Donald Trump Refuses to Give Actual Answer on Policy Questions

This is the second part of my review of Trump’s interview with the Washington Post editorial board (click here for the first part). The reporters kept asking Trump for a specific policy proposal that Trump would make about how he would reform libel laws. Trump couldn’t name anything that he would actually do. He spent mainly spent the whole time complaining about stories that have been written about him and his candidacy. Even when the editorial board suggested reforms to him, he refused to take the bait and actually give any concrete proposals for what he would do.

RYAN: My question is not so much why you feel [libel laws] should be open but how. What presidential powers and executive actions would you take to open up the libel laws?

It’s so sweet, it sounds like he actually expects Trump to have some actual, real policy proposals.

TRUMP: Okay, look, I’ve had stories written about me – by your newspaper and by others – that are so false, that are written with such hatred – I’m not a bad person. I’m just doing my thing – I’m, you know, running, I want to do something that’s good. It’s not an easy thing to do. I had a nice life until I did this, you know. This is a very difficult thing to do. In fact I’ve always heard that if you’re a very successful person you can’t run for office. And I can understand that. You’ll do a hundred deals, and you’ll do one bad one or two bad ones — that’s all they read about are the bad ones. They don’t read about the one hundred and fifty great ones that you had. And even some of the ones they write that are good, they make them sound bad. You know, so I’ve always heard that. I’ve heard that if you’re successful – very successful – you just can’t run for—

Well, so far it’s just a rambling answer. There’s nothing in way of polciy proposals in there. Just complaining. Let’s try again.

RYAN: But how would you fix that? You’ve said that you would open up the libel laws.

TRUMP: What I would do, what I would do is I’d – well right now the libel laws, I mean I must tell you that the Hulk Hogan thing was a tremendous shock to me because – not only the amount and the fact that he had the victory — because for the most part I think libel laws almost don’t exist in this country, you know, based on, based on everything I’ve seen and watched and everything else, and I just think that if a paper writes something wrong — media, when I say paper I’m talking about media. I think that they can do a retraction if they’re wrong. They should at least try to get it right. And if they don’t do a retraction, they should, they should you know have a form of a trial. I don’t want to impede free press, by the way. The last thing I would want to do is that. But I mean I can only speak for – I probably get more – do I, I mean, you would know, do I get more publicity than any human being on the earth? Okay? I mean, [Editor’s note: Trump points at Ruth Marcus] she kills me, this one – that’s okay, nice woman.

Nope, still no coherent answer. Let’s try a third time.

RYAN: Would you expand, for example, prior restraints against publications?

This time, he even suggested a policy that could conceivably be changed. Trump won’t take that bait, though.

TRUMP: No, I would just say this. All I want is fairness. So unfair. I have stories and you have no recourse, you have no recourse whatsoever because the laws are really impotent.

Fourth time’s a charm?

MARCUS: So in a better world would you be able to sue me?

TRUMP: In a better world — no — in a better world I would be able to get a retraction or a correction. Not even a retraction, a correction.

Nope, still just complaining.

RYAN: Well, now, you’ve been a plaintiff in libel suits so you know a little bit of the elements …

TRUMP: I had one basic big libel suit, it was a very bad system, it was New Jersey. I had a great judge, the first one, and I was going to win it. And then I had another good judge, the second one, and then they kept switching judges. And the third one was a bad judge. That’s what happened. But, uh…

Fifth time is still just complaining about a lawsuit, which he lost. Of course, I don’t know how he lost the suit since he’s such “winner.”

RYAN: But there’s standards like malice is required. Would you weaken that? Would you require less than malice for news organizations?

These silly reporters. They’re still giving him actual policy ideas. Let’s see if Trump decides to add any substance to his sixth attempt to answer.

TRUMP: I would make it so that when someone writes incorrectly, yeah, I think I would get a little bit away from malice without having to get too totally away. Look, I think many of the stories about me are written badly. I don’t know if it’s malice because the people don’t know me. When Charles writes about me or when Ruth writes about me, you know, we’ve never really met. And I get these stories and they’re so angry and I actually say, I actually say, “How could they write?” – and many stories I must tell you, many stories are written that with a brief phone call could be corrected before they’re written. Nobody calls me.

