Was Trump calm or furious when he left the infrastructure meeting?

Twenty-four hours after Donald Trump waltzed out of the meeting with Democrat leaders to discuss his $2 trillion infrastructure plan there are now two totally different versions of events, one put out by Nancy Pelosi and her Democrat cohorts who were there at the time, and the other described by Sarah Sanders, White House press secretary. I wonder which version we should believe!! The Democrats say it was all pre-planned drama by the president, that he never intended to have the meeting because he hadn't worked out how he was going to pay for the infrastructure programme and that his walk-in and walk-out theatrics was just a ploy to blame them for.....everything. Sarah Sanders dismissed this as ridiculous on CNN and said the president hadn't preplanned anything but reacted as he did because of Pelosi's pre-meeting attack on Trump, accusing him of the crime of covering up nefarious activities. Sanders was one of those in the White House who had spotted Pelosi's denunciation and tipped off Trump just before he was due to sit down with her and her fellow Democrats to discuss infrastructure. I reckon hearing that would have made Trump spit blood, but according to Sarah Sanders, the president was perfectly calm. He just popped into the meeting room to inform the already assembled Democrats that it was no longer possible to do business with them if they were going to continue to spend all their time and energy on investigating him for alleged misdoings which were all rubbish, fake news and witchhunty stuff. Then he "calmly" walked out of the room, leaving Pelosi and co flabbergasted. I can't really imagine Trump was feeling calm at all. He doesn't really do calm. And anyway he went straight off to the Rose Garden to hold a press conference and waved his arms around while condemning Pelosi for having the temerity to accuse him of a cover-up of anything. He didn't look calm in the Rose Garden. He and Pelosi are deadly enemies. She stands up to him like no one else and he hates her for it. He is, after all, the President of the United States. How dare this woman antagonise him so much. Ah well, Trump should do a bit more reading of America's political history. This is what happens to sitting US presidents. They get accused of things all the time. But Trump is so thin-skinned he gets upset at every political attack against his status and dignity. He and Pelosi are never going to get along. However, instead of walking/storming out of the meeting Trump should have gone in and sat down and said the following: "Welcome Speaker Pelosi and delegates, I believe this is a very important meeting to discuss something which for once we can all agree on for the benefit of our nation. But I would like it on record that I am personally aggrieved by the statement made by Speaker Pelosi before we sat down here together. I found it insulting, bad manners, rude and unworthy of someone representing the Democratic Party. Now having said that, let's get down to business." What would Pelosi have done if he had said all that? Perhaps SHE would have walked out but then the press headlines might have been different and Trump would have scored some brownie points.

The "I" word is now the new battleground between Trump and Democrats

Donald Trump walked out of a long-planned meeting with Democrat leaders today because of the "I" word. Impeachment. He thought all that stuff had gone out of the window once Robert Mueller, special counsel, had concluded there was no collusion between the president's campaign team and the Russians. But no. Despite Nancy Pelosi's initial reluctance to consider impeachment proceedings against Trump, she has begun to be won round by an ever-increasing number of Democrats who want the ultimate punishment for the president. Pelosi actually accused Trump of a cover-up and that got him going. He walked in late for the meeting about funding for his infrastructure programme but instead of sitting down for a constructive talk, he blasted at Pelosi for accusing him of a cover-up and swore that while the "I" word was being uttered by the Democrats he wouldn't even discuss infrastructure or anything else, and promptly walked out. Oh my goodness, government is going to come to a halt because Trump is besde himself with anger over Pelosi and her tribe. These two individuals, Trump and Pelosi, are at such loggerheads, nothing is going to get done. Pelosi was cutting in her press conference after the breakdown of the non-talks. She said she would pray for the president of the United States. She was like Lady Macbeth. Trump held his own Rose Garden press conference and just ranted against her and the Democrats. He claimed he didn't do cover-ups and swore he would not cooperate over anything unless they stopped using the "I" word and stopped investigating him. This is a disaster for everyone. Trump's action might please his supporters around the country but it means for the next 18 months the administration is going to be crippled, and that means an increasingly angry president. Watch out America and watch out the rest of the world.

One last chance - again - for a Brexit.

