Coffee Talk with Tiff

April 15, 2026 12:35 pm EDT Tiff Coffee Talk with Tiff 0
Image credit: AI-generated illustration created with ChatGPT

It’s Wednesday…

Shitshow’s public schedule for…

04/15/2026:

Propaganda Barbie:

Punchbowl news reported on the First Ladies roundtable with Ways and Means:

First Lady Melania Trump will be on Capitol Hill this week, making a rare visit to meet with lawmakers and promote foster care efforts.

The first lady will be speaking at a closed-door roundtable Wednesday at 2 p.m. with members of the House Ways and Means Committee. The bipartisan meeting will also include witnesses from the foster care system.

Punchbowl news. 04/15/2026.

Uncomfortably Numb

We’ve all accepted that our current President is living in some la la land bubble of his own making. We’ve grown numb to his words, even his actions. It’s a coping mechanism.

But lately that numbness feels… off.

I keep wondering what the point is in documenting any of it when there’s apparently nothing that can be done to stop him. I’m tired of listening to him, tired of reading his words, tired of watching his actions chip away at the country.

Still, if we stop documenting it, if we just let it wash over us, then we’re no better than the people who sanewash it.

So I’ll keep doing it. Documenting what he says, what he does.

And maybe some of you will keep reading.

Mad King Has Thoughts…

He was asked about what he was planning to do for our economy:

Mad King:

To be honest, we’re doing so well. Look at this. I hit the 50,000 Dow mark, which everyone said could not happen in four years.

I hit the 7,000 S&P mark in less than one year, which is the number you reported. They said at the end of four years you’d hit those numbers. I did it at the end of the year.

Now we had to take a little bit of a detour, and we have to stop them from having a nuclear weapon.

If you told me in the middle of it we would have a stock market that’s almost as good as it was two months ago, just about very close, and that we would have oil that we’d be selling at 92 or whatever it is right now instead of 200, because a lot of people said 200—

This is in the midst of everything. I think we’re doing well, and people assume we’re going to win this soon. We’ve been militarily totally—

YouTube. 04/15/2026.

Inflation is up.
Real wages are down.
PPI is up.
Job growth is slow.
Stock market is not the economy.

He said the war was over but we haven’t finished yet.

Cult Member Bartiromo: Well, you keep saying was, is this war over?

Mad King: I think it’s close to over here. I mean, I view it as very close to over. You know what? If I pulled up stakes right now, it would take them 20 years to rebuild that country. And we’re not finished. We’ll see what happens. I think they want to make a deal very badly.

Cult Member Bartiromo: That’s pretty unprecedented. I mean, having direct talks like that,

Mad King: I have talks with everybody, but it’s very effective. I think you’re going to have a great deal. I’m doing a great job for the country and for the world. You know, we’ve had no help, zero, from NATO.

The Pentagon is sending thousands of additional troops into the Middle East in the coming days, as the Trump administration attempts to pressure Iran into a deal that could end the weeks-long conflict there while considering the possibility of additional strikes or ground operations if a fragile ceasefire does not hold, U.S. officials said.

The forces moving into the region include about 6,000 troops aboard the aircraft carrier USS George H.W. Bush and several warships escorting it, said current and former officials, who like some others spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss military movements. About 4,200 others with the Boxer Amphibious Ready Group and its embarked Marine Corps task force, the 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit, are expected to arrive near the end of the month.

The infusion of firepower appears likely to coalesce with warships already in the Middle East just as the two-week ceasefire is set to expire April 22. The troops will join the estimated 50,000 personnel that the Pentagon has said are involved in operations countering Iran.

Washington Post. 04/15/2026.

Don’t call it the Strait of Trump…

Cult Member Bartiromo: Do we still have the same relationship with Italy right now and Giorgia Meloni?

