two Houses, make a few modifications through negotiation and send the package on to the WH for an up or down vote.

Trump insists that he does have the votes in the House (he doesn't) but that there is no sense in gaining a passage in the House because he does not have the votes in the Senate. I actually have no earthly idea why Trump has taken this position. What does he gain by insisting that he could get a Bill to pass the House "in one session" given that the cost to him is that he has shown us AGAIN that he has no earthly idea what he is doing?

Trump is a daily clown show that just gets tedious. If it ever was funny, its not any longer.

 

[RaleBulgarian]

I don't know that he's ever made a political declaration quite as unequivocal as the one he made today.

Trump has not accepted responsibility for any failures on his watch which is why his taking ownership of a potential partial shutdown is so striking and conversation worthy.

 

[Kal'Stang]

I asked because if one understands what a MBTM is, the final remark you made -- "So more than likely this was a complete PR stunt for Nancy and Chuck who had no intention of going to the actual meeting" -- is incongruous with that understanding.

Not really. Nancy and Chuck probably had their own little MBTM and decided that no matter what they were going to do what they did. Democrats think they have Trump by the ball hairs and have no intention of actually working with Trump. (whether they do have him by the ball hairs is up for debate but this thread isn't about that so won't get into it)

 

[Carleen]

That event was a master trap perpetrated by Trump...and Nancy and Chuck walked right into it.

Trump came across as the "national security" guy and the other two came across as partisan opposition and hypocrites.

It was there for the world to see.

I bet Chuck and Nancy are pissed.

Nancy and Chuck ate him alive. The best part was when he took full responsibility and would welcome a shut down. He owns that now. It was awesome. Just proved that Trump is a terrible negotiator.

 

[RetiredUSN]

LOL You like Trump but do not like liars. It's a wonder you can juggle that contradiction in terms. It must be quite a load. Trump is threatening to shut down the Govt. because he got the 1.6 billion he asked for in his own budget. Juggle that.

I despise Trump.

I think that I have mentioned it about 200 times on here.

 

[KLATTU]

Nancy and Chuck ate him alive. The best part was when he took full responsibility and would welcome a shut down. He owns that now. It was awesome. Just proved that Trump is a terrible negotiator.

He'll deny he said it.

 

[Xelor]

You are right. I misread your post. I thought you said politics does not affect support for policy when you said it does not affect YOUR support

Fair enough.

 

[Xelor]

Trump has not accepted responsibility for any failures on his watch which is why his taking ownership of a potential partial shutdown is so striking and conversation worthy.

Yep...

 

[Xelor]

Google "closed door meeting between pelosi, schumer and trump". Below is the sort of stuff that is coming up now for that search query.

closed door meeting between pelosi, schumer and trump
4:15 p.m.

After squabbling about a border wall with Democratic leaders in front of reporters, President Donald Trump is now saying that the private part of their meeting was "very friendly."

He said at a bill signing Tuesday afternoon that after reporters left the morning meeting with Democratic Senate and House leaders Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi, they all had a good discussion.

Trump said: "Believe it or not, I think it was a very friendly meeting. You just saw the beginning of it."

He went on to say that he has liked the two Democrats for a long time.

The president says he doesn't mind taking the blame for a government shutdown if the two sides can't agree on funding for border improvements.

___


Read more here: https://www.newsobserver.com/news/business/article222957490.html#storylink=cpy

As you have likely noticed, I simply will not post up links. i certainly can do it but don't and won't. Normally I would have eliminated the source footer above. But this site appears to have decided to want sourcing for a quote. So I left it.

I see what the reference article above says. I'm willing retreat from there having been absolutely no post-meeting meeting because the input I got came from "someone who talks to someone," not from my having been in the West Wing. The person from whom I got my scuttlebutt didn't give me a minute-by-minute-with-timestamps accounting of what transpired. Indeed, the person from whom I got my info called to joke about Trump having a conniption after the meeting, not to give me an accounting of how long the on-camera meeting run or that there even was a "real" meeting that followed.

Be that as it may, I also see the timestamps on the video of the meeting and of Schumer's "press conference" after the meeting.