You've got to give it to Theresa May. She is expecting MPs this time round - ie for the fourth time - to sign up to her Brexit deal even though there is still very little difference between her first offer, her second offer, her third offer and now her fourth offer. The ony thing that IS extra is her agreement to let MPs vote on whether to hold a second referendum, something she has always rejected. That might just be enough to persuade some Labour MPs to vote in her favour. But how would the second referendum be phrased? If it's to be - approve her Brexit or go for a no-deal Brexit, you can bet your life that at least half the country will say yes to no-deal. If it's to be - approve her deal or revoke article 50 and thus stay in the EU, Theresa May might squeeze enough votes to get her proposals through. Not because the country will suddenly learn to love her deal but because the majority of people (not me of course) I suspect do NOT want to stay in the EU because it would mean that the last three years of negotiations and rows and divisions and anger has all been a total waste of time - and money by the way. So a second referendum is not going to be a magic wand to bring peace and unity to this divided country. It will only cause more divisions and more anger whichever way it goes. But the one-last-chance ultimatum from Theresa May is just that. MPs and then the country HAVE to make up their mind. Prime Minister Boris Johnson or Michael Gove or Dominic Raab or Jeremy Corbyn are not going to make a blind bit of difference. If there is a second referendum the conclusion, if there is a conclusion, will be final. In out turn it all about, we will have a result! At last. Then Theresa will step down either in glory or in defeat. Today I felt truly sorry for her when she appealed to everyone to compromise because, as she said, she had compromised by stepping down from the job she loved earlier than she would have liked. Aaaaah, that is sad. But I hate to say it, her legacy is going to be pretty dismal, even though it was her predecessor, David Cameron, who is wholly to blame.

Trump urged to start campaigning now for 2020

With 18 months to go before the 2020 presidential election, you might think that Donald Trump is busy enough tryng to deal with Iran, China, North Korea etc etc without having to spend a lot of time on the hustings telling voters about his achievements so far. Well he does that all the time of course, via tweets. But Trump is facing a unique situation. There are so many - 23 - Democratic Party candidates and all of them speechifying and pledging and raising funds, that they are winning the first rounds in the campaign merely by grabbing all the attention in the media. Trump hates the media, or most of it, but even he knows that with the Democrats seizing all the limelight, he needs to start getting his principle messages across right now if he wants to dampen the media's enthusiasm for covering all the rivals for the White House. Stories about Joe Biden, Eliabeth Warren, Kamala Harris, Pete Buttigieg et al are getting huge amounts of media coverage, while reports on Trump tend to be somewhat confused and negative, principally because the White House, Pentagon and State Department seem to have given up regularly briefing their respective specialist reporters. So no one truly knows what's going on from day to day. John Bolton, national security adviser, for example, has taken a hammering recently over the perceived attempt by him to make the president bomb Iran to bits. I'm pretty sure he has done no such thing but in true Bolton style he HAS taken a very hard line over Iran and has no doubt made this clear whenever he speaks to Trump. But I am assured it is wrong to suggest Bolton actually wants the US to go to war with Iran. But without briefing reporters, correspondents on newspapers and on TV channels are tapping other sources who may not know what is really going on. One very good source admitted to me: "The inner circle around Trump is so tight, no one outside has a good sense of who is saying what." Trump has said he does not want a war with Iran, Iran has said it does not want a war with the US which is all very sensible. But then Trump says if Iran were to attack US interests and assets, Iran would be finished, ie destroyed. He said the same about North Korea before he met with and liked Kim Jong-un. But all this confusion is muddying the waters in the 2020 election stakes. Trump's agonising over Iran and the trade war with China gets plenty of coverage, accurately sourced or not, and meanwhile his rivals from the Democratic Party are trying to woo the country with domestic policy promises. So Trump I'm sure will be hitting the campaign trail in due course and is bound to focus on the issues that really interest voters: immigration (Trump record - tough stance but no border wall yet), economy (doing well), jobs (lowest unemployment for decades), health (lots of promises to replace Obamacare but still no proposal), and infrastructure (a massive $2 trillion plan but no real idea where the money is going to come from). The real 2020 battle is about to start.

Pompeo and his key aide versus Bolton and his main adviser over Iran threat

My TIMES story that got chopped a lot for Saturday's paper: A SERIOUS CLASH between two of President Trump’s closest advisers is at the heart of the dangerous confrontation with Iran, a former senior US defence official has told The Times. Mr Trump had “no game plan” to go to war with Iran, the former official said. The president made this clear when he met with top Pentagon officials on Thursday. However, the former senior official with close links to the administration revealed there was a breakdown between Mike Pompeo, secretary of state, backed by Brian Hook, his chief Iran expert, and John Bolton, national security adviser, supported by Richard Goldberg, a key aide and Iran specialist. “There are serious divisions within the administration between Pompeo/Hook who believe that they can pressure Iran into negotiating (and they think Trump agrees), and Bolton/Goldberg who believe that the regime is near cracking and can potentially be brought down,” the former senior official said. “Both sides agree on the need to increase the economic pressures on the regime but disagree on the likely endgame,” he said. “But I don’t think that either side is actively pushing for military action against Iran, unless the Iranians are foolish enough to take a shot at US forces in which case all bets are off,” he said. Brian Hook is US special representative for Iran and a senior policy adviser to Mr Pompeo. Richard Goldberg was the lead congressional staff negotiator for sanctions on Iran prior to the 2015 nuclear deal with Tehran and is a recognised hawk on Iran. Despite persistent reports that Mr Bolton’s anti-Iran stance is winning the argument in the White House, an influential figure in Washington told The Times that Mr Trump was “the real driver” behind policy on Iran, not his national security adviser. “It’s being claimed that Bolton is driving policy on Iran but that’s unfair, and he would argue that that’s unfair because although he has always been a hawk on Iran he is now the national security adviser, so he’s not driving the policy on Iran, the president is,” General Jack Keane, former top US army commander, said. General Keane who was on Mr Trump’s original shortlist to become defence secretary in 2016 and remains close to the president, said there was “no hype” going on about the intelligence on Iranian preparations for attacking US troops in the Middle East. He said the intelligence was real. “It was General [Kenneth] McKenzie, commander of Central Command, not the White House, who asked for the carrier, bombers and Patriot missiles to be returned to the Middle East based on that intelligence,” General Keane said. He was backed up by US intelligence sources who told The Times:”There is no daylight between us and the administration, or indeed with our allies, including Britain, over the scale of the threat from Iran.” Despite claims of confusion in Washington over whether the intelligence

