It doesn’t bother Donald Trump in the least that he changes his messaging to suit whomever he is standing next to, or sitting next to, at the time.
Nine days ago, he stood next to Vladimir Putin and groveled, arousing the ire of members of his own political party, as well as very smart former Intelligence Community higher-ups whom he now wants to punish. We reported on these developments at https://www.apocryphalpress.com/2018/07/16/full-details-of-trump-putin-meeting-in-helsinki/,
as well at https://www.apocryphalpress.com/2018/07/24/our-our-most-insecure-ever-potus-prepares-for-fascist-rule-by-threatening-to-revoke-security-clearances-for-his-fiercest-and-most-intelligent-critics/.
The next day, after he returned to Washington from his Helsinki debacle to withering criticism, his handlers made him walk back his effusive praise of the Russian dictator, whom he greatly envies because Putin has a lot more power in Russia than Trump does in the USA.
Yesterday, in Kansas City, he said that Putin wants Dems to win the mid-terms because no previous occupant of the Oval Office has been tougher on Russia (https://www.cnn.com/2018/07/24/politics/trump-2018-election-russia-interference/index.html).
But associate solitary reporter Foma Kheroshonsky knows better. He is our Moscow Bureau Chief, so he approached Putin today to interview him about his conquest of Trump.
“Mr. Kheroshonsky,” the dictator began, “Trump will do whatever I tell him to do. That’s what we agreed on in Helsinki.”
Trump’s Secretary of State, former Wichita Tea Party Congressman Mike Pompeo, who likes to be feted in Pyongyang, will testify in Congress today about what happened in Helsinki at a meeting from which he was excluded, because the extremely insecure Trump didn’t want anyone to interrupt him or try to straighten him out in front of the wily Putin, who is even more dishonest than Trump.
So we sent associate solitary reporter Susanna Sherman — our crack investigative reporter — to Foggy Bottom, where the State Department is located. Sherman was accompanied by her understudy, associate solitary reporter Keith Coleman.
With help from Coleman, who, like Sherman, knows his way around Washington, Sherman adoitly found Pompeo’s prepared remarks, which we condense here:
“Mr. Chairman and my very distinguished Republican friends, my name is Mike Pompeo. I proudly represented the Koch Brothers in their successful efforts to accumulate the more capital the better. Before that, I was first in my class at West Point, and then I went to the same law school that Barack Obama went to, only I was a lot smarter than he was. I was on the Harvard Law Review there, just as Obama was.
“When Mr. Trump met with his overlord, Vladimir Putin, to whom he owes the utmost allegiance, the two leaders discussed Mr. Trump’s plans to nuke Iran and, quite possibly, North Korea. They also discussed how Mr. Trump will help President Putin take over all of Syria and all of the Ukraine.
“Mr. Trump has invited President Putin to visit him at the White House to complete the agreed-upon arrangements for Syria and the Ukraine.
“They will also discuss how President Putin decided to come here to campaign for Democrats.
“Do the members of the Committee, excluding the Democrats on the Committee, have any questions?”
In other news, associate solitary reporter Johanna Jones tells us that Trump is incensed at criticism from Wisconsin’s senior senator, Republican Ron Johnson. Yesterday, Trump, speaking in Trumpian, said at his rally in Kansas City that he’s sending $12 B (that’s a B, folks) to hog and soybean farmers to compensate them for actions taken against them by Xi Jing-ping for Trump’s trade war against China. This prompted Sen. Johnson to decry Trump’s move by saying that Trump is creating a Soviet-type economy.
Sen. Johnson said, “This is becoming more and more like a Soviet type of economy here: Commissars deciding who’s going to be granted waivers, commissars in the administration figuring out how they’re going to sprinkle around benefits. I’m very exasperated. This is serious” (https://www.politico.com/story/2018/07/24/trump-farmers-bailout-reaction-republicans-congress-737517).
“I will not have anybody in Congress challenge me,” Trump told Jones. “So I’m gonna primary Ron Johnson.”
When Jones curtseyed and told Trump that Sen. Johnson defeated Russ Feingold in 2016 (by the barest of margins) and is not up for re-election until 2022, Trump yelled and told Jones, “Quit obstructing me! I’ll figure out a way to get him out of there!"