President Trump: “I faced great pressure…”
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Trump made a very telling statement this week. Did you catch it?
He said in discussions about firing Comey to the Russians, “I faced great pressure because of Russia. That’s taken off.” (Source)
Hmmm…. did you think about that?
He faced great pressure.
How does that work if you are not involved with Russia with any corrupt dealings?
If you are honest and not involved in any Russian entanglements, you would find any accusation laughable and baseless. There would be no pressure. It would actually be entertaining because you’d have nothing to fear. You’d know you are in the right. You’d shrug it off knowing the truth will come out and you’d likely not give it a second thought.
BUT…if you are a liar and have a lot to hide, you’d have pressure. Lots of it!
Firing Comey was a short term release on a much bigger pressure cooker. It’s only just getting started!
Liars leak big clues, you just have to pay close attention.
This would be the opposite if you asked Obama about his birth certificate. I’d bet good money that at no point would he ever have said he faced any pressure over the origin of his birth. And he certainly never ACTED like he was under any pressure over it. Calm as could be the entire 8 years. As a matter of fact, I think he even DID laugh about it several times it was brought up.
Great example of the truth vs a lie!
First if that’s true why did he release the birth certificate? Second Trump didn’t say that, it’s an anonymous source saying that a document said he said that. Reporters have proven (to me at least) that they are incapable of reporting honestly when they are directly reporting the words or actions of Trump.
Remember when the AP reported that he threatened to invade Mexico and hung up on the Australian PM? That didn’t happen either.
He released it because there were a lot more important issues facing the country that needed to be dealt with and he didn’t want everyone to be constantly distracted with the nonsensical idea that he wasn’t a citizen so he couldn’t legally be the President. So he released it hoping to finally put the issue to bed so that the country could get on with things that were real and actually mattered.
The quote from Trump was from notes taken inside the Oval Office and circulated as the official account of the meeting, with quotations read by one official and broad strokes confirmed by another official. No one in the White House denied that Trump said that, and even Sean Spicer didn’t dispute the account. So it’s not correct to say that Trump didn’t say that. It’s only correct to say that we can’t know for sure that Trump said those exact words because we didn’t hear it for ourselves. But if we take into account what we know Trump DID say for himself, and add in that two officials who could confirm the account confirmed the account, and that Trump’s press secretary also didn’t dispute the account, it’s reasonably safe to surmise that he probably did say it, or something close to it.
Then there’s yet a third White House official who said that Trump did say that, but said that Trump said it as a negotiating tactic to get something from the Russians. It would be a really lousy tactic to claim the President had said something he didn’t actually say, but said it as a negotiating tactic with someone he hadn’t actually said it to at all— you’d pretty much destroy any negotiating strength you had by doing that. So basically not one single person in the White House is denying that Trump said he felt great pressure, but the White House is also trying to spin him saying it in his favor, which is not something they would be doing if he hadn’t actually said it at all. How would that make sense?
In terms of the other two stories you mention, you maybe didn’t read the original reports? I’m guessing that you must have read tertiary reports, because the original reports didn’t say the two things you claim they said.
The original story published on the “invading Mexico” thing was published by the Associated Press, and what THEY reported was that an excerpt from a transcript of the call that was made available by an official who had access to the transcript on the condition of anonymity included ONLY that portion of the call where Trump said, “‘You have a bunch of bad hombres down there. You aren’t doing enough to stop them. I think your military is scared. Our military isn’t, so I just might send them down to take care of it.”
However, that story ALSO mentioned that Eduardo Sanchez, spokesman for Mexico’s Presidential office, said that the tone of the call wasn’t hostile or humiliating, and was respectful, while the Mexican Foreign Relations Department had earlier told the AP, “The negative statements you refer to did not occur during said telephone call. On the contrary, the tone was constructive.” Which this denies that Trump said that on THAT call, but does not deny that Trump didn’t ever say it at all, on a different phone call, or in a different context, which is something that has to be considered since the transcript wasn’t released in whole, only one single excerpt was given to the AP, and so it likely didn’t have any context alongside it. It isn’t out of character for Trump to say something along those lines and still be respectful (relative to Trump) and constructive given the proper context.
