Joy goes there (again)

[bigtree]

Joy Reid @JoyAnnReid 35m35 minutes ago

I ask again: at what point is it fair for the American people to inquire as to the health of the president? If he is indeed in cognitive decline, he can be taken advantage of - by Republicans, yes, but also by powers who wish us ill. Time to discuss it.


thread:

Link to tweet

[leftieNanner]

1. And the second question is...

Who is really in charge?

[Saviolo]

5. Has no-one in the MSM ever watched The West Wing?

Who's in charge during a medical emergency was a plot point for a couple of seasons worth of shows once Bartlett's MS diagnosis became public, and that was just a fictional world. We're in the real world, and no one's asked this question in the halls of government?

[leftieNanner]

10. Truth or Fiction? You be the judge

If the MSM actually asked that question, do you think anyone would give a straight answer???

[lark]

34. I think drumpf would just dictate another fake letter from a questionable & complaint physician,

just like he did about his overall health. He and Putin know he's sick and he's cashing out to the max before he becomes completely demented and can't even try to hide it. I think his disease is progressing faster than he planned.

[H2O Man]

2. Recommended.

[keithbvadu2]

3. Enough cognitive decline that he cannot recognize Presidential limo while walking off the airplane

Enough cognitive decline that he cannot recognize Presidential limo while walking off the airplane

[LastLiberal in PalmSprings]

14. Let's play that beautiful "Dazed and Befuddled" tape again

[Ligyron]

22. Trump doesn't recognize the Presidential Seal?

He doesn't deserve it but then again, he's just a slumlord real estate grifter.

[LastLiberal in PalmSprings]

28. They probably hadn't updated the Presidential Seal on Limo One yet...

Scary, isn't it?

Actually, this Seal would be more appropriate:



Sorry about the size discrepancy. I'm not sure how to specify size in html tags.

[Farmer-Rick]

37. That's what happened to my father

When he was into the first year of his alzheimer diagnosis, he would walk by our car all the time. I learned to wait for him by standing outside the car.

They need to post someone he recognizes by the car. Maybe Malaria would do it?

[tblue37]

38. He has sometimes seemed not to recognize her. nr

[LastLiberal in PalmSprings]

42. I'm sorry to hear about your father

My sister has Parkinson's, and the thing that scares her the most is the possibility of dementia toward the end of the disease. As her brother, I don't know what to do other than be as supportive as I can now.

[Takket]

4. The MSM lost its shit every time Hillary coughed

[Cha]

8. I know, right

[yallerdawg]

12. My chance to say, "You're back!"

Mahalo, Cha!

[Cha]

15. lol.. My chance to say..

Mahalo and good to see you, yallerdawg!

[world wide wally]

6. I can't imagine that being a very great decline.

[grantcart]

35. exactly

[spanone]

7. K&R...

[dhol82]

9. Well, so much for three branches of government.

Sad that two have complete control of the third.
How could the founding fathers have not foreseen this calamity?

[Marthe48]

17. Maybe people didn't live long enough to suffer dementia

and jeopardize our country. Maybe people who were self-aware retired before they could cause harm. Maybe representatives who served the people were more likely to be honorable and treat their positions with the respect that was deserved back then.

OTOH, Wilson was impaired by a stroke and Mrs. Wilson covered for him, acting for him. Some sources say she was the first female prez. FRD was impaired by polio. JFK by chronic pain. Reagan had dementia. But that worked out for the BFEE. I don't know who benefited by covering up other presidents' illnesses.

[dhol82]

20. Yeah, great - Reagan was superseded by his wifes astrologer. Wasnt that special?

Interesting about Wilson. Seriously doubt that Edith was allowed to run the country in that time.
FDR and Kennedy - they were there an functioning.

Dump - Ain’t gonna be functional any time soon.

[femmocrat]

32. Right. No one cared about Reagan's decline.

It was obvious in the debates with Mondale. He was in early stages of Alzheimers and they kept it hidden.

[Marthe48]

45. The earlier r. puppets must not have been enough

It seems like the right wing picks people further and further from normal human behaviour for their figureheads. Yuck.

[bdamomma]

26. The founding fathers

must be perplexed that Impeachment is not being discussed. Mentioned on Lawrence O'Donnell

[tblue37]

39. They did not intend for parties to exist, so they figured each branch would act to

protect its own power against the other two branches. They did not think that one or both of the "competitor" branches would collude with the executive branch to allow the executive to abuse power.

[getagrip_already]

11. trump was right in a way....

The media will overlook his health because they don't want it to ruin their narrative. If people believe he is a gonner, they will stop tuning in. The media is about ratings, not truth.

That's why they propped him up for so long during the campaign. They couldn't take the ratings hit if people realized the race was over. They had to keep it looking like a horse race so they covered his rallies in full but nobbody else's. They covered every rumor about hillary but glossed over trump's documented criminal acts.

They of course never expected he would win, and now it's like crack to them. They aren't going to let it end quickly.

[dhol82]

21. Damn! It is like we are come to the fucking hunger games!

I cry for our country!

[kairos12]

13. Cognitive decline describes his entire base.

[tblue37]

16. Joy, Joy, Joy, the Republicans ARE the "powers who wish us ill"! nt

[TalenaGor]

18. doesn't this kind of set him up for an insanity plea later on?

