Pompeo ‘There will be a smooth transition to a second Trump administration’

[lizkat]

I’m not sure what. I hate that he’s getting any time. I would not put a coup past him. The question is, since we have already had the election, what will our military leaders do?

At least with this particular authoritarian in the office, I feel assured the US military would decline to obey an unconstitutional order. Or maybe any order now, without phoning around for some guidance from career military and civilian advisors and the Biden shadow transition team. I mean Trump is off the wall and even his enablers seem to be pretending they still.don't know that. Will we ever find out there was more to that than fear of Trump's rally base? Is Trump beholden to some rogue with a nuke? I can't explain the behavior of senior GOP leaders during Trump's presidency

Wish I could figure out why they've no backbone or integrity whatsoever all this time regarding the inappropriate behavior and downright scofflaw moves Trump has made. I don't mean to equate his speech to a bunch of boy scouts at a Jamboree with the petulant firing of Cabinet chiefs or rummaging about in Pentagon funds set aside for military family housing and school projects to get money Congress had four times denied him for his Wall. But it's all of a piece, and the GOP has shrugged most of it off as "Trump being Trump" so long as it doesn't look like one of our major allies is ready to nuke us over something he tweeted.

Saturday night felt so great going to sleep. I wnat a lot more nights like that really soon, and hold the GOP responsible for any delay!

 

[Alli]

This pretty much exemplifies the pettiness.

State Department is preventing Biden from accessing messages from foreign leaders — CNN Politics

A stack of messages from foreign leaders to President-elect Joe Biden are sitting at the State Department but the Trump administration is preventing him from accessing them, according to State Department officials familiar with the messages.

apple.news

A stack of messages from foreign leaders to President-elect Joe Biden are sitting at the State Department but the Trump administration is preventing him from accessing them, according to State Department officials familiar with the messages.

 

[Scepticalscribe]

This pretty much exemplifies the pettiness.

State Department is preventing Biden from accessing messages from foreign leaders — CNN Politics

A stack of messages from foreign leaders to President-elect Joe Biden are sitting at the State Department but the Trump administration is preventing him from accessing them, according to State Department officials familiar with the messages.

apple.news

This is horrifying, discourteous, ungenerous, unprofessional, pathetic and so, so, petty - what small, mean, warped and vindictive people they are. Petty people.

Does Mr Trump really think that this sort of behaviour and conduct will secure a prominent place in history for him?

I recall reading stuff about the Third Reich - yes, a lapse into classic Godwinism, but there are elements of the vindictive nastiness, the puerile pettiness, the bullying, the cruelty, the heaping on of humiliations and indignities - that one finds in classic fascist (or Nazi) administrations; Hannah Arendt has written powerfully about "the banality of evil" and I think that this is a text book example of that.

 

[lizkat]

Here's more out-of-protocol behavior from the outgoing Trump crew: his Secretary of State mounting a "don't forget how we want you to behave" policy reinforcement tour abroad, within the usual transition period between administrations. WTF.

Pompeo Trip to Offer Awkward Moments Amid Election Transition

Secretary of State Michael Pompeo embarked on a seven-nation tour that will put his counterparts in an uncomfortable position, as he presses for cooperation on Trump administration foreign policy priorities that Joe Biden is likely to abandon when he takes office.

www.bloomberg.com

 

[SuperMatt]

Here's more out-of-protocol behavior from the outgoing Trump crew: his Secretary of State mounting a "don't forget how we want you to behave" policy reinforcement tour abroad, within the usual transition period between administrations. WTF.

Pompeo Trip to Offer Awkward Moments Amid Election Transition

Secretary of State Michael Pompeo embarked on a seven-nation tour that will put his counterparts in an uncomfortable position, as he presses for cooperation on Trump administration foreign policy priorities that Joe Biden is likely to abandon when he takes office.

www.bloomberg.com

What a totally pointless trip. Maybe he wants to be in a country with no extradition treaty when Biden takes office.

 

[Scepticalscribe]

Here's more out-of-protocol behavior from the outgoing Trump crew: his Secretary of State mounting a "don't forget how we want you to behave" policy reinforcement tour abroad, within the usual transition period between administrations. WTF.

Pompeo Trip to Offer Awkward Moments Amid Election Transition

Secretary of State Michael Pompeo embarked on a seven-nation tour that will put his counterparts in an uncomfortable position, as he presses for cooperation on Trump administration foreign policy priorities that Joe Biden is likely to abandon when he takes office.

www.bloomberg.com

I'm not even sure of the purpose of such a trip.

Yes, one can see how the supposedly operational needs argument (trying to sew up the "don't forget how we want you to behave" policy with allies and other interlocutors), and that of and optics (playing to the base, giving the impression that it is business as normal), may have determined this trip.