Nope, just more complaining. And maybe reporters would be more likely to try to contact him if he actually had an actual press relations operation instead of using a “twentysomething former Ralph Lauren model who’s never previously worked in politics” as his entire press team.

Seven’s a lucky number, right? At least, it’s the last question in this thread.

STEPHEN STROMBERG, EDITORIAL WRITER: How are you defining “incorrect?” It seems like you’re defining it as fairness or your view of fairness rather than accuracy.

TRUMP: Fairness, fairness is, you know, part of the word. But you know, I’ve had stories that are written that are absolutely incorrect. I’ll tell you now and the word “intent”, as you know, is an important word, as you know, in libel. I’ll give you an example.

They leave the topic for a little bit, but they come back to it a bit later. I think journalists really care a lot about libel laws.

HIATT: But just – given the Supreme Court rulings on libel — Sullivan v. New York Times — how would you change the law?

TRUMP: I would just loosen them up.

RUTH MARCUS: What does that mean?

TRUMP: I’d have to get my lawyers in to tell you, but I would loosen them up. I would loosen them up. If The Washington Post writes badly about me – and they do, they don’t write good – I mean, I don’t think I get – I read some of the stories coming up here, and I said to my staff, I said, “Why are we even wasting our time? The hatred is so enormous.” I don’t know why. I mean, I do a good job. I have thousands of employees. I work hard.

We’re now at nine times they’ve asked about it, and Trump is stil going on complaining about the press coverage, but not answering what he would actually do to change the situation.

RYAN: Would that be the standard then? If there is an article that you feel has hatred, or is bad, would that be the basis for libel?

TRUMP: No, if it’s wrong. If it’s wrong.

They tried giving him an actual polciy answer. Again. And Trump refuses to take the bait. Again. (We’re now up to 9 questions on it. Number 10 is coming up next.)

RYAN: Wrong whether there’s malice or not?

TRUMP: I mean, The Washington Post never calls me. I never had a call, “Why – why did you do this?” or “Why did you do that?” It’s just, you know, like I’m this horrible human being. And I’m not. You know, the one thing we have in common I think we all love the country. Now, maybe we come at it from different sides, but nobody ever calls me. I mean, Bob Costa calls about a political story – he called because we’re meeting senators in a little while and congressmen, supporters – but nobody ever calls.

Still just complaining, of course. Maybe his policy proposal would be if you’re going to write anything critical of a politician, you need to call them for comment first. How would that even be remotely possible in the real world?

RYAN: The reason I keep asking this is because you’ve said three times you’ve said we are going to open up the libel laws and when you ask you what you mean you say hatred, or bad–

TRUMP: I want to make it more fair from the side where I am, because things are said that are libelous, things are said about me that are so egregious and so wrong, and right now according to the libel laws I can do almost nothing about it because I’m a well-known person you know, etc., etc.

And the elevent time. He kind of gets to an actual policy proposal here. Of cours, you’d have to read between the lines, but if you squint you can make out an actual policy proposal that famous people don’t have as much protection from libel laws as private citizens.

On Donald Trump’s Interview with WaPo

Donald Trump did an interview with the Washington Post editorial board the other day. The more I read of it, the sadder I became. It boggles my mind that somebody who is that idiotic and that much of a liar could be the likely presidential nominee for one of the two major political parties in our country. This post ended up being really long so I split it up into two different posts. Later this week, there’s a full post coming just on the many times Trump refused to answer a question about what specific policy proposals he would make in the area of reforming libel laws. Today’s post covers all the other topics discussed in the interview.

The interview started with Trump naming the “foreign policy advisors” he’d been promising to name for a while now.

