Trump on Jeff Bezos: ‘How Can I Fuck With Him?’

Gabriel Sherman, writing for Vanity Fair:

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?” […]

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.”

Josh Marshall, earlier this week, in an excellent column at Talking Points Memo:

Having a sitting President launching scathing personal attacks on a federal law enforcement officer and demanding his firing or imprisonment for personal and political motives is wildly outside the norms that govern the American system. Similarly, a President who routinely threatens prosecutorial or regulatory vengeance against private companies because they are not sufficiently politically subservient to him personally is entirely outside of our system of governance. At present, Donald Trump is an autocrat without an autocracy.

Can you even imagine the reaction from Republicans if Barack Obama had gone after, say, Rupert Murdoch in this way? And of course, Trump’s main beef with Amazon, that the U.S. Post Office is losing $1.47 on every package they deliver for Amazon, is complete bullshit. How anyone supports this president at this point is beyond my comprehension.

Amazon’s stock is taking a hit as a result of Trump’s rhetoric, but if I were an Amazon investor, I wouldn’t worry. Jeff Bezos is very, very smart. Donald Trump is not.

★ Wednesday, 4 April 2018