But, this is not just protocol (tradionally, you don't embark on policy initiatives during an outgoing administration's transition), but politics (you don't embark on policy initiatives during an outgoing administration transition because you have lost your mandate to do so), and could well prove to be extraordinarily counter-productive.

 

[lizkat]

I'm not even sure of the purpose of such a trip.

Tempting to say "just trolling the Dems" but then we don't know when Pompeo's tour was planned.

It's unusual for any country to conduct high profile diplomatic meetings as an election approaches, or in the transition from one admin to another. On the other hand Bibi Netanyahu ruffled feathers by arranging "somehow" to make a speech (ostensibly about Iran as a nuclear threat) before a joint session of the US Congress, just two weeks or so before his own re-election campaign would be tested at the polls in March of 2015. Some speculated it was just to raise his profile ahead of the Israeli elections; others believed that it was also or solely meant as distraction from Israel's severe housing crisis then making waves in that country.

In the USA. the incoming admin isn't authorized to conduct diplomacy and the outgoing one usually refrains from anything like the grand tour that Pompeo is making. It's so typical of the Trump administration to file such considerations all in a piece with "political correctness" --dismissal of which Trump had made a centerpiece of his 2015-16 campaign-- and simply to reject any norms that don't suit their plans or Trump's impulses.

 

[thekev]

Tempting to say "just trolling the Dems" but then we don't know when Pompeo's tour was planned.

This would be yet another note of hypocrisy or maybe just ambivalence toward Rs doing it. Republicans frequently complained about Obama's travel expenses. This guy should be on his way out according to election results, yet his travels would still be funded by tax dollars.

I'm not going to say it's all of them, but it came up even with regular posters.

 

[Scepticalscribe]

Actually, I don't have an issue with high profile diplomatic meetings prior to an election, or, as an election approaches; stuff happens, stuff that often requires an immediate collective response, one that sometimes cannot await the outcome of an election. Yes, you can be currying favour with the electorate - seeming important, leveraging the advantages of incumbency - but, you can also just be doing your job.

Besides, as an elected president, you retain your mandate until you don't, or no longer do so, which is after the election.

However, disregarding the tradition of refraining from such meetings - or, more to the point, refraining from embarking on policy or personnel changes when you have already lost your mandate, during the transition period (while simultaneously deliberately hobbling your successor's ability to do the job properly by denying them the resources they need to master their brief during the transition) - strikes me as characteristically nasty, petty and mean-spirited.

And also, of course, grossly irresponsible, but that is nothing new for this ghastly administration.

 

[lizkat]

grossly irresponsible

Yes because Pompeo's not in emergency / crisis mode on this tour... he's pushing policy which clearly no longer has a mandate behind it. The election is over, Trump lost and the transition is underway as best it can be made to happen -- regardless of the fact that Trump won't concede...

Can't believe that that bee at the GSA still won't sign off on the paperwork even with a bunch of GOP elected officials or former officials pointing out that there's no way "recounts" and allegations of fraud can overturn enough results to negate Biden's victory.

Not sure whether that or the fact that Trump's 30-yo personnel manager is still shoving people out of agencies because they are not "loyal" enough.

Always a tossup whether this stuff is about Trump's delusions of omnipotence or just trolling the opposition.

 

[Scepticalscribe]

Internationally, I cannot see what purpose this lap of honour farewell sequence of visits will serve or can hope to achieve; without a mandate, from the perspective of international relations, this is a vanity exercise, and a monumental waste of time, resources and money.

Administrations (and governments) that are not sympathetic to Mr Trump (such as almost all of western Europe) will be even less sympathetic after this display of irresponsible, time-wasting nonsense.

Even those who may be more sympathetically inclined, will - the old "le roi est mort" stuff - know that nothing will come - nothing can come - from these trips - and that they (in their own interests) would be far better off seeking to establish decent relations with the administration run by Mr Trump's successor.

 

[SuperMatt]

Last chance for Pompeo to travel the world and stay in the finest hotels on the government’s dime.

 

[Alli]

So why is anyone agreeing to meet with him? Can’t they just say they’re busy and don’t have any openings until after, say, January 20, 2021?

 

[lizkat]

So why is anyone agreeing to meet with him? Can’t they just say they’re busy and don’t have any openings until after, say, January 20, 2021?

Erdogan apparently took that tack, yeah.

Edit: Or rather Pompeo handed it him by wanting to visit without seeing him... since trip was about "religious liberty". Now it's anyone's call to be interpreted however anyone wants... at least until Biden is sworn in.

Pompeo Stirs Turkey Furor Over Trip Without a Visit to Erdogan

Secretary of State Michael Pompeo won’t meet with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan or other government leaders when he visits Turkey next week, a highly unusual situation that U.S. officials chalked up to scheduling conflicts and Turkish officials considered an insult.

www.bloomberg.com

 

[Scepticalscribe]

So why is anyone agreeing to meet with him? Can’t they just say they’re busy and don’t have any openings until after, say, January 20, 2021?

