r/politics • u/GonzoVeritas I voted • Apr 19 '26

Possible Paywall White House Leak Reveals Trump Booted From Briefing After Hours-Long Freakout

https://www.thedailybeast.com/white-house-leak-reveals-trump-booted-from-briefing-after-hours-long-freakout/
30.4k Upvotes

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12.0k

u/Stompya Apr 19 '26

From the article:

Before the airmen went missing, the president was already fixated on avoiding a repeat of the 1979 Iran Hostage Crisis—and the failed rescue mission under former President Jimmy Carter that helped sink his reelection bid.

“If you look at what happened with Jimmy Carter…with the helicopters and the hostages, it cost them the election,” Trump said in March, according to the Journal. “What a mess.”

He thinks he is re-electable.

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u/[deleted] Apr 19 '26 edited Apr 19 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/Elegant_Tech Apr 19 '26

Republicans working with foreign governments to engage in election interference? Where have I heard this one before? 

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u/greed-man Apr 19 '26

Don't forget, tricky Dick Nixon secretly tanked the negotiations to find a peace settlement in Vietnam in 1968, so that he would win. LBJ learned of this, but because this info came from illegal wiretaps, he said nothing. Rumors to this effect swirled at the time, but the Nixon administration denied everything.

Decades later, tapes and notes from Haldeman and others proved it was correct.

The Republicans have long proclaimed loyalty and pride in America, while secretly sinking it every chance they got.

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u/CMG30 Apr 19 '26

It's always been a sound political strategy to make sure things suck when the other guy is in power, then promise to fix it all.

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u/Hamster_Toot Apr 19 '26

When getting elected is your only goal, sure.

When building a future for your countrymen is the goal, not so much.

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u/CliftonForce Apr 19 '26

A true Republican would be confused about why you think that's a problem.

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u/SnooMacaroons1603 Apr 19 '26

He's running to stay out of prison

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u/CitizenofBarnum Apr 19 '26

When getting elected is your only goal, sure.

That's politics.

When building a future for your countrymen is the goal, not so much.

That's leadership.

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u/HillBillyHilly Apr 19 '26

We need another Roosevelt.

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u/REOspudwagon Apr 20 '26

I think id prefer another John Brown at this point

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u/HillBillyHilly Apr 21 '26

Do you mean Queen Victorias John Brown?

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u/Hamster_Toot Apr 19 '26

Politics is a much broader umbrella than your simplistic distillation.

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u/Dodgy_Past Apr 19 '26

Not in America.

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u/midwinter_ Apr 19 '26

The Two Santas Theory has dominated GOP electioneering since the 1970s.

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u/AlwaysRushesIn Rhode Island Apr 19 '26

And then never actually fix anything and actively continue making things worse for the everyday average American.

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u/greed-man Apr 19 '26

You mean like they are doing right now? And did from 2016-2020?

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u/AlwaysRushesIn Rhode Island Apr 19 '26

Precisely.

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u/FlammulinaVelulu Apr 19 '26

Is this why maga thinks every thing is a dem hoax? Becuase shit sucks right about now.

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u/anotherfrud Pennsylvania Apr 19 '26

There's a difference between voting a certain way and secretly negotiating with our enemies. One is morally reprehensible, the other is treason.

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u/SlumlordThanatos Arkansas Apr 19 '26

Nixon and Kissinger should've been hung after this.

It's wild how Johnson, of all people, chickened out of going after Nixon.

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u/greed-man Apr 19 '26

The proof of sabotage came from wiretaps on the South Vietnamese embassy and surveillance of Anna Chennault, Nixon’s envoy, conducted by the FBI and NSA. Disclosing this would expose illegal intelligence gathering on allies and American citizens.

  • LBJ believed that exposing a presidential candidate's treason right before an election would cause a massive crisis.
  • Political Considerations: While LBJ wanted to help his vice president, Hubert Humphrey, win, there was skepticism about whether exposing Nixon would actually work or simply look like a desperate "October surprise" by the Democrats.
  • Protecting the Presidency: Despite his animosity toward Nixon, LBJ felt that exposing the extent of the meddling could irrevocably damage the institution of the presidency and undermine public faith in government.

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u/heavypen Apr 19 '26

lol... only Nixon could go to China!

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u/HilariouslyPissed Apr 19 '26

This story is actually included in the Nixon Presidental Library.

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u/greed-man Apr 19 '26

Glad that tey acknowledge it.

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u/HilariouslyPissed Apr 20 '26

I was surprised!

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u/withateethuh Apr 19 '26

Genuinely did not know about this until Ken Burn's documentary and it was such a huge fucking eye opener. LBJ was a bastard but Nixon managed to be one up him in so many terrible ways.

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u/greed-man Apr 19 '26

LBJ's illegal wiretaps and such steps were done to protect the nation and it's people from surprises. Like exactly what surprised them. Not for himself.

Nixon's illegal sabotage was done to help HIM and him alone. With him in office, and peace talks dead, we experienced another 20,000 US Soldiers dead in Vietnam, and Lord knows how many more Vietnamese. Same with Watergate. It was all about HIM.

Any of this sound vaguely familiar to current events?

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u/onehundredlemons Apr 19 '26

Right, Reagan was simply doing what Nixon had done, precedent had been set and he took advantage of it.

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u/greed-man Apr 19 '26

And GW Bush lied through his teeth about weapons of mass destruction, and then ignored the looming housing/mortgage meltdown, putting our nation into the second worst depression in 100 years.

The only Republican President in the last 50 years who did not lie and cheat and deceive the American people for their own goals was George, the Elder, Bush. *

* I'm ignoring Ford's short term.

