Trump Speaks, Part I

Stephanie Ruhle and panelists respond to Trump's remarks:

“Alright, ladies and gentlemen,” Ruhle asked her panel. “Let’s start with the president’s first answer and he was saying the FBI, I want to say, is in shambles or it’s a disaster and we’re going to rebuild it, in case our audience didn’t hear that.” In total, my big takeaway is yet again he praises Vladimir Putin and and himself.”

“It is simply bizarre, his attitude towards Vladimir Putin remains one of the greatest mysteries, if not the greatest mystery, of this presidency,” remarked MSNBC contributor Elise Jordan. “That is why he goes out of his way to discredit the FBI, to discredit Bob Mueller.”

“He’s the nation’s chief law enforcement official who’s supposed to treat these institutions with respect,” Trump biographer Tim O’Brien added. “And he’s standing up there and he’s smearing the reputation of hard-working civil servants who pursue their jobs in a nonpartisan way following the rule of law and you have the nation’s chief law enforcement official throwing that all to the wind for his own needs

Ruhle suggested, “He’s also spewing non-fact-based content. To say we’re going to make the FBI bigger and better. With what money?” she asked before criticizing the GOP ‘s tax bill.

First, let's look at Trump's remarks:

“You have a lot of angry people,” Trump said of the FBI. “It’s a very sad thing to watch, I will tell you that. I am going today on behalf of the FBI, their new building, and when everybody — not me, everybody, the level of anger, and what they have been witnessing with respect to the FBI, it’s certainly very sad.”

....

“There’s been no collusion, that has been proven,” the president falsely asserted, as there has not been any definitive proof that Trump’s campaign did not collude with Russia yet. “The Senate and the House, my worst enemies, they walk out and say, ‘There is no collusion but we will continue to look.’ They are spending millions and millions of dollars and there’s absolutely no collusion.”

And:

“The call with Vladimir Putin, it was great,” Trump said. “He said very nice things about what I have done for the country in terms of the economy, and he said also some negative things in terms elsewhere, but the primary point was to talk about North Korea, because we would love to have his help on North Korea.”

Even a child can see it:  the FBI is investigating Trump, and that's not nice!  Putin, on the other hand "said very nice things about what I have done for the country in terms of the economy," so Putin is good.  FBI is bad.

Any questions?  Oh, who is "everybody" who is so angry?  Los tres bobos on Fox&Friends, who else?  Of just Jeanne Pirro; certainly not the majority of Americans:

Four in 10 Americans think the president has done something illegal when it comes to Russia, while an additional 3 in 10 say he’s at least done something unethical. And 68 percent disapprove of his response to the investigations.

Good thing those people don't have shows on FoxNews, huh?

He did hint at pardoning Michael Flynn, which won't do any good since Flynn faces state as well as federal charges (Trump can't pardon state charges):

“I don’t want to talk about pardons for Michael Flynn yet,” he said. “We will see what happens.”

But that's because he won't be put in a corner.  Nobody puts baby in the corner!  (in this case, of course, Trump is "baby.")