Also, in other reporting regarding Mexico, it was mentioned that Mexico’s President Nieto had been struggling with the public’s perception of him, and that he’d gotten a bump in support after he’d taken a stand against paying for a border wall with Trump by cancelling his meeting with him after Trump tweeted that he better not show up if he didn’t plan on paying for the border wall, and that Nieto needed to maintain that bump in support, and that any appearance of weakness that the Mexican people might see in him might further undermine him and erode support for his administration, so it also has to be taking into consideration that Mexico has a vested interest here in maintaining an appearance of strength for President Nieto in this situation, and so it benefits Nieto to deny that Trump ever said anything like that to him because it would be humiliating to him as Mexico’s President and could erode support for his administration.
Taking all of those things into consideration, it seems credible that Trump *might have* said that during to Mexico’s President, but also taking everything about the the manner in which it came to be reported into account, there is also a possibility that what was said was deliberately misconstrued and stripped of its context in order to make it more damning against Trump. That’s why it’s important to pay attention to all of the details and context— it’s the only way to cut through someone’s bias and piece together what the truth actually is even if it isn’t what was accurately reported.
In terms of the story that Trump “hung up on the Australian PM”, that isn’t what was originally reported either. What was originally reported was that Trump cut the scheduled 1 hour phone call short at 25 minutes, which is a whole lot different from “hanging up on” him. That actually did happen— Trump actually did cut that phone call short. From the Washington Post: “At one point, Turnbull suggested that the two leaders move on from their impasse over refugees to discuss the conflict in Syria and other pressing foreign issues. But Trump demurred and ended the call, making it far shorter than his conversations with Shinzo Abe of Japan, Angela Merkel of Germany, François Hollande of France or Putin.”
Furthermore, on the Australian PM story, Trump just this month admitted that it had been a testy call, which is just what had been reported originally. I can’t deny that no one reported it as “Trump hangs up on Australian PM! What a jerk!” or something like that, but in all of the reports I read about it, no one had reported it as Trump hanging up on the PM, only that he cut the call short of its scheduled 1 hour and that it had been significantly shorter than any of his other calls with the other leader’s he’d called that day and that it had been the worst of his calls to various leaders that day.
These things make it seem ironic to me that you’re talking about how reporters are incapable of reporting things about Trump honestly. It’s really easy to have a bias cause human beings to report things inaccurately, isn’t it? It takes work to separate facts from biased perception, but it’s work that can absolutely be learned and done, and I think that work can be done by anyone if they put in the effort to do it, whether that’s you, me, Eyes for Lies, reporters, or pretty much anyone else. I’d even argue that it’s a necessary life skill to develop, but it’s a skill that not very many people seem to have or sometimes even recognize exists. I’ll admit that it takes a lot of practice and work, but it’s not hard to do once you learn how, it’s just sometimes difficult to follow through on actually using it.
Obama released his long form birth certificate because he was pressured into doing so. What type and from where is open to debate, but he was pressured. Personally I think it was political maneuvering. He could have released it at anytime, and at that moment is when he found it most useful.
“So it’s not correct to say that Trump didn’t say that” – We know that Trump said something, we don’t know if it’s those exact words, we don’t know if it’s those exact words, and we don’t know to full context, and we certainly don’t know any intention (I’m sure the guy who said it was a negotiating tactic is not a mind reader. “it’s reasonably safe to surmise that he probably did say it, or something close to it“ – it’s the “something close to it” part that’s not correct. Political opposition have a history of not being able to interpret Trump’s words in a reasonable manner.