• On-camera session ends at 12:22 PM
• Schumer "press conference" starts at 12:30 PM.

Between the meeting and the "conference," Chuck retrieved his personal effects from the SS, put on his coat and exited security, maybe went to the loo, and let the press set up a little "tribune" of sorts for him to address them. Just how much "real" meeting do you think occurred in the space of eight minutes?

I see from the press "clipping" you've shared (TY for that) that Trump says there was a private part of the meeting. I know too that little, if anything, that man says or suggests is factually true. The man lies about the smallest things to the biggest, so much so and so often that he is not a credible source of information about anything.

For the sake of argument, let's say there was a "follow-on" meeting between the three of them (Trump, Pelosi and Schumer) later in the afternoon. What came out of it? Wouldn't you expect that someone (someone more credible than Trump) would have remarked on some or several details that were resolved/discussed in such a meeting? I would, maybe not a lot, but something, yet, so far, all we've heard is "crickets."


TY for "calling" me on the point of whether there was a "real" meeting. It serves as a good reminder to me to be more careful about sharing details, even the smallest ones, I get from the grapevine and that I'm unaware of whether they've been made public. I know damn well that I cannot cite external references for that kind of info and thus I best keep it to myself. Apologies for not doing so and occupying your time with this back-and-forth about whether there was a "meeting after the meeting."

 

[Xelor]

Not really. Nancy and Chuck probably had their own little MBTM and decided that no matter what they were going to do what they did. Democrats think they have Trump by the ball hairs and have no intention of actually working with Trump. (whether they do have him by the ball hairs is up for debate but this thread isn't about that so won't get into it)

Red:
I don't know how they could have done that when they didn't know the thing was going to be televised.

I'm sure, prior to the meeting, they'd agreed upon their message, what specific goal they had the meeting, and what were the limits of what they'd accept or not accept as go Trump's offers. As the spokespersons/leaders of the Democratic caucus in Congress, they'd have been remiss in fulfilling their duties were they not to have done those things prior to arriving at the meeting.

Unlike Trump, professionals don't go unprepared, fly by the seat of their pants, as it were, to meetings with key principals, and a head of state (regardless of what state the person heads, one's own or someone else's) is definitely a key principal. And let's be honest: one's gravitas, especially that of folks who are more subject matter experts than oneself, is just as good on camera as it is off.

The short of it seems to me that Chuck and Nancy went to the meeting to discuss "business" and not expecting a "photo op," whereas Trump went to ply his strength -- being entertaining a la a reality TV character -- and that's what he did. Review the video. What material facts (existential ones, not the crap he fabricated) pertinent to border security did he introduce to support his position that the wall is necessary? None.

​

 

[jnug]

I see what the reference article above says. I'm willing retreat from there having been absolutely no post-meeting meeting because the input I got came from "someone who talks to someone," not from my having been in the West Wing. The person from whom I got my scuttlebutt didn't give me a minute-by-minute-with-timestamps accounting of what transpired. Indeed, the person from whom I got my info called to joke about Trump having a conniption after the meeting, not to give me an accounting of how long the on-camera meeting run or that there even was a "real" meeting that followed.

Be that as it may, I also see the timestamps on the video of the meeting and of Schumer's "press conference" after the meeting.

• On-camera session ends at 12:22 PM
• Schumer "press conference" starts at 12:30 PM.

Between the meeting and the "conference," Chuck retrieved his personal effects from the SS, put on his coat and exited security, maybe went to the loo, and let the press set up a little "tribune" of sorts for him to address them. Just how much "real" meeting do you think occurred in the space of eight minutes?

I see from the press "clipping" you've shared (TY for that) that Trump says there was a private part of the meeting. I know too that little, if anything, that man says or suggests is factually true. The man lies about the smallest things to the biggest, so much so and so often that he is not a credible source of information about anything.

For the sake of argument, let's say there was a "follow-on" meeting between the three of them (Trump, Pelosi and Schumer) later in the afternoon. What came out of it? Wouldn't you expect that someone (someone more credible than Trump) would have remarked on some or several details that were resolved/discussed in such a meeting? I would, maybe not a lot, but something, yet, so far, all we've heard is "crickets."