RYAN: Thank you… We’ve heard you’re going to be announcing your foreign policy team shortly… Any you can share with us?
TRUMP: Well, I hadn’t thought of doing it, but if you want I can give you some of the names… Walid Phares, who you probably know, PhD, adviser to the House of Representatives caucus, and counter-terrorism expert; Carter Page, PhD; George Papadopoulos, he’s an energy and oil consultant, excellent guy; the Honorable Joe Schmitz, [former] inspector general at the Department of Defense; [retired] Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg; and I have quite a few more. But that’s a group of some of the people that we are dealing with.

Walid Phares is a “counter-terrorism expert” in the sense that he thinks that there is a Muslim conspiracy which controls the United States. Carter Page has written that the U.S. pushed Russia to annex Crimea. Joe Schmitz “slowed or blocked investigations of senior Bush administration officials, spent taxpaer money on pet projects and accepted gits that may have violated ethics guidelines” while h ewas the inspector general at the DoD. He also pivoted from being the inspector general to being a senior official at the parent company of Blackwater. (And unrelated to his foreign policy credetials, his sister is Mary Kay Letourneau. Wow.)

So we’re having a news conference today in the new building that’s going up, and the building is very much ahead of schedule, because it was supposed to open two years from September, and we’re going to open it in September.

In one of his many lies, Trump pulled the “two years from September” out of his ass. Back in 2013 when the building was announced, it was scheduled to be opened “in late 2015 or early 2016.”

They chose us over—I think they had more than 100 people who bid…

The General Services Administration, which managed the bids, wouldn’t say at the time how many bids were submitted. But when they solicited bids on the same building in 2005, they said that they received 20 submisions. Most likely, Trump pulled this number out of his ass, too.

HIATT: If I could, I’d start by asking is there a secretary of state and a secretary of defense in the modern era who you think have done a good job? Who do you think were the best?
TRUMP: Well, because I know so many of them, and because in many cases I like them, I hate to get totally involved.

God, I can’t stand the pompousness of this response.

HIATT: Short of nation building, is there any role in promoting values or democracy? Or that’s not something…
TRUMP: Well, there is, I just think that we have values in our country that we have to promote. We have a country that is in bad shape, it’s in bad condition. You look at our inner cities, our inner cities are a horrible mess. I watched Baltimore, I have many, many friends in Baltimore, we watched what happened. St. Louis, Ferguson, Oakland, it could have been much worse over the summer.

HIATT: So what would you do for Baltimore, let’s say.
TRUMP: Well, number one, I’d create economic zones. I’d create incentives for companies to move in. I’d work on spirit because the spirit is so low, it’s incredible, the unemployment, you look at unemployment for black youth in this country, African American youth, is 58-59 percent. It’s unthinkable. Unemployment for African Americans – not youth, but African Americans – is very high. And I would create in the inner cities, which is what I really do best, that’s why when I open a building and I show you it’s way ahead of schedule, under budget and everything else…

This number just didn’t make sense to me. I found this PolitiFact article on Bernie Sanders making a similar claim, when he said that the “real unemployment rate” for African-American youth was 51%. It turns out that’s not the unemployment rate for that demographic, which was 31.8%, but what a left-of-center think tank called a measure of “labor underutilization” or “underemployment,” because it included part-time workers in it. It appears that Trump took something Sanders said, which was already exaggerated, and exaggerated it even more.

And, he was using Baltimore to talk about African-Americans being unhappy with the way their cities were run, saying that we were putting to much money into foreign aid when it should be going to domestic programs. Since he brought up Baltimore, he was asked about that.

HIATT: The root of many people’s unhappiness in Baltimore was the perception that blacks are treated differently by law enforcement. And the disproportionate – do you think it’s a problem that the percentage of blacks in prison is higher than whites, and what do you think is the root of that situation?
TRUMP: Well I’ve never really see anything that – you know, I feel very strongly about law enforcement. And, you know, if you look at the riot that took place over the summer, if that were stopped – it all, it mostly took place on the first evening, and if that were stopped on the first evening, you know, you’d have a much nicer city right now, because much of that damage and much of the destruction was done on Evening One. So I feel that law enforcement, it’s got to play a big role. It’s got to play a big role. But that’s a pretty good example, because tremendous amounts of damage was done that first evening – first two evenings, but the first evening in particular. And so I’m a very strong believer in law enforcement, but I’m also a very strong believer that the inner cities can come back.

