Now he looks like an idiot? ...

[aggiesal]

[Uncle Joe]

1. One would think they should find that out first

Thanks for the thread aggiesal

[Irish_Dem]

10. Came here to suggest he thought of that first.

He assumed everyone would do his bidding.

[popsdenver]

73. The Oil industry

will suggest to him, that he takes all the monies he is withholding from Blue States, and give it to them to rebuild the oil industry down there in Venezuela.............If he needs more money,..... he can just wave his magic fecal covered finger, and run the national debt up a few trillion more......

[Irish_Dem]

74. The only way the oil industry will do it is if the US taxpayer fully funds the oil production.

And pays the oil companies a bonus to take the gamble.

Trump seems hell bent on destroying the US and global economies.

[Beartracks]

27. Did they not tell him that in their secret meetings beforehand?

[paleotn]

30. Do you really think he would have listened? You can't tell him anything.

The country is being run by a complete moron and minions who repeat everything the moron utters like it's fucking gospel.

See Rex Tillerson on Big Oil's take on Trump. A useful idiot on some occasions. A complete moron few want to associate with if they can help it.

[Beartracks]

41. I guess I needed a "facetious emoji" for my post!

I completely agree with your response. They probably did tell him, but Trump likely thought that by going ahead with "breaking Venezuela" he could force their hand into "fixing it."

=============

[paleotn]

43. Sorry for my misinterpretation. And big oil is most definitely NOT going to do that on their dime.

"Sorry. Ain't touching it. You should have asked us BEFORE you broke it. We would have told you...ain't touching it."

Now, Donnie is stuck with a humanitarian disaster of monumental proportions, an incarcerated dictator who will probably walk, and no artificial decline in US gas prices before the 2026 elections. The price of lack of forethought.

[Ohioboy]

78. Of course they told him

They are actual businessmen / women. Trump just plays one on TV.

[PatSeg]

29. Unless you are Trump

and know more about everything than anyone else.

[hatrack]

31. Yeah, his uncle taught at MIT, you know!!! He has the best brain, you know!!!

&list=RDZxPwVK_Z4YI&start_radio=1

[PatSeg]

44. Poor, poor Donald

There actually were some brains in his family, but he seemed to be the family misfit and he knows it, which is probably why he overcompensates all the time.

[underpants]

2. It's like they didn't have a plan or something

[rampartd]

12. incredible how 'concepts of a plan" don't survive contact with reality

if those oil companies weren't loading ships with equipment by new years this is all bullshit.

but the joke is on us. we get to pay for this infrastructure and security in venezuela and trump profits.

[PJMcK]

3. I've thought Trump was an idiot since the late 1970s

It’s gratifying to see others catching up.

[GiqueCee]

4. So did his mother...

... in fact, she said he was an idiot, and that she hoped he never got into politics because he'd be a disaster. Truer words have never been said, before or since.

[spooky3]

51. Per Politifact, there is no evidence that she ever said that

https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2019/dec/18/facebook-posts/no-evidence-trumps-mother-called-him-idiot-zero-co/

though she would have been correct.

[happy feet]

68. I believe his sister, the judge,

Was quoted as saying that

[GiqueCee]

82. I'd seen it here...

... a while back, under a photo of his mother speaking to an unidentified reporter with a mike.
Regardless of attribution, the statement has been proven to be true beyond the remotest shadow of a doubt.

[efhmc]

81. Sadly that disaster involved and impacted millions of people.

[ImmigrantsWGTJD]

34. The only thing he's good at is manipulation of others.

Soon may it all come to a screeching halt. They say that dictatorships always end suddenly.

[PJMcK]

40. All dictators end badly

Except for North Korea, they always collapse and the leader ends up dead or in exile. Look at history.

[vapor2]

58. ALSO good at grifting, stealing our money and lying

[Dan]

5. Now?

[patphil]

48. My question exactly.

The guy's been an idiot for several decades. Believe me, I know. I live about 60 miles north of NYC, and have seen this guy in action since the 1980's.
Nothing has changed since then. He was an idiot back then, and still is now, except over the years he's perfected idiocy.

[Hope22]

6. Oopsie...a dead end alley!

Get a map people and quit wasting our money. This episode of your TV show is a dud!!!

[milestogo]

7. I just broke this. You should pay for it.

That's his internal moral compass.

