Liberals & Advantage-Takers Be Warned: Trump
Is Intimidation Proof!
Nothing about the victory of President-elect Donald
Trump has been digested by some, even eight days before
his inauguration.
So yet another surreal, badly mistimed attempt to queer
the pitch was essayed, as if it was still early campaign season.
It preceded Trump’s first press conference to America
and the world after five months, on the 11th.
Getting to the substance of it, Trump had, on display,
his two grown sons Eric and Don Jr., his precise lawyer Sheri Dillon, heaps of
legal documents (to illustrate handing over control of his businesses to his
sons), and the Veteran Affairs nominee David Shulkin.
He was also roundly endorsed by Vice President-Elect
Mike Pence for his ‘energy’ during the transition period.
Trump, looking rested and chipper, said he wouldn’t
personally run his business empire for the next ‘eight years’.
He also made clear that military veterans who had been ‘horribly’
dealt with, will be treated much better in the forthcoming Trump
administration.
The globally covered occasion, as expected, put China
once again, on notice, both for being
allowed to take commercial advantage of America, and for its militarisation of
the South China Sea.
The President-elect promised to generate jobs for the ’98
million unemployed’ Americans. The days of American companies freely ‘offshoring’
are over, he said.
Trump said he believed the Russians had indeed hacked
into the Democratic Party servers, in a 21st century echo of
Watergate.
He couldn’t resist gloating over some of the
revelations on Hillary Clinton and other Democratic Party people the hacking
had put out in the public domain.
But, he trashed the suggestion that the Russians had
compromising information on him personally. And he refused to comment on his
business dealings in Russia, and indeed his much sought after tax returns,
saying he had already won.
Trump acknowledged the Russian contribution to his
victory however, declaring that a better relationship with Russia should be
seen as an ‘asset’.
Trump said the hacking epidemic was actually more
widespread from ‘China’ and some other countries too. In any case, he promised
to investigate, and have a report presented to him in 90 days.
The oft mentioned wall on the Mexican border to keep
out illegal immigrants, would begin to be built shortly, he said, and will,
either by way of ‘border taxes’, or other forms of ‘reimbursements’, be
eventually paid for by Mexico.
While Trump said nothing specific on India, the need for
Indian IT companies and others to go ‘on-shore’, set up or buy companies there,
and employ much larger numbers of Americans is very clear.
There were comments on replacement of Obamacare, on the
over-charging of the pharmaceutical industry, the cost and performance of the
F-35 project being rationalised and bettered, on supreme court appointments, on
the grand inauguration coming up.
The motivated but unverified canard was released on the
10th, just a day before. It was put out by website Buzzfeed
citing Russian sources via a 35 page dossier prepared by one Christopher Steele,
an operative of Britain’s MI6 from the Tony Blair years.
The most salacious part of the dossier, was about a younger
Donald Trump. The businessman was allegedly cavorting with Russian prostitutes
in the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Moscow, involving certain sexual perversities.
Apparently, Steele was financed to gather dirt on Trump’s
Russian connections by anti-Trump Republicans at first, and then by the
Democrats.
In addition, elements of the outgoing Obama
administration’s US Intelligence establishment, in the FBI, not only put out a
two-page summary to President Obama and President-elect Trump, but allegedly
leaked the entire dossier.
In addition to Buzzfeed, the contents were also
amplified by CNN and the BBC. Trump pointedly thanked those in the media who
refused to put out the unsubstantiated libel.
By way of contrast, all involved were scathingly
berated. Trump called Buzzfeed ‘a pile of failing garbage’, CNN purveyors of ‘fake
news’, and BBC ‘another beauty’, in his now trademark style.
Trump’s Press Secretary Sean Spicer came out swinging
from the first moments, pointing out the report’s many inaccuracies.
And Trump’s
controlled fury on the matter saw to it that most of the media steered clear of
the lead balloon after the 58 minute conference.
However, the slur could have been the unexploded bomb
in the room for a less confident person. The innuendo might even have competed
with the authority of a phalanx of 10 American flags hung on eagle standards that
Trump stood in front of.
But as it happened, it failed miserably, despite the
new round of opeds stating the opposite.
Donald Trump, red tie, blue suit, and blond Dennis the
Menace hairdo, underscored the message that he was tough enough for the most
powerful job in the world, and could not be intimidated.
For: ABP Live
(789 words)
January 12th, 2017
Gautam Mukherjee
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