Trump is asked about racial disparities in prison rates, and instead tries to give a pep talk for law enforcement, totally ignoring the question. Of course, he knows that his supporters don’t care about the Black Lives Matter movement, but will love the law and order talk.

HIATT: Do you see any racial disparities in law enforcement – I mean, what set it off was the Freddie Gray killing, as you know. Is that an issue that concerns you?
TRUMP: Well, look, I mean, I have to see what happens with the trial. I—
HIATT: Well, forget Freddie Gray, but in general, do you believe there are disparities in law enforcement?
TRUMP: I’ve read where there are and I’ve read where there aren’t. I mean, I’ve read both. And, you know, I have no opinion on that.

This shows just a complete lack of an ability to think critically, or even to desire to think critically. If you want to be the President of the United States, you need to be able to converse on issues. And to just say, “Eh, whatever,” doesn’t cut it.

RUTH MARCUS, COLUMNIST: But Mr. Trump, if I could just follow up on Fred’s question. I think that what he was trying to get at was the anger in the African American community that held some of the riots and disturbances this summer about disparate treatment and about … clearly you say you’ve read where there is disparate treatment. But it is pretty undeniable that there is disproportionate incarceration of African Americans vs. whites. What would you – is that something that concerns you?
TRUMP: That would concern me, Ruth. It would concern me. But at the same time it can be solved to a large extant with jobs. You know, if we can rebuild those communities and create incentives for companies to move in and create jobs. Jobs are so important. There are no jobs. There are none. You go to those communities and you can’t – there is nothing there.

If that concerns Trump, then why did he just deflect four straight questions on the topic? And to say that bringing jobs to the inner city will solve the problem ignores that with so many people having criminal records, they have a much harder time getting a job. That’s why there’s the “Ban the Box” movement to prevent employers from using criminal history to automatically deny employment to formerly-incarcerated people.

CHARLES LANE, EDITORIAL WRITER/COLUMNIST: So I guess the question, then, is what’s different specifically about your approach to these issues from what’s been tried in the past, because a lot of effort has been put in just the direction you just described.
TRUMP: I think what’s different is we have a very divided country. And whether we like it or not, it’s divided as bad as I’ve ever seen it. I‘ve been, you know, I’ve been doing things for a long time. I see it all the time. I mean I see it so often. I see it when we go out and we have 21,000 people in Phoenix, Arizona, the other day, the division – not so much Phoenix, because that was actually very smooth, there wasn’t even a minor, they did block a road, but after that, that was Sheriff Joe Arpaio, when the road was unblocked everyone left and it was fine. But in Tucson, you can see the division. You can see the division. There’s a racial division that’s incredible actually in the country. I think it’s as bad, I mean you have to say it’s as bad or almost as bad as it’s ever been.

I cannot believe that Trump seems to be complaining about the racial divisions in this country, and specifically at his rallies, when he’s been driving that division by specifically using race-based statements (i.e. ban all Muslims).

TRUMP: And one thing I thought that would happen, and it hasn’t happened, unfortunately, I thought that President Obama would be a great cheerleader for the country. And it just hasn’t happened.

I think it might be important to note that Trump was one of the biggest cheerleaders trying to de-legitamitize President Obama with the birther conspiracy theory.

Trump goes into talking about the protestor getting beaten at his rally in Tuscon (sadly, we need to clarify which rally because it’s happened at multiple sites now). So he kinda-sorta answers this question, but he’s still a long ways off from a ny real policy answer. Oh, well.

TRUMP: We don’t condone violence at all but it’s very, very unfair reporting and we, you know…
HIATT: Sorry, when you say we don’t condone violence —
TRUMP: I say that.
HIATT: You say that. But you’ve also said, “In the good old days, he would have been ripped out of his seat so fast, you wouldn’t believe it.” Isn’t that condoning violence?
TRUMP: No, because what I am referring to is, we’ve had some very bad people come in. We had one guy — and I said it — he had the voice — and this was what I was referring to — and I said, “Boy, I’d like to smash him.”

