Tuesday, August 1, 2017

Trump's Big CON: It's All About the Show, Explained, CONt.

"President Trump sees everything as a sales job.

He ran for president promising to be a dealmaker, but his skill set has always leaned much more toward boldfaced marketing than the quiet art of negotiation. That he was a dealmaker was itself a marketing slogan.

And as with the proverbial hammer, every problem Trump sees is a problem that simply requires a healthy dose of salesmanship. . .

Unfortunately for him, the national news media isn’t an arm of the Trump Organization’s communications shop, and it isn’t the New York Post’s Page Six, where celebrities are explored in minutiae but, at the end of the day, with love. . .

At some point Trump needs to come to terms with the fact that providing honest information to the media will work out better for him than obfuscating and misleading. . .

Maybe by actually embracing the role of the media in identifying problems and then working to fix those problems, the end result for Republicans and the president could be better?

Or maybe it’s easier to tweet about fake news."

Read the Washington Post, Trump does not understand what the role of the press is.

Trump's Big CON: Like Father, Like Daughter

UPDATE IV:  "Can anyone tell me why, other than nepotism, [Ivanka Trump] has an office in the White House and a back-bench seat at meetings of the Cabinet? Washington is full of people who are smart, successful, well-educated — and actually have experience in developing and implementing government policy, which Ivanka completely lacks.

[She has had little or no influence on policy.]

Where Ivanka does apparently have real influence is in matters of personnel. She and Jared are reported to have urged Trump to bring in foul-mouthed Anthony Scaramucci as White House communications director. Seriously, that’s the guy you wanted shaping the administration’s message? Scaramucci was dismissed Monday after just 10?days on the job. He had only two things to offer: North Korean-style hosannas to the strength, wisdom and general magnificence of his dear leader, President Trump; and an undeniable talent for imaginative swearing."

Read the Washington Post, Ivanka Trump is part of the problem.

UPDATE III:  "On Inauguration Day, President Trump stood in front of the U.S. Capitol and vowed that his 'America First' agenda would bring jobs back to the United States.

'We must protect our borders from the ravages of other countries making our products, stealing our companies and destroying our jobs,' he declared, adding: 'We will follow two simple rules — buy American and hire American.'

Looking on from the front of the stage was Trump’s daughter Ivanka, the celebrity and fashion entrepreneur who would soon join him in the White House.

The first daughter’s cause would be improving the lives of working women, a theme she had developed at her clothing line. She also brought a direct link to the global economy the president was railing against — a connection that was playing out at that very moment on the Pacific coast.

As the Trumps stood on stage, a hulking container ship called the OOCL Ho Chi Minh City was pulling into the harbor of Long Beach, Calif., carrying around 500 pounds of foreign-made Ivanka Trump spandex-knit blouses.

Another 10 ships hauling Ivanka Trump-branded shoes, cardigans and leather handbags bound for the United States were floating in the north Pacific and Atlantic oceans and off the coasts of Malta, Malaysia, Japan, South Korea and Yemen.

Those global journeys — along with millions of pounds of Ivanka Trump products imported into the United States in more than 2,000 shipments since 2010 — illustrate how her business practices collide with some of the key principles she and her father have championed in the White House.

While President Trump has chastised companies for outsourcing jobs overseas, an examination by The Washington Post has revealed the extent to which Ivanka Trump’s company relies exclusively on foreign factories in countries such as Bangladesh, Indonesia and China, where low-wage laborers have limited ability to advocate for themselves.

And while Ivanka Trump published a book this spring declaring that improving the lives of working women is 'my life’s mission,' The Post found that her company lags behind many in the apparel industry when it comes to monitoring the treatment of the largely female workforce employed in factories around the world."

Read the Washington Post, Ivanka Inc.

UPDATE II: Read the Daily Mail, Ivanka takes on Beijing: First daughter launches report condemning China's record on human trafficking and forced labor – even though her shoe brand has been made there

Then read the Daily Mail, Beaten bloody by supervisors, pay as low as a dollar an hour and overtime past midnight: Workers from Ivanka Trump's Chinese shoe factory reveal brutal conditions.

UPDATE:  "Ivanka Trump’s new book unwittingly reveals just how out of touch she is with the lives of the working women who she believes she speaks for.

-- President Trump dubiously claimed during the campaign that he was a self-made man. “My father gave me a small loan of a million dollars,” he told NBC during a 2015 interview, which he insisted he paid back with interest. 'A million dollars isn’t very much compared to what I built!' During a primary debate, when Marco Rubio claimed that he had received a $200 million inheritance from his father, Trump replied angrily: 'I took $1 million and I turned it into $10 billion.'

Every fact checker faulted Trump for not giving his father enough credit, for downplaying the connections and the resources he received from the family business. Court documents revealed that the candidate was omitting vastly larger loans and gifts he received over the years. His pop also bailed him out when his Atlantic City casinos went bankrupt. . .

[And in Ivanka's new book] dispensing advice for how working women can succeed, the 35-year-old often relays anecdotes that unintentionally highlight all the special breaks she’s gotten along the way. These are advantages average Americans could never even dream of."

Read the Washington Post, Ivanka Trump’s life of privilege undermines the credibility of her new book’s message.

She is as clueless as her Dad.

The "president’s daughter has sought to cast herself as both a champion of workplace issues and a defender of her father’s 'buy American, hire American' agenda. Trump, whose book 'Women Who Work' debuts next week, was in Germany on Tuesday for public discussions about global entre­pre­neur­ship and empowerment."

But it's all a facade.

Read the Washington Post, Workers endured long hours, low pay at Chinese factory used by Ivanka Trump’s clothing-maker.

The apple doesn't fall far from the tree.