[ceejayoz]

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/19/us/politics/trump-putin-i...

> Only Mr. Trump, who has alternately contradicted his own narrative of what was said and complained about a lack of fair coverage from a meeting only four people witnessed, could permit Ms. Gross to tell anyone about what she heard. The White House has not said whether Mr. Trump has asked her to do that.

[AnthonyMouse]

So now we can deduce what this is really about.

Translators are civil servants with security clearances, not reporters. When the leaders of Germany and Brazil have a meeting, they may say things they don't intend for China and everyone else to know about, and it isn't the translator's job to report what was said to the media. Unless they've witnessed something on the scale of criminality that they need to act as a whistleblower (in which case they wouldn't need anyone's permission), they should never be telling anyone what happened in the room since their job is to keep those secrets.

The media are fully aware of that, but they're being disingenuous and pretending that allowing a diplomatic translator to act as a media witness is a request anyone is likely to grant. Then Trump predictably responds to that by removing the translator from the room, so now they're complaining about that instead.

[ceejayoz]

> So now we can deduce what this is really about.

The fact that he can't keep his own story straight?

In either instance?

[AnthonyMouse]

Which is the part that isn't news. Meanwhile we're being offered some kind of nonsense theory implying Russian collusion.

[ceejayoz]

Ah, there it is.

[AnthonyMouse]

There what is? That Trump contradicts himself, a thing that was never in dispute?

This is kind of the point. Trump is such a polarizing jackass that people default to attacking him even in cases when there is nothing there, and then end up eroding their own credibility by making too many accusations they can't actually substantiate instead of sticking to the ones they can.

You don't have to reflexively defend claims so silly that you can only try to escape by moving the goalposts.