Here’s the first paragraph of the AG story [WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump threatened in a phone call with his Mexican counterpart to send U.S. troops to stop “bad hombres down there” unless the Mexican military does more to control them, according to an excerpt of a transcript of the conversation obtained by The Associated Press.]. That did not happen. That is not a reasonable interpretation of the conversation. I don’t care if they they said “it’s not clear the tone or context”, it is a lie. That is an excuse tabloids use. It is not “something close to” what he said. And this is the AP! The most neutral, “just the facts mam” source of news articles there is. At least before Trump.
Another example is “Donald Trump invites Russia to hack into Clinton’s emails”. That is not a reasonable interpretation of what he said (“Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’ll be able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing”). It makes no logical sense to interpret it in that way. The servers were completely wiped, what were they supposed to hack? I bring this up because every development in this Russian is spun in a dishonest way. Every development can be explained “that’s normal for POTUS campaigns/transitions/administrations”, relatively minor infractions that doesn’t really suggest anything (like Flynn’s FARA paperwork violations), or simply complete nonsense (such as “US officials: Info suggests Trump associates may have coordinated with Russians” turning out to Roger Stone tweeting at Guciffer 2.0).
The reason why ‘fake news” caught on to describe mainstream media is the reporting is so consistently bias and dishonest that it creates a distorted view of reality. I’ve respected Eyes’ ability to sniff out inconsistency and distortions before, but even she’s not immune to confirmation bias. Do you really think only a liar would feel any kind of pressure? Do you remember when Bill Clinton was impeached not for the alleged crime that the special prosecutor was originally investigating (the Whitewater thing), but for the process crime of lying to a federal officer> And now since this post a special prosecutor was appointed without any allege crime taking place. Is it obstruction of justice because of what an anonymous source said Comey wrote on a post-it note? Is it electronically hacking the DNC? If so what evidence is there? Is it telling Putin to release the emails on a certain day? If so what’s the evidence and what’s the specific criminal statute? He was appointed because of the fake news reporting Clinton’s excuse for losing over and over and over without proper scrutiny , manufacturing outrage.
It’s clear that the liberal media is not capable of being honest when we can go and look at what he actually said, I have no reason to believe they get more credible when we can’t look at what he actually said. The leaks and fake news are creating a lot of damage, and that is a form of pressure.
For a while now Matt Taibbi has been the only non-conservative that I know of to report on the Russia collusion conspiracy with any objectivity. Over the last few months he wrote articles warning about the minefields for the press in covering this scandal, criticized the press coverage, went over the timeline and Comey and Clapper testimonies and said it doesn’t make sense, and is now openly mocking the conspiracy on twitter. It’s really ironic, other than him I have to go to places online that are where conspiracy theories are quarantined to find someone who legit dislikes/hates Trump who can see the all this coverage has been smoke and mirrors.
But I think we are turning a corner with how this scandal is going to be reported. First Maxine Waters sounded legit crazy on Morning Joe, which I think prompted a Salon article saying the Russia story is a big distraction. But yesterday something big happened. It seemed the whole liberal world turned on Clinton. I got the feeling most wished she would go away, but now it’s gone from annoyance to hostility. Andrea Mitchell said Hillary “was blaming a conspiracy theory with no facts”. I don’t think these anonymous source tabloid headline stories will stop, but I think you’ll start to see more mockery of them from liberal quarters. It could be years before the special prosecutor concludes there’s nothing to these allegations.
Ah, the apologist.
Now I wonder how long… how many years before there is any clarity.
Why is Trump such a careless liar? Couldn’t be sloppier…
That’s the consequence (one of them anyway) of arrogance.
It may end up that Russia did what they say, and trump’s lying his @ss off … but I don’t understand the Russia/Trump connection from a logical stand point.
Trump was a JOKE! All the way until 10 pm or later on election night. He was a JOKE! Had no chance! How many ways can I say this?
Why then, would Russia waste time and effort thinking they could even influence a JOKE vs the Clinton MACHINE.