He doesn’t condone violence but he also wants to handle protesters “like the good old days” and says from the stage that he’d “like to smash” a protester. That seems to be condoning violence by any normal definition of the words. Trump can literally prove he was lying in the very next sentence he speaks.

A bit later, after talking about libel laws, the reporters then change the topic to foreign relations.

TRUMP: I mean, we pay billions– hundreds of billions of dollars to supporting other countries that are in theory wealthier than we are.
DIEHL: Hundreds of billions?
TRUMP: Billions. Well if you look at Germany, if you look at Saudi Arabia, if you look at Japan, if you look at South Korea — I mean we spend billions of dollars on Saudi Arabia, and they have nothing but money. And I say, why?

In 2014, our total foreign aid budget was about $35 billion. The “hundreds of billions” line was (once again) just pulled out of Trump’s ass. And only four countries received more than $1 billion total: Israel ($3.1), Egypt ($1.5), Afghanistan ($1.1) and Jordan ($1.0). In 2012, the U.S. gave almost $1.5 million to Saudi Arabia, which in case you aren’t a math person is a lot less than a billion.

That was just some of the easily-checkable things that Trump lied about in the interview. God help us if he’s ever elected to anything. I think he could destroy my hometown just be being elected dog-catcher.

Innumeracy and Cybersecurity Reports

Back in high school, I had to read the book “Innumeracy,” by John Allen Paulos. The subtitle of the book is “Mathematical Illiteracy and Its Consequences.” I guess since I became a math teacher and still remember the book all these years later, the book must have had some kind of an influence on me. I don’t teach math anymore, but it still annoys me when I see smart people make statements that don’t hold up to mathematical scrutiny. Usually, these people aren’t trying to be misleading. They just aren’t looking at what they’re saying through a mathematical lens. That happened a couple days ago while reading Politic’s Morning Cybersecurity newsletter.

The newsletter had a short section on FireEye and their trends report which found that companies have reduced the time needed to identify an attack. d gotten The report had gotten some press for finding that the median number of days attackers were present on a victim’s network had dropped from 205 days in 2014 down to 146 days in 2015. In talking to Politico, FireEye’s GM of Canadian operations Ajay Sood downplayed the finding, saying that, “the improvement was driven by a small number of businesses that discovered breaches themselves,” and that for attacks discovered by third-parties (i.e. not self-identified by the victim) the attacks remain undetected for just as long.

There are a couple things I see wrong with using that reason to downplay the findings. First of all, the report specifically says the median length of time had dropped significantly. Medians are not as influenced by a few outliers as the mean average. A quick refresher: the median is found by lining all the numbers up from shortest to longest and selecting the middle number. The mean is found by adding up every number and dividing by the total number of entries. I won’t go into the details, but this means that the mean is influenced a lot more by a few outliers than the median is. This is why home prices or incomes in a given neighborhood or city are normally given in terms of the median, so that a few really expensive homes or high-income earners don’t skew the results in a misleading way.

There’s a more subtle problem with the FireEye report, too. The number they use is often taken as the gospel truth. The problem is that the report is based on investigations that Mandian/FireEye have been a part of. There are a lot of incidents where an internal security team identifies an attempted breach and responds to it, using internal resources, before the incident is able to become a million dollar problem like Target experienced. (If there aren’t any such instances, then why are companies spending millions on creating Security Operations Centers?) None of these incidents will make it into the Mandiant report, because a third-party consultant wasn’t called in. But, if you wanted a real, mathematically accurate idea of the amount of time attackers are on a victim’s network then those incidents should also be included. That makes it a lot harder question to answer, though. It’s a lot easier just to use Mandiant’s number, which is why you keep seeing it.

The other problem, not related to math, I have with Sood’s comment is that if the median time to discover a breach is coming down because more companies are discovering breaches with their internal systems instead of using the Krebs IDS, that’s a good thing. It doesn’t make any sense to downplay that improvement just because some other companies didn’t improve as fast.