[indigoth]

8. He, not only, LOOKS like an idiot

He IS an idiot.

[wcmagumba]

9. I've always known that t-rump was a total idiot. He lucked into millions from his family and continues to be lucky...

not smart, except for grifting, he's good at that...

[Bok_Tukalo]

11. Trump is a toddler with a loader gun that cannot be taken away

All that can done is distraction (Ballroom Kennedy Center) or manipulate him into firing the gun in your preferred direction.

Someone sold him on this operation and used oil as the reason to get him on board. Who knows the real reason?

[returnee]

17. Impeachment would do it. n/t

[Bok_Tukalo]

21. That's not happening.

We are a politically bifurcated society. You cannot get a supermajority in the Senate to do anything of consequence.

[returnee]

46. Didn't say it was happening.

I said it would work. I’m not unaware of the current situation in Congress. However, in these times I decline to predict what is or isn’t possible.

[Justice matters.]

54. The real reason is, he wanted a cut for himself like Putin does.

Now let's see if, as I suspect he will, he will use taxpayers money (added to the national debt) to give to big oil for them to do his bidding.

He'll cut Social Security & Medicare if he can get away with it. It's not about the oil staying in tankers for a decade. He doesn't care.

[cksmithy]

13. He has always looked like an idiot. I have always thought he was an idiot.

[NotHardly]

14. He's looked like an idiot for decades...

[Marie Marie]

15. He stated emphatically that the Oil Companies can't wait to get in there and get all that oil.

And I know that Daddy would never lie to us.

OTOH - I wanted to see these greedy fucks go all in and Trump would provide them with all the military protection he can send. Then we get a new Democratic President and Congress who immediately withdraw all our troops, leaving them to use their obscene profits to protect themselves. Aaaah, a girl can dream....

[Ocelot II]

23. Fortunately for everyone concerned (except Trump), the oil execs are smarter than he is,

and they know that getting involved in oil extraction and refining in Venezuela right now is a fool's errand - and they told him so.

[dalton99a]

16. Kick

[ashredux]

18. He was born an idiot. It doesn't change during your life when you're born that way.

However, he’s turned being an idiot into an art form

[state of stupid]

39. He was born a lot of things

[brakester]

71. Great song!

Thanks!

[Aviation Pro]

19. Appropriate

[Ocelot II]

20. When didn't he?

[Raven123]

22. How ungrateful of them. RELEASE THE EPSTEIN FILES

[usonian]

24. That's cuz the moran thinks he knows everybody's business better than they do.

Seems to have turned horribly jaundiced color.

[Martin Eden]

25. His idiocy is CONFIRMED, yet again.

Has he graduated from idiot to imbecile yet?

[Beartracks]

26. But it knocked Trump's Epstien files connection out of the headlines for a week...

... so he's got that going for him.

======

[LetMyPeopleVote]

28. Exxon's CEO tells Trump that Venezuela's Oil is uninvestible!

Link to tweet

[sop]

32. It's a negotiating ploy.

Oil companies will get U.S. taxpayers to subsidize the full cost of modernization. Then they'll demand all revenues from Venezuela's oil sales, in perpetuity, along with a zero tax rate on all future profits. The imbecile will cave, he can't afford to lose face now.

[WestMichRad]

33. They didn't have a long range plan for after the abduction of Machado.

Now, the country has no ruling government, no income, and cannot support themselves with basic food needs. It will descend into utter chaos, making Haiti’s anarchy look civil and orderly. Expect mass migration as people flee to neighboring countries. If the U.S. tries to send in forces to “run” the country, they’ll be bogged down for many years and welcomed by hostile well-armed gangs.

It’s gonna make Shrub’s Iraq fiasco look quaint, any everyone in northern South America will end up despising the U.S.

But hey, this administration will get to fuck over Cuba, so it’s a win, yes?

[paleotn]

36. I foresee the Sunni Triangle with jungles.

Iraq 2.0 with far better cover for the insurgents.

[Justice matters.]

55. KKKaptain bonespurs will send his "suckers and losers" to die in Venezuela.

And in Cuba, and in Greenland, and in Columbia, and in Mexico, and in Canada.

Anything to distract from the Epstein files.

[paleotn]

35. Anyone with a function frontal cortex knew it all along....

Sometimes all you can do is just let lunatics do their thing. They won't listen to you anyway.

