Trump backs down in US intelligence chiefs row after claiming he hadn't read 'complete' testimony on Iran and North Korea
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Trump backs down in US intelligence chiefs row after claiming he hadn't read 'complete' testimony on Iran and North Korea
Clark Mindock, The Independent 22 hours ago
Donald Trump has backtracked on his suggestion that American intelligence chiefs should "go back to school" after they contradicted his stance on Iran and North Korea.
The US leader criticised them after they presented the Worldwide Threat Assessment report to the Senate earlier this week.
It said Iran was not making nuclear weapons and North Korea remained "unlikely to give up" its weapons stockpiles and production abilities, apparently contradicting Mr Trump's views on the nations.
It appeared to contradict the Mr Trumps views on the matter and the president took to Twitter to express his displeasure.
He said the "intelligence people" were "extremely passive and naive when it comes to the dangers of Iran".
He added: "Perhaps Intelligence should go back to school!"
However, the president has now appeared to backtrack on his comments and blamed the media for mischatractering the Senate hearing with their reports.
Again taking to Twitter, he wrote: " Just concluded a great meeting with my Intel team in the Oval Office who told me that what they said on Tuesday at the Senate Hearing was mischaracterised by the media - and we are very much in agreement on Iran, Isis, North Korea, etc. Their testimony was distorted press."
He continued: "I would suggest you read the COMPLETE testimony from Tuesday. A false narrative is so bad for our Country. I value our intelligence community. Happily, we had a very good meeting, and we are all on the same page!"
Mr Trump has frequently disagreed with the intelligence community on major national security issues since taking office over two years ago.
He criticised them when they concluded that Russia had worked to tilt the 2016 presidential election in the his favour.
Most recently, the row has centred upon Mr Trump's efforts to negotiate an end to North Korea's nuclear weapons testing, his decision to pull the US out of the Iran nuclear agreement and his plans to remove US troops from Syria.
As he presented the Worldwide Threat Assessment earlier this week, national security director Dan Coats and CIA director Gina Haspel said North Korea was “unlikely to give up” all of it nuclear weapons stockpiles.
Mr Trump is set to hold a second summit with the country's leader Kim Jong-un, where he hopes to persuade him to denuclearise the country.
But Mr Coats said: “We currently assess North Korea will seek to retain its [weapons of mass destruction] capability and is unlikely to completely give up its nuclear weapons and production capability."
He told congressional leaders that the intelligence community had also concluded that Iran was “currently undertaking the key nuclear weapons-development activity”.
Mr Trump pulled the United States out a mutli-national nuclear agreement, citing ongoing weapons testing as justification.
As for Syria, Mr Coats challenged the president’s declaration that the Isis had been defeated.
Mr Trump said the US and its allies had beaten the terror group in justifying his decision to pull US troops from Syria, but the report appeared to undercut that argument.
It said the terror group “still commands thousands of fighters in Iraq and Syria”.
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I think it's absolutely hilarious that the GOP dumb fucks who essentially forced the intelligence community to agree that Iraq had WMD's because their initial assessment and the GOP's desire for a war didn't align (the only WMD's they admitted were likely still there were the same as the ones we had given Saddam back in the late 1980's). But now they are complaining that the intelligence community got it wrong back then when they caved and told the GOP what they wanted to hear to justify the unprovoked war Republicans started, which is why now we shouldn't trust them because their assessment doesn't currently align with what the GOP now wants to hear.
I seriously wonder whether Donald Trump is possibly dyslexic or has some other learning disability. It seems entirely likely that he hit a learning wall at about age 8 where he found reading near impossible as the words seemed to get mixed up, but he'd been convinced by sycophantic tutors and peers afraid of his faith Fred that he was smart so he started to just invent his own meanings for the words and sentences that didn't make sense on the page. Book reports would be a long winded meandering story loosely based on key words and characters he would pluck from the text. And because he was a rich kid it his near illiteracy wasn't a problem as he could just hire people to read things for him and give him the "cliff notes" version of everything, which is why security briefings have turned into a game of "Pictionary" instead of the standard printed documents details the specifics and nuances of our strategic alliance with global partners or our relationships with adversaries.
I guess it's no wonder he appeals to the poorest educated, birds of a feather.
And he's so damn arrogant he won't get help for it. Of course it might be too late now that he's like 73?
My youngest sister was diagnosed later in life with dyslexia, long after I'd been her tutor because she wasn't doing well in school starting about second grade. When she was starting to have to really read, not just identify words, my mother asked me to tutor her in reading and math. Dyslexia wasn't even a word I'd ever heard of till I was a young adult. But back when I was helping her with her homework each night, at first I thought she was teasing me by being so blatantly obtuse when I'd ask her to read and answer something and she'd struggle over words I knew she knew. Once I realize she was serious and had punched me in the arm a few times I realized I was just going to have to take it much slower. My mother told me that not everyone displayed their genius in the same way and the only way to help my sister was to double her study and practice my own patience. She was never a great student, mostly a C+ average, but I got her through school and she went on to have a productive life and three kids of her own. But she had to recognize that it was harder for her than for everyone else just to pass and had to develop different methods of memorization to accomplish what most people take for granted.
I don't think Donald Trump has ever truly had his learning disability confronted, or when it has been confronted he's just attacked the messenger as seems to be his M.O. on just about everything. Because he's never acknowledged he has a problem, he's never actually learned to function on his own, but the $400 million his father left him has allowed him to continue pretending to be successful, pretending to be a real estate genius even though virtually every economist will tell you Trump would be worth triple what he is now if he'd just invested the $400M in slow growth funds instead of trying to play real estate magnate. And it's likely that he has used his fortune to "prove" everyone wrong, especially the teachers he had in grade school who told him he had a learning disability, by doing all the things people have told him he can't do. And now, after he heard people laughing at the idea of him being President after the fateful joke Obama told at the white house correspondence dinner, he decided to prove them all wrong and now pretends to be President.
I believe my father had a learning disability but he read every day until the day he couldn't because of his lymphoma.
I don't believe that a learning disability has to be a road block to success, but it does have to be acknowledged.
BTW, how's your arm now? lol
This is what can be accomplished by somebody who has a learning disability and is humble enough to recognize it and seek treatment:
He has the attention span of a fruit fly. And about as much brainpower.
Why people think having an ignorant moron in charge is a good thing is beyond me. You would think even all the stupid people would realize that intelligence is a necessary quality in a President. Yet they disdain people with brains.