[noemon]

I found the part of part USC regulations regarding the conflict of interest quite interesting.

It is a shame that he still refuses to share his tax returns but since the US constitution allows him to that is clearly a fault in the system that I have not seen before; as far as I'm aware of all politicians are required to submit their tax returns prior to taking office, at least that is how it has always been in Greece.

[MB.]

This clown show was a teaser trailer of the disasters to come. Trump must dominate the media if he is to have any chance with his agenda, which relies almost completely on popular media spin. His denunciation of CNN was a small but significant hint at the anti-media stance he will be taking. The Teflon man, with his grade-school vocabulary, reminded me of watching Donald Rumsfield's press-conferences during the Iraq War, which were almost entirely lessons in obfuscation. We'll see how long Trump can keep it up before they start to get to him. I don't think he fully realizes how much they will come after him on a global scale. His hokey me vs you isn't everything great big deals bollux will not be able to survive the coming crisis, I predict.

[One Degree]

I was impressed he has stopped all (30+) business deals overseas and ban any future deals during his presidency. Any one with doubts about his conflict of interest would probably be reassured from watching this.

[MistyTiger]

I will be reassured if I see reassuring actions during his presidency, and not before!

I hope the Exxon guy does in fact cut ties with Exxon completely, not even owning .00001% of stock. And the racist potential AG, better enforce everything, even if he disagrees with it,if he is confirmed.

[Ter]

I don't think he fully realizes how much they will come after him on a global scale

Of course they will come after him, he knows it, everybody knows it.
They are already coming after him (the celebrities, the intellectuals, the leftists, the Muslims, the Democrats, ...)
Trump is being vilified, just look at what some posters here on pofo are doing, they are obsessed by him.

It is quite possible that the more he gets attacked, the more support he will get from a lot of quarters, to start with, the people who voted for him, and I suspect his supporter base might increase if he continues to be a man of his word.

The attacks might very well backfire: I think the prestige of journalists has been downgraded significantly. And the whole of the Democratic party lies destroyed.

Till now, and he isn't sworn in yet, he has taken a number of measures according to his election promises, something we have not seen in, ... our life times ?

So let us sit back and reserve judgement (and enjoy the show).

[redcarpet]

He used blank pages of paper to fraudulently claim the paper work had been done to avoid conflicts of interest



The man is a fraud and con artist. Just as he HASN'T delegated his business into a 'blind trust'.

I was impressed he has stopped all (30+) business deals overseas and ban any future deals during his presidency

Until he proves it on paper it's just a verbal assertion. It's not like it was detailed on the table with blank sheets of paper. 90% of anything he says is false, no doubt that was a total lie as well as everything else

[MistyTiger]

I am not surprised a bit. So how does this make him trustworthy?

I would not even trust him with the combination to my safe, my non-existent safe.

[Albert]

I believe he is overestimating many peoples' judgement.

[anna]

Of course they will come after him, he knows it, everybody knows it.
They are already coming after him (the celebrities, the intellectuals, the leftists, the Muslims, the Democrats, ...)
Trump is being vilified, just look at what some posters here on pofo are doing, they are obsessed by him.

No more than conservatives have been obsessed by Obama and the Clintons.

It is quite possible that the more he gets attacked, the more support he will get from a lot of quarters, to start with, the people who voted for him, and I suspect his supporter base might increase if he continues to be a man of his word.

The attacks might very well backfire: I think the prestige of journalists has been downgraded significantly. And the whole of the Democratic party lies destroyed.

Till now, and he isn't sworn in yet, he has taken a number of measures according to his election promises, something we have not seen in, ... our life times ?

So let us sit back and reserve judgement (and enjoy the show).

Sorry, I don't see any point in pretending that Trump the president will be any different than Trump the candidate than Trump the reality show host.

By the way, his transition is as low as anything we have seen in... our lifetimes.

Gallup Poll: Trump’s Approval Rating Lowest Of Any PEOTUS In Decades

Donald Trump has historically low approval ratings for how he has handled his transition to the White House, with 51 percent of Americans saying they disapprove of his performance, according to a Gallup poll released Friday. Only 44 percent of Americans said they approved.

These figures set him far apart from his predecessors. A week before Inauguration Day in 2009, 83 percent of Americans said they approved of President Barack Obama's management of the transition, with only 12 percent saying they disapproved. Even George W. Bush, who, like Trump, lost the popular vote but won the Electoral College, had 61 percent approval to 25 percent disapproval a week out from Inauguration Day in 2001.

Trump’s numbers have dipped since Gallup’s December survey, when the public split 48 percent to 48 percent on approval versus disapproval. They have also remained steadily and starkly split by political party, with 87 percent of Republican approving of Trump’s transition in the January poll compared to 86 percent last month. The percentage of Democrats who approve fell to 13 percent in January from 17 percent in December.