Mad King: No, no, she’s been negative. Anybody that turned us down for helping with this Iran situation. We do not have the same relationship, just so you know. Italy gets a lot of oil from the Strait. You can call it the Strait of Hormuz, or the Hormuz Strait, I said. Which is better? They said either is okay, but you can call it either one. The only thing you can’t call it is the Trump Strait. They don’t like that idea. By the way, speaking of that, I did a thing that people like very much, except for Mexico. I took the Gulf of Mexico. We now call it the Gulf of America. that’s not bad–

Cult Member Bartiromo: And Google changed it. I know that.

Mad King: And by the way, Google was great on that.

Says “but I hate to be controversial.”…

Cult Member Bartiromo: You want Jay Powell out of the way isn’t that the easiest way to get him out of the way to end the probe?

Mad King: Does that mean we stop a probe of a building that I would have done for $25 million that’s going to cost maybe four billion dollars? Don’t you think we have to find out what happened there? You know, we have other jobs like that, like the railroad in California, where it’s, you know, 25 times more than it was originally going to cost. And I think they’re going to end up abandoning it. Okay, that’s Gavin Newsom. Or, as I call him, Gavin Newscum, who’s so bad, but that’s the one. But I think the Federal Reserve building is just as bad. And so, whether it’s incompetence, corruption or both. I think you have to find out. I really do, I think you have to find out.

Cult Member Bartiromo: So your not going to drop the probe?

Mad King: I’m not. I have to find out.

Cult Member Bartiromo: And he said he’s not leaving. If, you know–

Mad King: Well, then I’ll have to fire him. Okay, if he’s not leaving on time, I’ve held back firing him. I’ve wanted to fire him, but I hate to be controversial. You know, I want to be uncontroversial. And you think Kevin Warsh can get confirmed—you think Thom Tillis will give you a vote–

Mad King: We’re gonna find out he might not, but that’s why Thom Tillis is no longer a senator.

Cult Member Bartiromo: Okay.

Mad King: Thom Tillis is no longer a senator, right?

Cult Member Bartiromo: Well, he’s on his way out.

Mad King: Well, no, he quit, but he quit. And I think he doesn’t want the legacy of stopping a great– a person who could be great. I think Kevin Warsh is going to be great. He doesn’t want the legacy of having an incompetent guy stay there for longer than necessary.

but I hate to be controversial.

But sure he hates being controversial.

Here’s what Fed Chair Powell said:

Reporter: And if I may, what happens if there’s no Federal Reserve chairman confirmed on May 15th? Would you stay on?

Powell: So if my successor is not confirmed by the end of my term as chair, I would serve as chair pro tem until he is confirmed. That is what the law calls for. That’s what we’ve done on several occasions, including involving me, and it’s what we’re going to do in this situation.

While I’m at it, on the question whether I will leave while the investigation is ongoing, I have no intention of leaving the board until the investigation is well and truly over with transparency and finality. I would refer you to the statement that was in the Fed’s brief that you all have seen, and I won’t have anything more for you on that.

On the question of whether I will then continue to serve as a governor after my term ends and after the investigation is over, I have not made that decision yet. I will make that decision based on what I think is best for the institution and for the people we serve.

Figuring you probably were going to set the dominoes off there. Edward and I’m not going to have any more to say on those issues. By the way. [laughter]

I forgot which YouTube I used. 03/18/2026.

Warsh’s confirmation hearing has been set:

This morning he seemed to be threatening China with war.

The R’s are fighting again…

There was some sort of vote scheduled for today but it seems to have hit a snag…

The rest of the tweet says: GOP leaders are postponing a scheduled vote this afternoon as they scramble to strike an agreement with Republican hard-liners – warrants, CBDC and a longer timeline all in play, as we’ve reported. The fail safe is a very short extension – maybe 60 days – for talks to continue. Scalise acknowledged to us they’re discussing “some amendments” now w/ GOP holdouts and WH. Warrants among the trickiest piece. Some GOP irritation with CIA Director Ratcliffe this morning – who gave a detailed pitch for a clean extension but “filibustered” through most of a closed-door House GOP meeting, some Rs argued. more inside the talks w/ @Reporter_Mia

This is an Open Thread

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About Tiff 3575 Articles
Member of the Free Press who is politically homeless and a political junkie.