Someone even pointed out that Trump sold something to a Russian back in 2006, and THAT’s more proof. 2006!!!!!???
He was a JOKE in 2016 on November 8th … you think someone is ‘predicting’ him as president 11 years in advance??! I just don’t get it.
And Assange, whose entire ‘business model’ is based on him telling the truth: aka, once he stops telling the truth, his whole WikiLeaks concept crumbles.
Assange stated that Russia didn’t give him the DNC emails. That’s got to be the truth. But pundits are saying he’s lying too, and that’s even MORE proof.
Assange says he never knows his sources so how can he know whether or not they came from Russia?
Assange gave every indication he did NOT believe what he was saying when he denied contact with Trump team and Russia. I don’t trust him at all.
I agree. I don’t trust him. One reason but am probably off is something you said once or wrote. Something about baseline? I noticed that he is capable of grinning from ear to ear. But in interviews he doesn’t do that. He keeps his face and voice so chewy. Probably doing it wrong. The other thing is that he put a #SethRich into his latest comment that he doesn’t ever reveal sources…MEANING he is okay letting people think it’s Seth Rich. That just makes no sense to me. Pointing so specifically at a specific individual while pretending to be all neutral and anonymous. That hashtag made him look like the twitter bots honestly.
Wikileaks recently bought Russian servers. More importantly, a man named Pyotr Chayanov, who works directly for Putin, was given (by Wikileaks) the Wikileaks Hostkey and SSL key. I don’t know much about computer code or hacking, so I looked into this. The best I understand it, it means that this Chayanov fellow can see the IP addresses of everyone who has ever or will ever give information to Wikileaks. So the Russian government knows the identities of every whistleblower who has ever given Wikileaks information. I can only imagine the kind of blackmail power that gives anyone with access to that information. Or as they call it in Russia, kompromat.
Assange came out in support of Jared Kushner’s back channel concept.
I’m shocked. SHOCKED!
When I saw Assange say in an interview that he (via Wikileaks) had information on Trump and his campaign as well as on Clinton, but that he wasn’t going to release the information on Trump, that told me everything I needed to know to make a decision about Wikileaks and Assange. I don’t think I ever saw him denying Russian involvement in the leaks, though, because I feel sure I would’ve remembered him not believing what he was saying.
To me, if you want to compare Assange to the genuine article in terms of the kinds of things Wikileaks says it exists for, then compare Assange to Snowden. I’ve never defended what Snowden did for a variety of reasons in addition to being reckless and dangerous for basically no tangible benefit (certainly not enough of one to offset the danger of it), but that’s what it looks like when someone means what they say about what they’re doing with something like that. Snowden means it. Assange is an awful lot of big talk, but he’s kind of full of crap about his stated mission— he says he wants to hold power accountable, but he only wants to hold SOME power accountable and give other power a total pass. He talks about accountability, but he and Wikileaks embody unaccountability. He talks about openness but he doesn’t practice openness and does much of what he does in secret just like the people he says he’s trying to take down and “keep honest”. Assange is a hypocrite. Snowden is not, and that’s where you can compare and contrast between the two opposites to see examples of what each one looks like against the other.
And it should be telling that when Snowden leaked, he did not go to Wikileaks. I think what he did was most likely wrong, but I give him credit for doing it as rightly as he could, and for being honest about everything.