General Petraeus in an extraordinary warning to Iran

General David Petraeus doesn't come out much into the public limelight these days but in an ABC interview due to air tomorrow (Sun) he explicitly warns Tehran not to push their luck over confronting the US. It's actually an extraordinary intervention because he is effectively giving the ayatollahs a piece of advice, as well as a warning. In remarks put out today to publicise the ABC interview, he warns Tehran that he is not sure how Trump will react if Iran dares to mount some sort of attack on American forces in the Middle East but he fears it would be "punitive". I don't know whether Petraeus, still a legendary figure despite his premature departure as CIA director after his affair with his biographer was exposed, spoke to the White House first before agreeing to be interviewed. There is no obligation for him to, but he is a close friend of General Jack Keane, retired vice chief of the US Army, whom Trump not only thinks a lot of, but consults him on things like Iran. Basically Petraeus, with his remarks, is doing Trump a favour because the president does not want a war with Iran, and he's also doing a favour to Tehran because the ayatollahs will probaby respect what he says and take it on board. We know from the past that Iranian political and military leaders calculate very carefully what they think they can get away with without having the full wrath of the US military down on their heads. But their threshold might be too high under the present circumstances. One false move and they could get a blast of American retaliation. Petraeus puts it this way: "They're going to have to be very careful not to overplay their hand and result in some kind of response that is quite punitive." Bizarrely in his ABC interview he also says that Iran should "grit their teeth and get to November 2020 in hopes that their desired outcome emerges." What on earth does he mean by that other than, "Hey Iran, bide your time until the next US election and you might get dear old Joe Biden in the White House who will reinstate the 2015 nuclear deal and make sweet music with you." Is that what Petraues meant? Very strange advice from such a senior figure in the US establishment and it won't help Biden if he is seen to be a softy on Iran. Be that as it may, Tehran would be wise to hold their fire because even though Trump is opposed to having any sort of war with Iran, a reckless attack by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps that ends up with American fatalities will definitely push Trump to give the green light for a shower of bombs. Surely Tehran knows that? If they don't, then I suggest every Iranian tunes into ABC tomorrow to hear Petraeus speak.

Jeremy Corbyn makes totally predictable decision

The talks on Brexit between the Theresa May government and Labour were always going to fail. Labour under Jeremy Corbyn has taken three years to develop its Brexit strategy and what it came up with was never going to blend in with May's deal with Brussels. She knew from the beginning of this whole process that she needed to find a formula that would keep the Leave members of her party happy. Even though she was and is a Remainer and probably wishes the whole thing will just go away so that we can stay in the EU, she has been committed as prime minister to fulfilling the wishes of the majority in the country who voted OUT. The mandate from the 2016 referendum did not include a clause which said a deal could include staying in the EU customs union or single market. So when Corbyn said he wouldn't suport her Brexit deal unless there was an agreement to remain in a full customs union, Theresa May was stuck. There were various alternatives proposed, such as having a temporary customs union but that was all a waste of time. Corbyn's new stance was customs union or nothing. In the previous three years in which Labour was not consulted by the May government and Corbyn's stand seemed all wishy-washy, neither one thing nor the other, there had been no adamant statement from the Oppostion that a customs union was the top priority. I think Corbyn and his mates held back on it until the last moment just in order to screw over Theresa May, knowing that the Downing Street consultations would collapse. Theresa May would be blamed and Labour would look good. That was clearly his thinking. So now poor Theresa has few options left. She will have to hope that the House of Commons agrees by a majority to allow her government to introduce the necessary bill for withdrawing from the EU. If that too fails, then there will be nothing left for her but to step down and allow the hordes of would-be prime ministerial candidates to fight for her job. But, honestly, will it make any difference in the great Brexit saga if the new prime minister is Boris Johnson or Jeremy Hunt or Michael Gove? I don't see it. Why would the EU suddenly become more conciliatory if Theresa May was forced out? And why would the House of Commons go all soft and malleable under a different Conservative leader? Again, I don't see this happening.