Did anybody else think the bus trip was demeaning and a security risk to boot?

[DemocratSinceBirth]

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

1. What bus trip?

Don't know what you're referring to.

Perhaps I'm the only person in North America who doesn't know, but help me out here.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

2. The entire Senate took a bus to the White House to hear Trump was about North Korea.

[anneboleyn]

18. Yes it was all over the news today. The entire senate was forced to go to the White House for a

briefing that could have very easily been done the other way around. It was a ridiculous and presumably risky and unsafe venture -- moving all of the senators to listen to something that could have been presented to them.

[forgotmylogin]

33. Why would he do this?

Trump wanted them in a secure room he could control? Doesn't the Senate have secure briefing rooms?

Is Trump paranoid about leaks from the Senate?

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

34. Thank you.

I don't have a TV, and so I miss out on stuff like this. Lucky me.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

3. Yes. They got loaded onto a bus like a bunch of 2nd graders

on their way to a field trip at the zoo. Did they have to wear name tags and line up with their partners, too? Were they told to sit still on the bus and not yell or throw things or tease the other senators? Jeez... Whether it was also a security risk depends on whether the bus was adequately guarded by police (or SS, or whoever), but it was really bizarre. I'd have been tempted to say fuck the bus, I'm taking a cab.

[WinkyDink]

17. "...on their way to a field trip at the zoo." And were they NOT?!

[Luciferous]

30. That's what I thought too- it was just like a field trip. I wonder how many meals they

could have bought for Meals on Wheels with the money spent on this little excursion.

[femmocrat]

4. Yes... didn't one of the senators call it a "dog and pony show"?

And they didn't even receive any crucial or even new information. Ridiculous. They should boycott if he tries this crap again.

[tblue37]

5. Bernie refused to go to be used for an obvious photo op. nt

[femmocrat]

7. Smart move.

If I were in his position, I would have done the same, just to be contrary!

[pangaia]

9. Good for him.

[tblue37]

15. I never can understand why our Dem senators (and other Dem leaders and

officials) so often act like Charlie Brown letting Lucy convince him that this time she won't yank the football away when he tries to kick it, or trusting the kite-eating tree when it says that this time it promises not to eat his kite.

[underpants]

12. He didn't?

Good for him. I was thinking at least two should stay back for security reasons.

[SaschaHM]

29. Being a photo-op and being an actual briefing concerning a potential military strike...

are not mutually exclusive. This is the president that had a final rose style SC nomination ceremony that will have repercussions for decades. Regardless of whatever style of jackassery he decides to pull off on a given day, he's still capable of leading us into war at the drop of a hat. Something that his administration has been nudging for weeks. That's why people went. Bernie got lucky that nothing vital occurred at the briefing.

[freepotter]

6. Exactly what I thought

Bernie didn't go. Didn't want to be "part of a photo op."

[pangaia]

8. I can't believe they were all fooled by the whole thing and actually showed up.

[Demtexan]

10. Yep.

I hope they remember this when voting..

[pangaia]

13. Except Sanders, it appears.

[HoneyBadger]

35. Looks like Bernie was the smartest one

[HoneyBadger]

36. Why did Kaine, Schumer, Gillibrand, Booker, Harris, Warren, etc go?

[pangaia]

37. Right..and Schumer and Gillibrand are mine....

[Raster]

20. The rethug Senators HAD TO GO, you know, party unity, and all that...

Reasons for the Senator's White House Field Trip:

1. DISTRACTION... Anything to upstage the tRump*s administration collusion with Russia;
2. OPTICS... "See how Presidential I look";
3. POWER PLAY: "I am the President, and you have to do what I say";
4. RINSE. REPEAT.

[furtheradu]

11. heck, YEAH!

king trump ordered his subjects to come, & they ~mostly ~ did. Very few remember they are members of an equal branch of OUR government, THE checks and balances of the 'executive' branch. & YEAH, a security risk.
This was a disgusting show by all involved.

[WePurrsevere]

14. It really bugs me that they went like some friggin 'king' summoned them...

They should have refused and told him to come to them just like he'll have to with the House.

[HoneyBadger]

16. I sort of want to see the bus

[SCVDem]

32. One of the buses

had a side rear window held in with duck tape.

Nothing but the finest for his minions.

[Generic Brad]

19. It's a practice run for something sinister

That's what my gut tells me. Bernie was right to avoid the field trip. The next time might not be so uneventful.

[Tanuki]

31. Well, that's a chilling thought. We now know that there was a Cold War-era bunker

underneath the posh White Sulphur Springs Resort where the government was planning to ride out a potential nuclear war. All aboard the bus.....

[CrispyQ]

38. I thought the same thing.

A dry run for the coup. Lock up the senators threaten them with arrest if they don't get on board. CT aside, the dems were foolish to fall for this.

[Chemisse]

21. This looks like the workings of a bully.

No surprises here.

[Golden Raisin]

22. Like so many items in this disturbingly abnormal presidency,

and the preceding election and campaign, this shuttling via bus of the entire Senate to the White House is absolutely unprecedented in my lifetime (and Truman was President when I was born.) It's like some 1950's Hollywood toga and sandals Roman epic pic in which the mad Emperor Caligula or Nero summons the Senate to him.

[msongs]

23. power play to show who is the dominant male...and it worked. dems fell for it nt

[cwydro]

24. I was busy all day and missed it.

But I'm gobsmacked that those fools agreed to that. I cannot believe it.

We are truly living in bizarro world.

[smirkymonkey]

25. Certainly demeaning.

I can't think of any other reason why he would do this other than to humiliate them and make them feel impotent.

[left-of-center2012]

26. King Trump commanded their appearance

And they obeyed.

[zentrum]

27. It was a dominance

...display by 45. It's what he does when he shakes hands with men---he does dominance body language.

Bernie figured it out in advance and didn't go.

[SaschaHM]

28. Yeah, but...

Just because something is a photo-op doesn't mean it will be inconsequential...

His "Final Rose" style SC pick ceremony is going to have repercussions for 40-50 years.