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PaperclipPerfector  9d ago (text post)   30677 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 21, 2025

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Trump did an interview with "Time," to mark the end of the first 100 days of his second term. The first topic they discussed was Presidential power:

Q: You know better than anyone that the President of the United States is the most powerful person in the world. At the same time, it seems like you are expanding the power of the presidency. Why do you think you need more power?

A: Well, I don't feel I'm expanding it. I think I'm using it as it was meant to be used. I feel that we've had a very successful presidency in 100 days. We've had people writing it was the best first month and best second month, and really the best third month. But that you won't know about for a little while, because it takes a little time in transition. You know, we're resetting a table. We were losing $2 trillion a year on trade, and you can't do that. I mean, at some point somebody has to come along and stop it, because it's not sustainable. We were carrying other countries on our back with, you know, with trade numbers, with horrible numbers, and we've changed it. You see the market fluctuates quite a bit. Today, it's up 1,000 or 1,200 points. It goes up and down, but that will steady out, and we're taking in tremendous amounts of money. We have, as you know, already, 25% on cars, 25% on steel and aluminum—

Q: Mr. President, I think what we’re driving at is that you've taken congressional authority on trade and appropriations. You fired the heads of independent agencies. You're challenging the courts right now, as you know. You're using the levers of government to weaken private institutions like law firms and universities. Isn't this seizing power away from institutions and concentrating them inside the presidency?

A: No, I think that what I'm doing is exactly what I've campaigned on. If you look at what I campaigned on, for instance, you can talk about removing people from the country. We have to do it because Biden allowed people to come in through his open border crazy, insanity. He allowed people to come into our country that we can't have in our country. Many criminals—they emptied their prisons, many countries, almost every country, but not a complete emptying, but some countries a complete emptying of their prison system. But you look all over the world, and I'm not just talking about South America, we're talking about all over the world. People have been led into our country that are very dangerous. If you were walking down the street, and if you happen to be near one of these people, they could, they would kill you, and they wouldn't even think about it. And we can't have that in our country.

Q: So you're not concentrating more power in the presidency?

A: I don't think so. I think I'm using it properly, and I'm also using it as per my election. You know, everything that I'm doing—this is what I talked about doing. I said that I'm going to move the criminals out. I saw what was happening early on when I heard that he had open borders, when I, because it was a hard thing to believe. I built hundreds of miles of wall, and then he didn't want to, and we had another, an extra hundred miles that I could have put up because I ordered it as extra. I completed the wall, what I was doing, but we have, I wanted to build additional because it was working so well. An extension. And he didn't want to do that. And when he said he wasn't going to do that, I said, “Well, he must want open borders.” There were sections that were being built. And he stopped to work on it, and I said, this guy actually wants to have open borders. That's going to be a tragedy for our country. That's going to mean that other countries will release into our country some very rough people.

Anyone know of a mainstream interpretation of the Constitution that claims Trump has not done anything to expand Presidential power and is "using it as it was meant to be used?"

He also claimed to have made more trade deals than there are countries... The way he answers questions is peculiar and worth reading. Near the end of the interview:

Q: You were harshly critical of what you called the weaponization of the Justice System under Biden. You recently signed memos—

A:Well, sure, but you wouldn’t be—if this were Biden, well, first of all, he wouldn't do an interview because he was grossly incompetent.

Q: We spoke to him last year, Mr. President.

A: Huh?

Q: We spoke to him a year ago.

A: How did he do?

Q: You can read the interview yourself.

A: Not too good. I did read the interview. He didn't do well. He didn't do well at all. He didn't do well at anything. And he cut that interview off to being a matter of minutes, and you weren't asking him questions like you're asking me.

Q: Well, we appreciate that you are able and willing to answer these questions. It says something about you, Mr. President.

A: I am indeed. I've been answering them for years and I’ve been getting elected by bigger and bigger numbers all the time, but you didn't ask questions like this to Biden, because if you did, he would have crawled under this beautiful desk.

Should we be considering the possibility that Trump has dementia?

  • -17

It's always helpful to remember that Donald Trump a) will never intentionally admit he did anything wrong b) is a fully post-truth individual. I don't think Trump has been all there in a while, but he's also a narcissist and a pathological liar.

On a different note, this interview helpfully provides an illustration of how Trump likes to pretend to be retarded but is also just an idiot. They're quite easy to tell apart. Compare:

TIME: The Supreme Court ruled 9-0 that you have to bring back Kilmar Abrego Garcia. You haven't done so. Aren’t you disobeying the Supreme Court?

Trump: Well, that’s not what my people told me—they didn’t say it was, they said it was—the nine to nothing was something entirely different.

TIME: Let me quote from the ruling. “The order properly requires the government to facilitate Abrego Garcia's release from custody in El Salvador.” Are you facilitating a release?

Trump: I leave that to my lawyers. I give them no instructions. They feel that the order said something very much different from what you're saying. But I leave that to my lawyers. If they want—and that would be the Attorney General of the United States and the people that represent the country. I don't make that decision.

to

TIME: Well, I mean, the question is, how can CEOs make long-term plans and investments if our tariff policy can change from day to day and still remains so uncertain?

Trump: How can they make long-term investments? I'll turn it around. How can they make long-term investments if our country is losing $2 trillion a year on trade?

TIME: Will you consider giving exemptions—

Trump: No wait, just so you understand. How can we sustain and how is it sustainable that our country lost almost $2 trillion on trade in Biden years, in this last year. That's not—when you talk about a company. I had the head of Walmart yesterday, right in that seat. I had the head of Walmart. I had the head of Home Depot and the head of Target in my office. And I'll tell you what they think, they think what I'm doing is exactly right.

"Golly shucks, I'm just the president of the United States, what do I know about one of my banner policies?" vs defensive gibberish.

our country lost almost $2 trillion on trade

"lost". It honestly is just so extremely stupid. As if it were that we had something of value that was just lit on fire. Or was simply stolen from us without providing anything in return. As if I should say that I "lost" however much money to Walmart last year. Or that my employer "lost" money in employing me. The entire point of those trades is that each and every party to them gained more value than they "lost"; otherwise, they wouldn't have made the trade!

agree. it's like thinking that imports subtract from GDP and should be avoided at all costs

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