First rule of interacting with Trump: record everything.
Even hearing recorded conversations wouldn’t result in the usa media doing or saying anything.
Exactly. If it did then the “grab them by the pussy” tape would have been the end of it. Instead it was just the beginning.
I’ve heard Chris Christie tell an anecdote about the 2016 campaign a few times:
To hear him tell it, Christie was watching the live interview where Trump said McCain wasn’t a war hero because heroes don’t get captured. When Christie heard that line, he picked up the phone and called Jeb Bush, and said, “Looks like it’s down to just you and me. Do you want to be my VP?”
Because any other candidate at any point in modern history dismissing a veteran like that would’ve been immediately unelectable.
Isn’t a published book ‘media saying something’?
Even hearing recorded conversations wouldn’t result in the usa media doing or saying anything.
I think we’re on the same post, yeah?
Yes but no. What happens is, an actual journalist does their job and people get up in arms. Commercial media will slowly start to cover the topic. In this case, the audio will come out and the world is aghast. Commercial media will interview Trump or his cabinet and ask “how do you respond to the rumors of this audio?” As if the audio isn’t real and as if we’ve not all heard it. Like it’s an anomalous thing that he’s accused of like a case of he said-she said between rival politicians. Like it’s not obviously real and factual. That’s how it gets covered.
i was thinking broadcast media. I suppose a book is media, but does it reach a broad audience?
The story I’ve heard is that his own law team would make sure to have two people in the room with him when they needed to get some facts. Because if there was only one Trump would say ‘that’s not what I said.’
He’s got a mental block against objective reality.
“Ever since I demolished half the supporting walls in my house with a sledgehammer, I keep noticing cracks appearing.”
TL;DR they think somebody taped their ridiculous incompetence huddles but no one has said anything and there’s no evidence.
Coincidentally, there’s a new book coming out.
The administration’s inner circle is focusing solely on the possibility of recordings because the alternative – that a person or people in those meetings personally spilled their guts to a couple NYT reporters – is unimaginable to them.
Or to put it another way, a group of people who uniformly sold their souls for material gain and access to power is resolutely refusing to entertain the possibility that in their midst and under their noses, one of them is a person who also sold the rest of them out for material gain and access to power.
Having read the recent excerpt (gift link) and noting that JD Vance is now saying he will discuss his own 2028 plans after the midterms, I’m sure it’s only coincidental that Vance comes out of that reporting smelling somewhat better than the rest.
I’m not saying it wasn’t recorded. But if you’re in that room and have plans of your own, why would you need to? You can just tell the story yourself.
to put it another way, a group of people who uniformly sold their souls for material gain and access to power is resolutely refusing to entertain the possibility that in their midst and under their noses, one of them is a person who also sold the rest of them out for material gain and access to power.
When you put it this way, there’s a universe where Trump himself was the leak, and he just forgot.
This has been a bananas decade, dudes
It has only been a year and a half. (This term)
HMMMMM doesn’t feel so nice having your privacy invaded, does it?! Having a device record conversions you expected to be private? Interesting…
From the Axios article this one is based off;
**Reality check: Haberman and Swan didn’t need audio recordings. Bob Woodward pioneered contemporary historical political journalism by including dialogue in his books that was reconstructed from the memories of people in the rooms where things happened.
**The big picture: Audio recordings or not, the speculation about them, and the extensive coverage of the book’s juicy excerpts, mean more buzz, more book sales … and the making of a classic.
It’s marketing
The report, published on Sunday, paints a picture of a freakout going on behind the scenes at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., where top administration officials are bracing for the release later this month of Regime Change, the latest book from two of the most well-sourced reporters in Washington, Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan.
“We’re afraid some of our most sensitive conversations were being recorded,” an administration source told Axios. “And we have no idea which ones.”
Can’t be that hard… which ones involved Pete Hegseth? There you go!
Oh Lordy, there are tapes