Speaking of oil execs...what did Rex Tillerson call him? A fucking moron? Yes, that about sums him up.

&t=1s

[NBachers]

37. Does that mean we fly Maduro back and drop him off?

[LetMyPeopleVote]

38. "Garbage": How Trump Used to Talk About Venezuelan Oil

The US is going to extreme lengths to control oil that Trump used to regularly disparage.

"Their oil is garbage. It’s horrible. The worst you can get. Tar. It’s like tar."

Read how Trump used to talk about Venezuelan oil.

— Mother Jones (@motherjones.com) 2026-01-09T16:31:41.946Z

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2026/01/garbage-trump-disparage-venezuelan-oil-crude-maduro-tar-horrible-worst-oil/

Not long ago, President Donald Trump had a clear opinion of Venezuelan oil.

Throughout his 2024 presidential campaign, he called the country’s crude “horrible,” “tar,” “the dirtiest stuff you can imagine,” and the “worst oil probably anywhere in the world.” But, less than two years later, President Trump has framed his move to depose Nicolás Maduro in large part as a move to seize this “garbage” oil.

His reservations about the quality of the fossil fuels he plans to acquire have disappeared. Instead, the president has suggested he may be willing to send in more US troops to keep control of it and that he’s not “afraid of boots on the ground.” Gone, too, are Trump’s warnings that Venezuelan heavy crude will pollute the air in American communities when it’s refined stateside.

Trump’s disparaging remarks about Venezuelan oil were not a one-off. He made a version of the same argument at least five times between June 2023 and August 2024. The typical pitch went something like this: When I was president, we drilled top-tier American oil. Now we import tar from Venezuela and pollute our country in the process.

Here’s a longer version from a speech to North Carolina Republicans in June 2023:

When I left Venezuela was ready to collapse. We would have taken it over. We would have gotten all that oil. It would have been right next door. But now we’re buying oil from Venezuela. So we’re making a dictator very rich. Can you believe this? Nobody can believe this.

Their oil is garbage. It’s horrible. The worst you can get. Tar. It’s like tar. And to refine it you need special plants … We have liquid gold. The best, most beautiful stuff you can get. Liquid gold. Better than gold. Right under our feet … But with Venezuela, they put their oil and they refine it in Houston! So all those pollutants go right up in the air … So, we lose economically. And we also lose from an environmental standpoint. Because it is really dirty stuff. The dirtiest stuff you can imagine.

The bit has a typically Trumpian cognitive dissonance to it. If he’d been re-elected in 2020, America would have benefited greatly by taking control of Venezuela’s oil, he claimed. At the same time, Democrats were idiots for using such horrible, polluting oil.

Most of the oil in Venezuela is heavy tar that will require a great deal of investment to produce and refine. It is no wonder why US oil companies are not willing to make this investment

[calimary]

49. I look forward to the day when nobody cares how he feels or what he says.

I keep thinking about the aviation term “no longer a factor”. And boy do I look forward to the day that phrase starts applying to the donald, because he, too, is no longer a factor.

[Trailrider1951]

72. That description is not really correct

I've seen that "oil". At room temperature it is a solid waxy substance that looks like poop and smells as bad. I'm a retired geochemist who used to work at a multinational core testing laboratory in Houston. The sample came from PDVSA. That "oil" requires lots of treatment with heat, water, and surfactants to get it to move at all. Very expensive. Also, when you go to refine it into gasoline, kerosene, fuel oil and other useful things, you get very little of the lighter fractions with much wax and tar left over. Not much $$ in that. Those oil company execs know this. JMHO.

[joho260]

76. and the tanker ships

The oil tankers he confiscated are in such bad shape that they cannot dock at a US facility without significant repair. The Coast Guard is apparently trying to recruit personnel to go out to these boats to work on them. Once emptied, they would need to be demolished -- look up ship breaking; it's expensive, dangerous and dirty.

[3Hotdogs]

42. NOW?

ONLY NOW?

[Grokenstein]

45. Can't pass the buck to Biden for THIS fuck-up, clown.

You broke it, you bought it.

[Ray Bruns]

62. But he will sure as hell try, won't he?

[BradBo]

47. I bet security is the main issue.

Trumps throwing ketchup tonight. Watch out!

[Cha]

50. Yeah and Fuck Off Blowhard PEDO Homicidal

Maniac inside the WH.