know anything about the whistle blower act? i should look that up. how many people have actually gone that route and is it really a viable option
I don’t know much about the whistle blower act, I’d need to look it up first myself. But I don’t think, and wouldn’t expect the whistle blower act to be effective in covering what Snowden did. I think it would be silly to expect to be covered by it for that. The whistle blower act would maybe cover him if he’d ONLY released information about a particular violation or set of violations or revealed a concerted, ongoing violation by particular people, but that isn’t what he did. He released tons of information on lots of things, many that weren’t (or at least weren’t egregious, or hadn’t been ruled against as) violations, but were things he was ideologically opposed to and/or thought the American public had a right to know about and have a voice in, or that he felt personally was wrong and shouldn’t have been going on. I’d expect the whistle blower act might cover a few of the things he leaked, but he didn’t leak them through proper channels so I’d expect even that would be a little up in the air. And even if it met the legal requirements to be covered, I still think it would be foolish for anyone to expect that it WOULD apply to them in that particular situation since it obviously involves national security, which even the Supreme Court itself makes a little murky and sticky to interpret confidently. Whether it SHOULD cover something like that is a very different animal from whether or not it actually would— at least without several years of fighting in court.
In Snowden’s case, he said he did try to go through the proper channels with his grievances first, and he said it didn’t do any good, which was part of his reasons for why he chose to do what he did. I suspect that means that he knew that what he did was not going to be legal even under the whistle blower act, but he felt that it was important enough to override being illegal so he was willing to face whatever the consequences would be for him in the end.
I think Snowden’s whistleblower act is just that. I think Russian moles in the US IC recruited him somehow. He was a player in a long game that is currently playing out on the national stage.
I can all but guarantee that didn’t happen. If the Russians really had recruited him, he wouldn’t have released what he did to the public, he would’ve given it to the Russians and they’d have kept it mostly quiet because that’s what would benefit them the most. You can pretty much tell they didn’t have him release it to the public to screw over the U.S. because the release had basically zero impact on the U.S. other than the intelligence community and Booz Allen Hamilton took a pretty big reputation hit. Other than that though, basically no impact at all. When the Russians play, they play big and they play hard.
Obviously I’m not omniscient and I can’t guarantee that I’m right any more than anyone else can, but I’ve watched practically everything he’s ever said for himself, and it tracks consistently right down the line with what he’s said about it. I’m very confident that he was honest about what he did and why, and he’s behaved 100% consistently with what he’s said ever since he leaked, too, which I wouldn’t expect to see at this point. He’s as real as it gets if you ask me. I’m waiting to see anything that suggests differently from him.
I wouldn’t trust him with a security clearance again, but I do trust him as a person.
The goal of Russians has always been to sow distrust of the American government. The Snowden affair did that. Americans believe their government is spying on them. It helped lay the foundation for the 2016 election where there were enough people who wanted “an outsider” because of a corrupt and dishonest government. It takes years to build that foundation. The Birther Movement was part of it. Snowden was part of it. Maybe unwittingly. Who helped him get to Russia (via Equador?)? Snowden may be honest, he may not be aware of the pawn role he has played in Putin’s chess game. But I appreciate your expertise and I trust your opinion, so I will do more research. Thanks for responding.
I don’t remember how he wound up having to go through Russia, or who arranged that leg of his travel, so I can’t speak to that. I do believe Snowden is unwittingly useful to the Russians, and obviously they benefit by having him there and giving him sanctuary. I fear for the guy the moment he stops being useful to them, because at that point, his entire life is back up in the air. Right now, his being there is a continual slap in the face to the U.S., and I believe that coupled with the potential to harvest his knowledge are what are making Russia so friendly toward him. He’ll need to be careful to avoid being recruited (or more likely, used) by them over time. I don’t think Snowden is a fool or naive, and he has a good head on his shoulders, which will help him there.
What I’m not as certain about is how intelligence-oriented he is in his thinking. People who work in the intelligence field have a radically different way of thinking and approaching problems and problem solving when they’re cut out for that kind of work, and it could be hard over the long haul to not accidentally leak useful information to them if you have it. They are very clever, and you have to be on your game 100% of the time to not fall prey to it. I do think Snowden probably understands how that works to some extent given his technical background, but in my experience, not everyone really understands how to apply core principles across different disciplines, so it’s not correct to assume that he’ll be equipped to protect himself as an asset while he’s under their protection. There is some real danger there. I think the likelihood of him willingly cooperating with them is toward the lower end, but that doesn’t mean they won’t be able to get anything useful out of him over time if they dedicate the resources to it, and they certainly have those resources available to them.