[MontanaMama]

19. While I think Dotard is off his rocker

in that he is a malignant narcissist, I also believe him to be evil at his core. All that said, I am wary of the effort to label him mentally ill or in cognitive decline because IMO, his family, legal team and Gopers will use it as a reason to excuse him of his crimes.

[smirkymonkey]

29. I agree. I don't want "mental illness" to be used as an excuse in his case because he has

always been a mean, heartless, evil bastard. If there is a touch of dementia it is only making his core personality worse. There should be no reason for him to be absolved of his crimes because of health issues. He is rotten to the core and I believe he was born that way. This isn't something that has suddenly come upon him.

[Ohiogal]

23. Just wait until

he makes his next appearance wearing a fake military uniform with gold epaulets and a sash full of phony medals.

[keithbvadu2]

24. A condom medal for avoiding STDs as his personal VN?

[Ohiogal]

25. LOL

[Mc Mike]

31. That purple heart he got in Harrisburg, in '16,

was due to that ravaging untreated case of syphilis he got, during that period.

[keithbvadu2]

33. Trump actually received a Purple Heart

Trump actually received a Purple Heart

https://www.google.com/search?q=trump+got+a+purple+heart&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-b-1

Today, a Donald Trump supporter handed him a Purple Heart. Trump’s flippant and repugnant reply: “I always wanted to get the Purple Heart. This was much easier.”

[Mc Mike]

41. I remember that. The syphilis part I just guessed at.

It was an educated guess, though.

[bdamomma]

27. If the stupid

freak had his way he would have statues of himself being erected everywhere, but they would be toppled in record time too.

[Mc Mike]

30. Trot out Doc Oz and Bornstein again, (not the dead one. )

[Blue Owl]

36. Insane in the Membrane

n/t

[L. Coyote]

40. 14 tweets --- Joy Reid @JoyAnnReid

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/946594928712351744.html

Now that I’ve read the entire transcript of @nytmike’s Trump interview, a few observations: 1. Trump speaks a lot like a child does. Lots of focus on who likes him, who loves him, who is his friend... his biographers all emphasize his deep desire to be loved & it comes through.

2. Trump repeats whatever he is fixated on over and over again. I counted 15 “no collusion” repeats, sometimes two or three times in a single paragraph. And he keeps returning over and over again to the election and how he managed to win via the Electoral College. He’s fixated.

3. Trump things being president means he can do whatever he wants. He has an autocrat's impulse, and believes literally everyone in government, from the attorney general to every member of Congress, essentially works for him, owes him loyalty, and must "come to him" for mercy.
He literally adopted a "Godfather" phraseology to all but say Democrats could have avoided blue state tax hikes via SALT if they had "come to him" to plead for his largesse. It's a combination of the impulses of 1. and 3.

4. Trump thinks he is still the star of a TV show, and that the media has the power to decide who wins elections, based on ratings. Seriously:



5. Trump invents his own reality, and then states that everybody else believes his version of reality too. And since he is so transparent, it's hard to argue that this is a strategy, rather than a form of self-delusion or just stubborn refusal to accept what is real.



There are literally no Democrats who believe that. None. But he repeats that over and over in the interview.

I've never observed anyone who is more precisely like his biographers have described him. And Trump's biographers have, to put it mildly, not been kind. He lives inside his own reality, where he is part beloved autocrat/dictator and part main character in a never-ending TV show.

It is absolutely stunning that this person is president of the United States.
I'm not sure, by the way, what this means for Democrats. Trump clearly assumes that they HAVE NO CHOICE but to come crawling to him to do infrastructure, DACA, and inexplicably, to make a new, *better* healthcare (he specifically says "not Obamacare."

He clearly thinks this will happen, and that somehow magically, they will "do bipartisan." That's his actual phrase: "do bipartisan." Not "do bipartisan legislation," just "do bipartisan." He thinks it naturally will happen.

If Democrats go along, it will only feed his grandiosity. If they don't, it feeds his rage and opens the black hole of vengeance inside him, which he could take out on them, vulnerable populations, maybe other countries (war is still not unthinkable...) I just don't know.

But it's absolutely stunning that this is what's happening. But it is what's happening.

Here's the transcript. Enjoy.
Excerpts From Trump’s Interview With The Times
President Trump discussed a range of issues with The New York Times, including the Russia inquiry, the tax overhaul and China, at his golf club in West Palm Beach, Fla.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/28/us/politics/trump-interview-excerpts.html

[Mc Mike]

47. He's an open sore.

His mind, heart and soul are open sores. That's what his fans voted for, they're open sores too.

Ryan McConnell the teabags bircher mercers repug operatives are all open sores. Everything they say and do, every policy, shows it. Their rich and poor followers are damaged goods, they've 'been hurt'. Like li'l donnie drumpf.

Screw their hurt fee fees.

They're not 10% of the population, no matter what we hear from polls or 'certified' election results.

[Scurrilous]

43. ...

[Hekate]

44. At what point are reporters going to start bugging Sarah Huckabee et al. with this question?

I'd love to see her lose her shit on national tv ("How dare you?!" ) but more important by far is to break through all polite pretense and just ask the questions out loud.

The issue has to be taken directly to the White House spokespeople (but not to the demented old man himself), because it's already being soberly discussed on editorial pages and by some tv journalists, and the denizens of Trump World just go on pretending that nothing is happening with the Mad King.

Time to rattle their cages hard.

[Mc Mike]

46. Drag the tin cups across the bars. Nt