TY for "calling" me on the point of whether there was a "real" meeting. It serves as a good reminder to me to be more careful about sharing details, even the smallest ones, I get from the grapevine and that I'm unaware of whether they've been made public. I know damn well that I cannot cite external references for that kind of info and thus I best keep it to myself. Apologies for not doing so and occupying your time with this back-and-forth about whether there was a "meeting after the meeting."

Actually I don't even know what to call a "meeting" for this WH any longer. The entire on camera mess was all of 17 minutes. My God I could barely get through a preamble to a meeting in 17 minutes or at least just barely do it when I was an active business exec. Would it be unusual for them to have spent another 4-5 minutes doing whatever? I would say No. Donald has no patience with anything. 17 minutes probably sounds like too much time away from Fox News and a Big Mac for him. Another 5 minutes with two people who had just publicly undressed him would seem all that Donald Duck could take.

 

[iguanaman]

I despise Trump.

I think that I have mentioned it about 200 times on here.

So you support his impeachment and removal from office? Good for you.

 

[iguanaman]

They said they were satisfied with the status quo. It ain't working.

Says who? Illegal immigration has been gong down for years.

 

[Xelor]

Actually I don't even know what to call a "meeting" for this WH any longer. The entire on camera mess was all of 17 minutes. My God I could barely get through a preamble to a meeting in 17 minutes or at least just barely do it when I was an active business exec. Would it be unusual for them to have spent another 4-5 minutes doing whatever? I would say No. Donald has no patience with anything. 17 minutes probably sounds like too much time away from Fox News and a Big Mac for him. Another 5 minutes with two people who had just publicly undressed him would seem all that Donald Duck could take.

I agree that near twenty minutes of discussion portended to overtax his attention span.

 

[WCH]

Says who? Illegal immigration has been gong down for years.

It's coming back.

https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/stats/sw-border-migration

 

[Xelor]

It's coming back.

https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/stats/sw-border-migration

What? What sort of quantitative method are you using that moves you to cite the reference you did? Did you bother to aggregate the lustrum's worth of data and put it in a single chart so you tell what the overall trend pattern is? The other member didn't, but he presented a bar chart that allows one to see the overall trend.

You aren't seriously making a claim based on discrete year variances rather than the trend, are you? Surely you realize "things" happen that cause immigration rates to vary year by year thus making any given year or year-pair not particularly informative for remarking on trend behavior?

 

[akyron]

Today, Donald Trump, for the second time, allowed video coverage of a policy/legislation discussion meeting. That is something he's done more than other POTUSes, AFAIK. I think all executive branch, except for national security policy discussion, policy discussion/negotiation -- strategizing/tactic planning, visioneering, analysis, policy design and implementation planning -- should be televised, or at least videotaped from start to finish, so citizens can know what their elected leaders are thinking, in full rather than just the sound bites.

In the puzzle that is governmental and political transparency, having open-meetings a piece, and it's one I think should remain in place for all policy discussions, be they across branches or within them.

I can agree that more transparency is better than less. I am digging many of the aspects of more transparent policies. This was strategic however and allowed the president to frame the public debate as open border democrats vs security minded republicans. Lets see if it holds up. It was good optics to be transparent and for democrats to wish to hide from the light.

 

[LetsGoBrandon]

Here's my take.

Trump was definitely his usual self. A lot of people would call it rude. Others would call it forceful. It's subjective.

Regarding your first bullet point. It was much more than that to them. In fact I'd say that they knew they weren't going to have such a conversation. One reason that I believe that is because right after Trump gave the floor to her one of the first words uttered by her was "Trump shutdown". That little bit right there showed that she wasn't speaking to find common ground. It was to lay the ground work for setting the blame if there is a shut down. It was political gamesmanship and nothing more.

You're right on the second bullet point.

Most definitely right on the third one.

For the fourth one...I wouldn't even call it a meeting. At least not what we were shown. As you stated in your third bullet point, it was a PR/optics opportunity and nothing more.

The fifth bullet point: Pence was probably there for the real meeting. The one that took place after the PR stunt that we were shown.