There is of course also the possibility that they may not value what he would have to offer that much if they’ve already got a good handle on it from other sources, and that would have to be weighed and evaluated too. Just because he’s a gold nugget doesn’t mean that they don’t already have most of that gold nugget stashed away somewhere. He’s not the only person who has his knowledge, it’s available via many other sources, and there’s the potential they’ve already been able to tap one or more of those sources. Most of what Snowden leaked publicly was stuff that wasn’t very useful to the public, because it’s long been “known” or strongly suspected. The main value he provided to the public here is that it was a legitimate confirmation of those suspicions and prior tidbits of leaks. The other value he provided to us (and unfortunately to the bad guys as well) was in regards to the extent and power of their capabilities to access that information, and some clues as to their means of aggregating and analyzing that information. Russia would have probably already had even more knowledge than we did about those things, so what he offered was likely little more than just a few tiny details that they were having to guess at, but those details do add to their capabilities by removing the risks associated with having to make those guesses and possibly being wrong. It’s likely that only our intelligence services, or those of one of our closer allies has any way to evaluate that. All we can do is shoot in the dark and recognize the other potentials.
I believe you’re right on point about Russia playing a long game in these matters— I think that’s in their nature, and it’s certainly in Putin’s nature not to be short-sighted, and to be strategically oriented.
Trump has been laundering Russian money for over a decade. Since he there is currently a grand jury convened over his RICO activities, he is very likely also heavily connected to mafia money laundering. Russia wants sanctions lifted. Russia wants to rebuild the Soviet Union as a world power. Russia wants to convince the world that diverse democracy is a failed government model and that only strongman authoritarianism works. Russia wants to own the Middle East and all its oil by pretending to fight terrorism while actually funding it. Russia wants to keep the USA from making peace with Iran.
Clinton was open about planning to be tough on Russia. Keep sanctions, condemn Russia’s land grabs in Ukraine and elsewhere. She wanted to arm the Kurds which pissed off Turkey and the Russian puppet psychopath in charge of Syria. She was a worthy adversary for Putin. He hates her. He would have no reason to hate her if she was of no consequence to his plans. At worst, the Russian plan was to make our election look like a dog and pony show, and tie Clinton up in scandals and investigations to make her presidency impotent. Trump himself outlined that plan as a prediction in one of his speeches Seth Meyers replayed this week. It sounds like he literally came back from the future and is describing everything that is happening now, only with Clinton as the target instead of himself. As if he knew exactly what the plan would be. Jared Kushner, Michael Flynn, Jeff Sessions, Paul Ryan, Mitch McConnell and others are all on board for various reasons from personal greed to greed for power to the desire to push through their agendas (cut social programs, stay in office, resegregate the USA into a white power nation, etc.). It makes perfect logical sense what Russia is doing. They want America to lose literal financial and military status in the world, and to lose respect in the world. Trump is handing that to them, and he’s doing it because they have been working together for at least 15 years, and they have him over a barrel. What Trump’s puppetmasters and co-conspirators didn’t count on was that our intelligence communities and those of our allies would be so disgusted and angry by this administration’s actions they’d start leaking all of their intel that could put a lot of people in prison for life. That’s why you keep hearing Trump, Ryan, Spicer, et al bitching about “the leakers.” No one cares what the leakers are saying if it’s all nonsense.
Sorry for the wall of text, but I’ve been meticulously following this story from June of 2016 when lesser known bloggers were writing about everything that is now being reported by MSM, and being called conspiracy theorists and whackos.
Your instincts are correct. The claim that Trump either helped the Russians hack the DNC or that for some reason the Russians wanted to check with Trump first before releasing the emails to Wikileaks are extraordinary, and extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. The only that will come of this is the might bust Flynn for a FARA paperwork error.