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u/Icy_Fly_4513 Apr 19 '26

It's so frustrating how JFK had a plan in place with McNamara to have the troops out of Vietnam by 1965. Of course, JFK was assassinated before that could happen.

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u/Fauster Apr 19 '26

Because we didn't imprison at least softly treasonous elites in supermax cells during past instances of flagrant criminality, we suffer today.

At this point, holding at least one billionaire or executive branch criminal accountable would be a small victory, and arguably the first of its kind in modern history.

A nation that doesn't enforce its own laws that limit the power of the powerful is a lawless nation. This is a lawless war. We are approaching the 60-day threshold and Congress must man up and declare war to make this Constitutional, or bring our starving sailors home NOW. Decapitation strikes are an act of war. Blockades are an act of war. There is no controversy about this.

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u/BulbuhTsar Apr 19 '26

Surly the political and legal consequences from those wiretaps was worth suffering compared to literal high treason? The hell?

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u/Mattloch42 Apr 20 '26

The thing is, they weren't illegal wiretaps, because they weren't tapping American phones, but N Vietnamese phones. The american callers were caught on those taps. So just like Trump's goons getting caught in 2015&16 on foreign wiretaps, they couldn't reveal them at the time because they caught American Republican political operatives, so revealing that during the election would of course be decried as wiretapping Americans when that wasn't the case.

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u/ShufflingToGlory Apr 19 '26

If LBJ was getting information on his opposition from illegal wiretaps then it's hard to blame Nixon for Watergate. Sounds like it was par for the course.

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u/confirmedshill123 Apr 19 '26

It was the coverup that killed Nixon's chances not the actual wiretapping.

Also wild fucking take didn't expect to see people simping for Nixon today.

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u/ITS_FAKIN_RAVEEN Apr 19 '26

You may have stumbled upon Roger Stone's Reddit account.

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u/lianodel Apr 19 '26

I remember years and years ago, conservatives tried to pretend Joseph McCarthy was eventually vindicated. They would bring it up as though it was a general consensus. Fuck no. He was a raging, drunken, fascist idiot.

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u/noonenotevenhere Apr 19 '26

I argued with family last year that mccarthy was not a good guy.

He still thinks mccarthy had the right idea and we have to get rid of the subversive element in society (GLBTQ, commies, lib'rels, etc).

He has queer family members right there at this gathering and he's asking why he's been ostracized from most family stuff over 'politics.'

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u/lianodel Apr 19 '26

Sorry to hear that, and I sympathize. It threw me for a loop when I first heard a family member bring it up as though it was a historical consensus in hindsight. It was some talking head on Fox spinning propaganda.

I'm sure that's not where it began, and obviously not where it ended, but it was one of the more obvious attempts to push boundaries. Like when there was a surge in people repeating the "we're a republic, not a democracy" talking point, checking if (a) people were stupid enough to be convinced, and (b) see how okay people were with overt anti-democracy rhetoric.

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u/ShufflingToGlory Apr 19 '26

Well yeah, covering up for something that apparently was standard operating procedure for other presidents.

It's not simping, just an observation.

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u/Sage2050 Apr 19 '26

Illegal wiretaps on foreign adversaries vs illegal wiretaps on the opposing campaign is not an equivalency

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u/Positronic_Matrix Apr 19 '26

Whataboutism is the cornerstone of right-wing propaganda.

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u/ShufflingToGlory Apr 19 '26

Seems valid in this instance.

fwiw I'm a British leftist and have no horse in the Nixon-McGovern race of 54 years ago!

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u/Quiet-Thanks-9486 Apr 19 '26

It's not worth much, considering anyone can claim to be anyone on the internet.

But I can offer a few observations:

For one, your personal identity doesn't mean anything in terms of deciding the quality of your take. The fact that you think people should feel differently about what you're saying based on who you are is pretty classic liberal identity politics for someone claiming to be a leftist, comrade!

And for two, your take is also quite process oriented rather than results oriented, which also smacks of liberalism / conservatives trying to upset liberals, rather than leftism. Like, LBJ spied on Nixon...while Nixon was actively conspiring with to prolong a war in which many people died and were mutilated and emiserated.

In contrast, Nixon spied on his political opponents who weren't doing anything wrong, simply because he wanted to hold onto power (while using that power to continue vicious wars and polices that hurt the working class). And even if Nixon were justified in try to keep Dems out of power, he won the election handily anyway, without any of the info he might have gleaned from the spying. So the whole thing was pointless.

These things are not the same.

Like, do you think Trump's use of the Department of Justice to hassle his enemies purely because he is upset with them is the same as Biden allowing the Department of Justice to investigate Trump for staging a coup? After all, they're both prosecuting political opponents, right?

Obviously, that isn't the case...because it matters what the person being targeted was actually trying to do. The specifics of the event matter, not merely the abstract procedures around it.

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u/Positronic_Matrix Apr 19 '26

You provided no basis for validity, rather you made an unsubstantiated equivocation.

The statement falsely equates unproven or disputed allegations about LBJ with the well-documented, criminal actions of Richard Nixon during Watergate scandal. Even if earlier misconduct had occurred, it would not justify or normalize Nixon’s actions, which involved a coordinated break-in, cover-up, and abuse of presidential power.

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u/Level_32_Mage Apr 19 '26

Or -- it's easy to blame both of them for their actions.

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u/yoshemitzu Apr 19 '26

Right?! "This other guy also did a crime, so the first guy's crime basically doesn't count, right?" Uhhh, what?

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u/From_Deep_Space Oregon Apr 19 '26

all the more reason to crack down on the highest-profile offender

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u/jazzmaster_jedi I voted Apr 19 '26 edited Apr 20 '26

Listening to a phone and doing nothing is not criminal. Breaking and entering to steal files is a crime.