I don’t know what is more alarming, that as NYT reports, administration officials were so worried about Trump giving away classified information that they leaked this to the NY Times or that they were somewhat reassured by the fact that Trump “rarely digs into the details of the intelligence he is shown and is not well versed in the operational specifics of military or covert activities.”
Here is yet another indication that Trump is not “all there” when it comes to critical thinking. This reckless behavior is part and parcel of his out of control narcissism. He does what he wants when he wants to do it (note the 4:00 AM time stamp on this morning’s Tweet) no matter what sensible advice he is given by experts. In this case, it is intelligence experts. In other instances, it comes from trade and foreign policy experts.
We have a president who is unmoored from reality and from the consequences of his actions. If this alone doesn’t make him psychologically unfit for office I don’t know what does.
Trump is like an ever-expanding balloon full of hot air, or I should say the highly flammable hydrogen of Hindenberg infamy and methane (and methanethiol, MT), dimethyl sulfide, dimethyl disulfide (DMDS) and dimethyl trisulfide). It is a volatile and noxious mixture of bluster, bullying, and buffoonery which amazingly hasn’t exploded. This balloon is so resilient to bursting it keeps getting bigger and bigger and bigger. When will it go KaBoom?
I wonder just how long he’ll be able to defy the laws of physics. We can only hope that sometime after Nov. 6th the balloon will burst.
Considering the incessant condemnation of Hillary Clinton for having an insecure private email server Trump's reckless behavior is especially egregious.
Consider what former White House Chief Information Officer for Pres. George W. Bush Theresa Payton told Axios: noting that it's tough to assess just how bad things are "without knowing what information was accessed, when, and how." she added:
"What it could mean, in a worst-case scenario, is that China and Russia have had access to the president's most intimate and delicate conversations, and that they could be using that knowledge to exploit perceived weaknesses and gain an upper hand in trade negotiations and possibly even military operations."
"If true, this may be the largest, most significant breach of White House communications in history."
This is the President of the United States, potentially blabbing secrets to intelligence agencies around the world and even including the fat hacker sitting on his bed listening in on his iPhone conversations.
The story not getting as much coverage as it should because of the coverage of bomb news is about Trump using an insecure iPhone which the Chinese and Russians can and probably are listening in on.
The NY Times broke the story yesterday in a story reported by Matthew Rosenberg and Maggie Haberman:
When Trump Phones Friends, the Chinese and the Russians Listen and Learn (Paywall)
It is also being covered on the fee-based Washington Post.
Excerpt: Haberman, one of the authors of the report, noted that Trump also used the word “boring” to try to downplay a previous Times story about the vast extent to which his father had fueled his wealth with tax-avoidance schemes.
The Times later issued a statement saying it “is confident in the accuracy of our reporting.”
The report on Trump’s phone usage was met with alarm from Democratic lawmakers.
“This is a big problem, if true,” Sen. Mark R. Warner (D-Va.), vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said Wednesday night on Twitter. “The intelligence community works hard to defend us against foreign espionage. The last thing we need is for the President to be jeopardizing national security through sheer carelessness.”
Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.) reiterated his previous calls for an inquiry into Trump’s cellphone use.
“When Trump took office, I warned Republicans about the dangers of his cell phone usage,” he tweeted. “No oversight was conducted under their watch. . . . His selfishness is jeopardizing our national security.”
Considering the incessant condemnation of Hillary Clinton for having an insecure private email server Trump's reckless behavior is especially egregious.
Consider what former White House Chief Information Officer for Pres. George W. Bush Theresa Payton told Axios: noting that it's tough to assess just how bad things are "without knowing what information was accessed, when, and how." she added:
"What it could mean, in a worst-case scenario, is that China and Russia have had access to the president's most intimate and delicate conversations, and that they could be using that knowledge to exploit perceived weaknesses and gain an upper hand in trade negotiations and possibly even military operations."
"If true, this may be the largest, most significant breach of White House communications in history." This is the President of the United States, potentially blabbing secrets to intelligence agencies around the world and even including the fat hacker sitting on his bed listening in on his iPhone conversations.
Here are some stories you can read if you don’t subscribe to the Times or Post:
Bloomberg News: Trump’s iPhone Is a Warning Sign