I have been in the position of being investigated for a mistake others above my pay grade made. I was lucky and had honest people doing the investigation. Even so, I did not sleep well for the 3 months that it took, even though I knew all along that I had done nothing wrong. I read that statement very differently than you do!
But my question is would firing one of the people investigating you GIVE YOU RELIEF? And “take the pressure off”?? You have to look at each of his words. If you are honest, that should not give you relief. Being found innocent probably did, though.
Well I certainly did not have the power to remove either of the investigators. That being said, if either or both of them appeared to be slow rolling the investigation for political reasons or decided I was the only one to be investigated and other individuals involved were not (i.e. deep state individuals in Trumps case) I certainly would have wanted to have the investigators removed.
Your point above is not addressing the point I made above. Firing an investigator would not “take the pressure off” and give you relief IF YOU ARE INNOCENT. But it would if you were guilty.
I disagree. In a democracy with a free press a guilty person is better off not firing the investigators, but rather stonewalling them. The Obama administration was extremely good at doing this. Trump is politically naive and thought that getting rid of Comey would enable him to put someone in place that would expedite the process, get it over with. He knows he is not guilty of anything wrong and just wants it to all go away. Trump does not understand that it is not whether he is guilty or not, it is whether his political enemies can keep this in the headlines until the 2018 midterm elections.
I guess you don’t understand. I’m sorry.
I understand that you think an innocent person would have behaved differently. I am saying that an innocent person who is put through that kind of of pressure is not going to behave the way you would normally expect. Agree to disagee! 🙂
Would it change anything for you to go back to the situation you experienced, except altering it such that there is no one above you in any capacity at all? Imagine that you’re the CEO, President, and chairman of the board all at the same time. Would you still have experienced things the same way?
And what if being accused of things and having to deal with courts and lawyers was something you’d already gone through dozens of times all your life, so that this wouldn’t have been an unusual circumstance for you. Would that have still left you feeling the way you did, do you think?
If the assertion is that Trump didn’t do anything wrong and he’s being wrongly accused here, then looking back over decades of Trump’s public past, we know that this is something he has dealt with pretty constantly for his whole adult life. Nothing would be new about any of this for him other than the degree of accountability he has here vs. what he’d have in his normal business domain. Have you ever seen him act even the smallest amount intimidated, or have you only ever seen him acting strong and confident? Step into those shoes and then walk back through your own experience and ask if it would differ any for you, and if so, in what ways.
Maybe you’ll still feel the same way, in which case, as you said, agree to disagree. But those are things that are necessary in order to place Trump’s words here into their proper context. If we only read other people based on our own personal experiences, we’re going to read quite a lot of people wrong, because many people are quite different than we are, so they will experience the same things very differently than we do. What makes Eyes unique in her ability is to be able to look at things through the other person’s eyes rather than her own, based on how that person would view it through their own lens vs. how she views it through her personal lens. People with different personality traits interpret things differently, and see things with different eyes, much to the bewilderment of some others.
One thing that you won’t ever see happen is that a person under the kind of pressure you’re talking about won’t ever do something inconsistent with their personality. Being under that kind of pressure causes one’s personality traits to be amplified rather than muted. That’s because the stress makes it much too difficult to focus on doing something other than what you already know how to do, or to think about things in a way that’s different from what you’ll naturally think. Situations like these expose people’s weaknesses, which is why culturally we tend to describe it as being tested by fire. The extraneous burns away, and what’s genuine is what remains (although from the outside, it can be hard for people to understand what that is vs. what they think it looks like).
I don’t know if that affords you any new insights or not, but I hope it will, even if you still reach the same conclusion. 🙂
This back and forth is like exactly what I find hard about lie detection….like I can see it both ways…so that’s why people like Eyes for Lies amaze me. When Intry to “see his side of it” then I start interpereting everything differently. Clouds all judgment. Also there is lots of noise in the media. It sounds like a din.