Part of the President-elect’s historically low numbers seems to be the public’s lackluster view of his Cabinet picks. Trump’s nominees were rated “below average/poor” by 44 percent of respondents, compared to only 10 percent of Obama’s and 13 percent of Bush’s nominees.

[One Degree]

Gallup Poll: Trump’s Approval Rating Lowest Of Any PEOTUS In Decades

You still believe Gallup after the election?

[Heisenberg]

It is quite possible that the more he gets attacked, the more support he will get from a lot of quarters, to start with, the people who voted for him, and I suspect his supporter base might increase if he continues to be a man of his word.

Trump is a serial, pathological liar. He has never been a "man of his word", so God only knows how he will continue to be one.

I'm still baffled that this idiot is about to be inaugurated as president of the most powerful country in the world. He clearly isn't fit to chair a parish council meeting. Not only does he have every personality disorder under the sun - he's also barely educated and staggeringly incurious about the world.

[One Degree]

Trump is a serial, pathological liar. He has never been a "man of his word", so God only knows how he will continue to be one.

I do not recall any president taking the steps Trump has to prove he is a man of his word before he even takes office. What else do you expect him to do? He has already cost his business interest millions of dollars by cancelling all foreign investments and future foreign investments. No other president has ever made such a significant financial commitment to his principles. It is time to judge him by his actions and not preconceptions.

[anna]

I do not recall any president taking the steps Trump has to prove he is a man of his word before he even takes office. What else do you expect him to do? He has already cost his business interest millions of dollars by cancelling all foreign investments and future foreign investments. No other president has ever made such a significant financial commitment to his principles. It is time to judge him by his actions and not preconceptions.

I have judged Trump by his actions - and his words. He fails. Bigly.

For some, it doesn't matter what lies Trump tells or what lines of decorum he crosses - in their eyes, Trump can do no wrong. I wonder what it will take for them to finally see Trump as he is.

[anna]

You still believe Gallup after the election? :?:

Do you not believe the poll respondents?

[One Degree]

I have judged Trump by his actions - and his words. He fails. Bigly.

Yet you totally ignore my comments about his actions and revert back to purely emotional attacks.
What is it you want him to do?

[anna]

Yet you totally ignore my comments about his actions and revert back to purely emotional attacks.

There's no emotion in "I have judged Trump by his actions - and his words. He fails. Bigly."

Please stop trying to imply there's emotion where there is none. Or that I've reverted back to somewhere I haven't been before.

What is it you want him to do?

He could start by telling the truth.

[Heisenberg]

I do not recall any president taking the steps Trump has to prove he is a man of his word before he even takes office.

What steps would those be, exactly?

What else do you expect him to do? He has already cost his business interest millions of dollars by cancelling all foreign investments and future foreign investments. No other president has ever made such a significant financial commitment to his principles.

This is a joke, right? First off, I don't know what you're basing this "cancelling all foreign investments" claim on, since I can find nothing about it in the media. Second of all, he is handing over his business to his sons, which is still riddled with conflicts of interests. Third, completely divesting himself from his business and putting it into a blind trust - which he hasn't done - is the absolute bare minimum he should be doing to avoid flagrant conflicts of interest. To attach some sort of noble, "principled" motive to it is absurd. I also find the idea that Donald Trump has "principles" to be transparently ridiculous.

It is time to judge him by his actions and not preconceptions.

That is exactly what I'm doing. Trump isn't some sort of fascinating, enigmatic 10-dimensional chess player. He's a narcissist and a moron. In a way, he's exactly the president America deserves.

[One Degree]

This is a joke, right? First off, I don't know what you're basing this "cancelling all foreign investments" claim on, since I can find nothing about it in the media.

I can only assume from your comments that you did not actually watch the video that this discussion pertains to?

[Heisenberg]

Yes, I watched the video. The one where he gets a lawyer to say that giving the business to his sons is less of a conflict of interest than selling it to a third party or putting it into a blind trust. Forgive me if I'm not inclined to believe Trump's claims to have "cancelled all foreign business deals" when he refuses to give any evidence to back up his claim. Given his long, long history of brazen lying, I think the minimum standard of evidence should be set slightly higher than "Donald Trump said it, so it must be true.:

[One Degree]

Yes, I watched the video.

Then I apologize for thinking otherwise. You are free to believe what you want, but his lawyer spent a half hour going into a lot of detail. The amount of detail would be foolish if you are lying. Number one rule: "keep it simple stupid." You must also remember he was under no legal obligation to do anything, so why lie about what he actually decided to do?