6th: Like I essentially said earlier, it wasn't so much a meeting as a political PR stunt.

7th: That may be, but Nancy and Chuck weren't exactly cordial either from the get go. Through out the first part where Trump first started talking he didn't once say anything negative about the Democrats, Nancy or Chuck. He only started being rude after Nancy came out with that "Trump shutdown" comment. Say what you will about Trump, but plain fact of the matter is that he normally does not attack anyone unless he feels that they are attacking him first. That's why a lot of people like Trump. Because they see those little barbs that are constantly given out by both sides (or one side if they're too partisan to see their own side doing it also), like Nancy's "Trump shutdown" barb for instance, and he doesn't put up with it.

I think Trump came out the winner. One, he blew up Nancy's often repeated claim since the midterms that the democrat house intends to be transparent. She obviously did not want the negotiations with Trump to be transparent as she kept yammering "Let's discuss this in private.". Two, the democrats are so used to the republicans caving when they mention the word "government shutdown", that Nancy and Chuckles thought they had Trump cornered before they even arrived at the White House. Trump blew that up by taking ownership of a potential shutdown over border security. In effect, he showed enough spine to call their bluff. They will have to make their positions clear on border security.

 

[LetsGoBrandon]

That event was a master trap perpetrated by Trump...and Nancy and Chuck walked right into it.

Trump came across as the "national security" guy and the other two came across as partisan opposition and hypocrites.

It was there for the world to see.

I bet Chuck and Nancy are pissed.

They are not only pissed. They are scared. All the republicans have to do is remind Chuck and nancy of previous stances they took on border security, such as Schumer's stance in this video:

 

[Xelor]

Off-Topic:

I can agree that more transparency is better than less. I am digging many of the aspects of more transparent policies. This was strategic however and allowed the president to frame the public debate as open border democrats vs security minded republicans. Lets see if it holds up. It was good optics to be transparent and for democrats to wish to hide from the light.

What?

• What is a "transparent policy?"
  • I know only of policies. Law/policy makers articulate the policy they have enacted or implemented (or that they want to enact/implement) and folks who care read the policy and analyze it. So long as the policy/law maker states what the policy is, there's no more transparency the policy can obtain. Last I checked, other than national security related stuff, the US doesn't have secret policies.
• What in that meeting did Trump say that "prosecuted" the case of Democrats being "open border" advocates?
  • As Chuck and Nancy indicated, the Dems and Reps in Congress have already agreed upon legislation that provides funding for border security; however, Trump's threatening to veto it, as he has before, because it doesn't contain wall funding. It's merely that it includes funding for border security measures for tactics other than the wall Trump wants. The wall is hardly the only form of border security.
• What in that meeting indicated that Dems were "hiding from the light?" The funding legislation is "ready to go," for all intents and purposes, but Trump wants funding for his wall and the bills don't contain it, so he's throwing a "temper tantrum" -- Waaa....I want wall money...Waaa...I'm going to take my pen and "go home" if you don't give me wall money...Waaa! -- because he's not getting what he wants. That is what became evident in that meeting.
  • Less than 25% of Republicans in Congress endorse border wall funding in USA TODAY survey
  • The Senate is desperate to avoid another government shutdown — but Trump isn’t
  • Sept. 2018 -- Trump Signs Spending Bill to Stave Off Shutdown Until December
  • Dec 2018 -- Congress Passes Two-Week Funding Extension to Avert Shutdown

 

[Xelor]

I think Trump came out the winner. One, he blew up Nancy's often repeated claim since the midterms that the democrat house intends to be transparent. She obviously did not want the negotiations with Trump to be transparent as she kept yammering "Let's discuss this in private.". Two, the democrats are so used to the republicans caving when they mention the word "government shutdown", that Nancy and Chuckles thought they had Trump cornered before they even arrived at the White House. Trump blew that up by taking ownership of a potential shutdown over border security. In effect, he showed enough spine to call their bluff. They will have to make their positions clear on border security.

They are not only pissed. They are scared. All the republicans have to do is remind Chuck and nancy of previous stances they took on border security, such as Schumer's stance in this video:

​

What has any of that to do with meeting planning and execution? Did you read the OP?