With the West Wing finally calm, Trump is contemplating a multi-front campaign against Jeff Bezos.

[TubbersUK]

Now, according to four sources close to the White House, Trump is discussing ways to escalate his Twitter attacks on Amazon to further damage the company. “He’s off the hook on this. It’s war,” one source told me. “He gets obsessed with something, and now he’s obsessed with Bezos,” said another source. “Trump is like, how can I fuck with him?”

According to sources, Trump wants the Post Office to increase Amazon’s shipping costs. When Trump previously discussed the idea inside the White Hose, Gary Cohn had explained that Amazon is a benefit to the Postal Service, which has seen mail volume plummet in the age of e-mail. “Trump doesn’t have Gary Cohn breathing down his neck saying you can’t do the Post Office shit,” a Republican close to the White House said. “He really wants the Post Office deal renegotiated. He thinks Amazon’s getting a huge fucking deal on shipping.”

Advisers are also encouraging Trump to cancel Amazon’s multi-billion contract with the Pentagon to provide cloud computing services, sources say. Another line of attack would be to encourage attorneys general in red states to open investigations into Amazon’s business practices. Sources say Trump is open to the ideas. (The White House did not respond to a request for comment.)

Even Trump’s allies acknowledge that much of what’s fueling Trump’s rage toward Amazon is that Amazon C.E.O. Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post, sources said. “Trump doesn’t like The New York Times, but he reveres it because it’s his hometown paper. The Washington Post, he has zero respect for,” the Republican close to the White House said. While the Post says that Bezos has no involvement in newsroom decisions, Trump has told advisers he believes Bezos uses the paper as a political weapon. One former White House official said Trump looks at the Post the same way he looks at the National Enquirer. “When Bezos says he has no involvement, Trump doesn’t believe him. His experience is with the David Peckers of the world. Whether it’s right or wrong, he knows it can be done.”

😯😯😯

Gobsmacking stuff!

ETA:

Link to tweet

Roland Scahill
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@rolandscahill
9m9 minutes ago
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If he could, Donald Trump would jail Jeff Bezos and take his assets...





https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/04/trump-war-with-amazon-and-the-washington-post-is-personal

[dalton99a]

1. So he's using the powers of the presidency to damage an American company he doesn't like.

[Proud liberal 80]

3. Yeah

You would think that would be illegal

[JHB]

2. In other words, regarding the Post, Trump is a standard conservative?

The names change, the guanopaty stays constant.

[blake2012]

5. No. This is fucking open WAR!!! Name another president

Whose done this.

[JHB]

7. Directly, or though proxies? If you just count personally, ok, you're right.

But all of them since Nixon have attacked the Post via proxies. Conservative columnists, editorial pages, pundits, "party mavericks", and ground-level ratfuckers.

They've been at war with the press in general and the Post specifically for decades. Trump's just using an air horn while his predecessors used dog whistles.

I didn't bring this up to minimize Trump, it's to not let the others off the hook.

[blake2012]

4. This is beyond psycho and Trump needs life in prison

That shitty tiny fucker deserves to the worst possible punishment we can dole out for such violations of the US Constitution to which he swore an oath.


If Trump as president acting like a FUCKING DICTATOR!!!!!!!!——is what America is now, then I fucking hate America.


FUCK YOU AMERICA to subjecting the world to this slimy toxic FUCK!!!!

[msongs]

6. better framing: republicans set out to destroy amazon. rather than personalize trump,

spread it across the board to republicans in general. attacking trump is preaching to the choir and does no good beyond give him attention and bury the real problems

[mahatmakanejeeves]

8. I'd be a lot more inclinced to take the article seriously if the author didn't keep referring to

the entity that delivers mail in the United States as the "Post Office."

It hasn't had that name in nearly fifty years. Its successor, the United States Postal Service, came into existence on July 1, 1971. I have a first day cover from that day.

Yes, I can see that Wikipedia says:

The United States Postal Service (USPS; also known as the Post Office, U.S. Mail, or Postal Service) is an independent agency of the United States federal government responsible for providing postal service in the United States, including its insular areas and associated states. It is one of the few government agencies explicitly authorized by the United States Constitution.

Maybe so, but trains don't "chug down the tracks" or go "clickety-clack" anymore either.

I don't expect Trump to know any better, but can't Vanity Fair afford a fact checker?

[RandomAccess]

9. Outtageous

I'm sure Bezos will see this -- and I hope he takes swift, ameliorative action on this starting immediately. I have mixed feelings about Bezos and even Amazon, but THIS is --- as I said, outrageous.

[kwassa]

10. Trump reads the Post? Please.

The Post is my local paper, and has been outstanding, if I need to say it again.

[hedda_foil]

11. I hope Bezos sues the living shit out of him.

If he sues Trump personally, there's no question who will have the better lawyers.