“2024” book jacket
There’s a new book out entitled “2024,” It is written by 3 co-authors who appeared on CNN to shill for this new book. The book is subtitled: “How Trump Retook the White House and the Democrats Lost America.” The authors are Josh Dawsey of the Wall Street Journal, Tyler Pager of the New York Times, and Isaac Arnsdorf, Senior Washington Post Reporter.
On CNN the trio played an exclusive audio recording of Trump reciting the details of a conversation he had with Vladimir Putin. Knowing DJT, you can not believe what he says. It is also true that I can only type so fast, so my transcription of the audio piece, while substantially correct, is slightly truncated. I’m sure you’ll hear this amazing piece of audio soon elsewhere, but let me synopsize it for you.
Trump: “I had a very strong conversation with President Putin and he understood. And I won’t go into the great details of the conversation because nobody has to hear it, but did they fear me? I suspect they did. I told him, ‘If you go into Ukraine I’m gonna’ bomb the shit out of Moscow. I’m telling you: I have no choice.’ So he goes like, ‘I don’t believe you. He said ‘No way.’ I said ‘Way.’ And then he goes like, ‘I don’t believe you.’ I said the same thing to Xi Jinping. If you go into Taiwan I’m gonna’ bomb the shit out of Beijing.’ And he didn’t believe me either. I think they believed me 10% and that’s all you need. They thought I was just crazy enough that I might do it.”
Another part of the tape dealt with Trump’s solicitation of huge political contributions to his campaign. Trump mentioned a donor who gave him $25 million. The audio tape went this way: “He was worth 4 or 5 billion. Most of its—half of it in cash. And he wants to have lunch and hand over a million. I said, ‘You’re much richer than that. You’re worth 5 or 6 billion. I’m not having lunch. You’ve got to make it 25 million.’ And he said ‘Oh, that sounds like a lot.” The tape continued, “He gave me 25 million. It’s crazy.”
True or false? Bragging or embarrassing himself (and our country?)
A snippet of the televised Cabinet meeting of July 8, Tuesday was played. A female reporter asked Trump who had okayed the pausing of the delivery of munitions to Ukraine, (which occurred recently.)The President did not like the question. He said, very sarcastically, “Why don’t you tell me.”
Pete Hegseth, Secretary of Defense.
Trump did not hand off the military question to his Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, who was seated to his immediate left.
The discussion of the experts onscreen went on to say that Hegseth may have “okayed” the stopping of aid to Ukraine without properly notifying Trump that he was doing so. Pretty easy to believe of a guy who included the Editor of the “Atlantic” on a highly classified military discussion of bombing Yemen and faced no further repercussions. But, then, being a talking head on Fox News is not the best preparation for heading up the military of the United States. Incompetent people may do incompetent or poorly thought out things.
This audio tape was played on CNN on Tuesday, January 8th, about 6 p.m. I would anticipate that Trump’s people will deny it was authentic audio and then attack the reporters (as is their custom). Some further discussion of Putin and Trump occurred involving Rahm Emanuel, former Mayor of Chicago, former Ambassador to Japan, and current CNN Global and Foreign Affairs Commentator.
Rahm Emanuel, former Obama advisor, Chicago Mayor, and Ambassador to Japan.
Emanuel offered the opinion that Putin has “bet the farm” on his invasion of Ukraine. The experts agreed that Trump has misjudged Putin, who does not, as Trump previously thought, desire closer relations with the West. Putin’s true aim is to return Russia to its previous Glory Days, not to ally it with the wicked West. The talking heads felt that DJT might be changing his opinion on a future chummy relationship with Russia, saying, “We got a lot of bullshit thrown at us by Putin.” (So much for bringing the Ukrainian War to a halt in 24 hours.)
Emanuel’s take on our current relationship with China is that the most dangerous threat is not an invasion of Taiwan, but a take-over of the Philippines, saying, “The real challenge is the South China Seas and the Philippines.”
The three authors of the book said that Trump spoke to them for the book. In March, they approached Joe Biden, who agreed to speak with them, but did not follow through. The story, as related by Tyler Pager, was that he had asked Biden’s aides for months to speak to him. Finally, Pager got Biden’s direct cell phone number and phoned him directly. Biden answered and, said Pager, “He seemed open to talking to us.”
However, when the trio called back to set up a time to speak, the number had been disconnected. Pager also related some fairly critical phone conversations with Biden aides, who admonished him about contacting their boss.
It will be interesting to see if there is any coverage of the clip that reveals our current leader as a loose cannon, threatening WWIII, strong-arming rich donors for bigger contributions, and generally behaving in the boorish manner we have seen on the national and international stage. (Makes you proud to be an American—right?)
The very last bit of business that the CNN report addressed was Jimmy Carter’s funeral, where the film clip showed Obama speaking with Trump as they sat with the other living presidents and with Vice President Harris (who seemed annoyed that Obama was being civil to DJT in the row behind her.) The trio says the conversation was of Trump inviting Obama to play golf at one of his clubs.
