Yikes.
Just got an email from Norm Ivey asking, “I trust your judgement on this stuff. Does this news worry you?”
You bet it does. It’s from Reuters (which is to say, actual news, not fake):
Entire U.S. Senate to go to White House for North Korea briefing
Top Trump administration officials will hold a rare briefing on Wednesday at the White House for the entire U.S. Senate on the situation in North Korea, senior Senate aides said on Monday.
All 100 senators have been asked to the White House for the briefing by Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis, Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats and General Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the aides said.
While top administration officials routinely travel to Capitol Hill to address members of Congress on foreign policy and national security matters, it is unusual for the entire 100-member Senate to go to such an event at the White House, and for those four top officials to be involved….
Yeah. No kidding…
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OK, folks, this is creeping me out — none of my usual news sources are reporting anything about this yet, and it started two hours ago.
All I have is Reuters and some broadcast outlets, and all they say is that the meeting was to take place…
Oh, and there are some stories out there about the Chinese leader urging Trump to use restraint in the situation…
Oops. I didn’t realize until today that, in the original story, it said the meeting would be Wednesday. I just saw the “3 p.m.” part.
Which was way more alarming than a meeting set for two days off.
I’m not going to make like Emily Litella and say “never mind,” because this remains pretty weird. But I think we can take the blog alert status back to about DefCon 3, at least…
A war warning?
Put together by Mitch McConnell, not by Trump. Trump’s just hosting, no doubt as a means for showing action as we approach the 100 day mark of the administration.
http://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/4/24/15414160/white-house-senate-north-korea-briefing
I don’t understand worrying about something that you have 0% control over.
I think that’s kind of the definition of something that should worry you.
If I had control over it, things would be fine…
Brad you’re upset that he called them to the White House, and you’d be upset if he didn’t call them to the White House.
That makes no sense. You’re missing the point. This isn’t about Trump. This is about a real-life situation in which some smart people, such as Gen. Mattis, see the need for the entire Senate to come over for a security briefing.
Does that not cause you to think, Whoa, something really bad must be going down…
As I said, I felt a little better when I realized they weren’t saying, “Come over for a briefing today.” But it’s still pretty ominous…
I ain’t skeered.
It’s like worrying about dying… it’s going to happen whether you want it to happen or not. So why worry about it?
So basically, you have the traditional Muslim attitude — If it is written, it is written and therefore going to happen…
Or rather, that’s a stereotype I’ve often heard about Muslim fatalism. It might not be accurate…
Turns out from all reports the briefing was “meh.” Much ado about nothing new.
“Meh,” you say?
Sounds good. I could go for some “meh”…
I am definitely okay with “meh.” I much prefer “meh” in this context. But, still meh.
Brad–Now it’s *you* who’s normalizing Trump. I think it’s pretty clear that if there’s a serious threat coming from the DPRK we’ll hear about it from independent sources. If we’re only hearing it from the Trump WH, it’s for show–just like everything else that comes out of there. DOA budgets, health-care proposals that nobody likes, EOs that get laughed out of court, trade wars with Canada [!!!], misplaced carrier groups. C’mon.
P.S. Corker was interviewed after the meeting; asked if it was worthwhile, he said “I’m not sure.” And this guy is more of a diplomat than anyone in the administration.
What got my attention was the impression I gathered from the initial Reuters story (which I misread, thinking it was to be Monday, which exacerbated my alarm) that serious people such as Mattis seemed to think the meeting warranted.
But I’m glad it was anticlimactic…
Trump wanted to get the entire Senate to the White House, just to show them he could. The North Korea excuse just seems like a convenient alibi. It was just a power play, plain and simple.