[BlueWaveNeverEnd]

52. Maniac, fool, clown

[Justice matters.]

53. No wonder that despicable clown bankrupted casinos...

He doesn't know how to count other people's money. He thinks by threatening them they will shower him with bundles of cash (they will not make).

[Norrrm]

56. Donald, why don't you force the oil companies to invest and take over the oil?

You have forced other companies to do your bidding.

II's called 'republican free market capitalism'.

[Norrrm]

57. Or you could invest your own money.

[aggiesal]

60. Don't you remember? ...

During his campaign, he told the Oil CEO's that if you give him $1B, he would clear regulations

Trump pressed oil executives to give $1 billion for his campaign, people in industry say
https://www.politico.com/news/2024/05/09/trump-asks-oil-executives-campaign-finance-00157131

[Totally Tunsie]

59. As Emily Litella would say...

[alterfurz]

61. "He may look like an idiot and talk like an idiot, but don't let that fool you...

...he really is an idiot." -- Groucho Marx

[liberalla]

63. He always looks like an idiot.

[Martin68]

64. So Trump decided to blame Exxon for telling the truth about the uninvestibility of the Venezuelan oil industry.

[freethought]

65. Oh gee, how silly of me.

I could have sworn that the state department is informing any American in Venezuela to leave the country immediately.

[Shipwack]

66. He may look like an idiot, and sound like an idiot...

But don’t let that fool you.

He really is an idiot!

(Apologies to Mr. Marx).

[spanone]

67. K&R

[LetMyPeopleVote]

69. trump's feelings were hurt

[FakeNoose]

80. What he's not telling us ....

... is the real reason he went into Venezuela. He made a deal with Putin, because Pootie was losing his shirt in Venezuela and he had to get out. So Pootie told Chump to move in and take over V., and I'll make a deal with you on Ukraine.

Chump was never dealing with the oil barons, he just assumed they would jump at the chance to pump out V.'s oil.

Yes of course he's an idiot, but we already knew that.

[vapor2]

70. Looks like an idiot?

[Mme. Defarge]

75. He has always "looked" like an idiot,

but now what’s up with the pink hair?

[Joinfortmill]

77. He's DEMENTED.

[Kid Berwyn]

79. Trump is a moron fixated by fabric swatches.

Trump, the billion-dollar loser — I was his ghostwriter and saw it happen

Charles Leerhson
Yahoo.com, May 9, 2019

EXCERPT...

I tend to see my time with him — the first part of it, anyway, before things started going bad in a hurry — as his “King Midas” period. I never said this to him; if I had, he probably would have thought I was suggesting he enter the muffler business. But there was a stretch of months when everything he touched turned into a deal. The banks seemed to accept the version of him depicted in his first book, “The Art of the Deal,” which we now know from his previous ghostwriter, Tony Schwartz, was entirely invented. They believed it over what they saw on his balance sheets or heard coming out of his mouth, and they never said no to his requests for more money. Often they came up with things he could say yes to before he could think of them himself. As a result, a failing real estate developer who had little idea of what he was doing and less interest in doing it once he’d held the all-important press conference wound up owning three New Jersey hotel-casinos, the Plaza Hotel, the Eastern Airlines Shuttle and a 281-foot yacht.

A real go-getter, right? But Trump’s portfolio did not jibe with what I saw each day — which to a surprisingly large extent was him looking at fabric swatches. Indeed, flipping through fabric swatches seemed at times to be his main occupation. Some days he would do it for hours, then take me in what he always called his “French military helicopter” to Atlantic City — where he looked at more fabric swatches or sometimes small samples of wood paneling. It was true that the carpets and drapes at his properties needed to be refreshed frequently, and the seats on the renamed Trump Shuttle required occasional reupholstering. But the main thing about fabric swatches was that they were within his comfort zone — whereas, for example, the management of hotels and airlines clearly wasn’t. One of his aides once told me that every room at the Plaza could be filled at the “rack rate” (list price) every night, and the revenue still wouldn’t cover the monthly payment of the loan he’d taken out to buy the place. In other words, he’d made a ridiculous deal. Neither he nor the banks had done the math beforehand. Or perhaps Trump knew it because someone had told him, but didn’t want to think about it. The one thing he is above-average at is compartmentalization.

Source:

https://news.yahoo.com/trump-the-billiondollar-loser-his-ghostwriter-recalls-the-king-midas-years-090000640.html