President Trump Remarks at the Central Intelligence Agency [Transcripts]

[scullies]

President Trump spoke to employees in the lobby of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) headquarters in Langley, Virginia. It was his first event on his first full day as president.

Video does not embed and can be viewed at the source. Full transcripts are included below.

Comments

[beoweasel]

Holy shit, the sheer Night and Day between Pence and Trump's speeches is just...mind boggling. Yeah, Pence is a shit-stain of a human being with repugnant views, but at least he's capable of staying on point and maintaining a coherent thought process.

[cherriesarered]

I'm not sure who to be more afraid of, tbh. If we impeached Trump, we would get rid of the aggressive, incredibly incompetent demagogue...and replace him with a hateful, bigoted person who might use the platform to really go after queer people and the other groups he hates?

[beoweasel]

Thing is, though, Trump has picked people like Jeff Sessions, Stephan Bannon, and a slew of other hateful, bigoted people for his cabinet. I honestly don't think that much would change policy wise.

[sabrinita]

Indeed. Honestly, I feel like these people will be mostly running things regardless of whether we have Trump the figurehead as president or Pence >.>

[cherriesarered]

Yeah, fair enough. I'm a little afraid that Pence would more actively target certain groups, but I think you're probably right that there's not a whole lot that would change when all of the parts of the government are already working towards similar goals.

[mickeym]

So if the VP takes over, s/he would keep the cabinet members appointed by the president? S/he wouldn't choose their own cabinet?

[sabrinita]

It's been a while since we've had a VP take over for a president..LBJ taking over for JFK was the last time I think? (Unless you count Ford taking over for Nixon, but Ford was Speaker and not VP). So..I'm not entirely sure

[eveofrevolution]

[sabrinita]

Oops, I didn't know any of this. My bad, it was 15ish years before I was born but that's still no excuse. I guess I just always assumed Nixon and Agnew resigned at the same time and that following the line of succession Ford was the Speaker. Thanks for the lesson!

[eveofrevolution]

[redstar826]

Cabinet members can be replaced by whomever is president. Cabinet members are also free to resign, which could happen if they were to dislike the new president.

[mickeym]

Thank you :)

Though from the line-up we're seeing, there's no reason to think Pence would change anything (if he were to become president).

Grr.