And deal with the subsequent fury of the self-styled "Trumpets", their loud vainglorious supporters, enablers, and fellow-travellers, - not to mention their awful media platforms - who rant and rage about allies (and others) snubbing the (Mighty) US?

The kind of people who might attempt to ensure that any subsequent meetings attended or hosts by Mr Biden (or anyone from his administration representing his administration in an official capacity) with those who had already "snubbed" the glorious United States, shouldn't, or couldn't be held?

Or, would attempt to poison the atmosphere in advance, to ensure that Mr Biden could not engage with some of these countries without having to deal with unwanted baggage from his inglorious predecessors?

He'll have more than enough baggage to contend with; there is no need to add to it.

No.

Far easier - and better diplomatically - to grit one's teeth, smile at Mr Pompeo, talk about next to nothing, and exchange platitudes with the most boorish and ignorant regime (to refer to it as an administration denies the dignity of almost all other previous administrations) to ever rule, or misrule, the US, count the days down until this moral monster and his enablers depart from office, and express the fervent hope that the incoming administration is better. For it could hardly be any worse.

 

[Scepticalscribe]

Last chance for Pompeo to travel the world and stay in the finest hotels on the government’s dime.

Perhaps.

But, he could also be strategically distancing himself from being tainted by the post election debacle.

 

[lizkat]

Perhaps.

But, he could also be strategically distancing himself from being tainted by the post election debacle.

Pompeo's gone full religious zealot. In his head he may be engaged in some kind of 21st century cosplay based on the Crusades. Barr might even have been happy to go with him, save for being preoccupied by wonderment about his own vulnerability to impeachment, and by demands from WH aides related to how the hell get a pardon from a deluded outgoing president Trump who seems unconvinced that he'll be a private citizen as of 20th January.

 

[lizkat]

At this point Trump administration can't even make a smooth transition to a lame duck session of the Senate: today in a rather surprising turn of events, it seems McConnell cannot at the moment come up with enough votes to confirm Trump's somewhat controversial nominee Judy Shelton to the Federal Reserve Board.

He may try again later, having engaged in a tactical maneuver to permit that. The point however is that three Republicans have now lined up against the nomination as well as all Democrats, and it's also possible that Mark Kelly (Democrat) will be sworn in during the lame duck session as a result of winning his special election in Arizona, i.e. his seat can be filled immediately upon certification, not waiting until January and the new session of Congress.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/11/17/shelton-fed-mcconnell/

On a 47-50 vote, Democrats and two Republican senators filibustered Shelton’s nomination to the Fed. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) voted against moving her forward; a procedural move that allows him to bring up Shelton’s nomination at another time.

Hours before the Senate was set to vote on Shelton’s confirmation, Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) said he would immediately quarantine while waiting for test results. The announcement further riled Shelton’s nomination process, which had already narrowed after Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) said Monday he would not support Shelton’s confirmation. Alexander joined Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Mitt Romney (R-Utah), who said they would vote “no” over the summer and did so on Tuesday.

[Senate Majority Whip John] Thune, the party’s chief vote counter, said Republicans still expect to have enough support to confirm Shelton eventually, although he acknowledged that the election of Democrat Mark Kelly in Arizona is a “complicating factor.” Kelly is filling an existing Senate term and can be sworn in as senator as soon as his election is certified, which could be as early as Nov. 30, and shrink the existing GOP majority by one vote.

“In her past statements, Ms. Shelton has called for the Federal Reserve to be less independent of the political branches and has even questioned the need for a central bank,” Collins said in a statement Tuesday. “This is not the right signal to send, particularly in the midst of the pandemic.”

Ms Shelton's nomination has been championed by Trump ring kisser advisor Larry Kudlow. Apparently good ol' boy and spine-free Senator Pat Roberts has some misgivings about the nominee but went along with the rest of the Republicans anyway, even though he's retiring -- so not really in danger from more than a tongue-lashing by the outgoing president Trump.

 

[thekev]

Far easier - and better diplomatically - to grit one's teeth, smile at Mr Pompeo, talk about next to nothing, and exchange platitudes with the most boorish and ignorant regime (to refer to it as an administration denies the dignity of almost all other previous administrations) to ever rule, or misrule, the US, count the days down until this moral monster and his enablers depart from office, and express the fervent hope that the incoming administration is better. For it could hardly be any worse.

This seems like an extreme waste of time. There's too much formality there, and I'm not convinced it accomplishes much beyond what would be accomplished with basic civility shown between parties.

 

[Scepticalscribe]

This seems like an extreme waste of time. There's too much formality there, and I'm not convinced it accomplishes much beyond what would be accomplished with basic civility shown between parties.

Just because the US trashes generally recognised (and adhered to) standards of international diplomacy is no reason for EU and other governments to follow suit.