At least the senators could make jokes about how in German, a bus ride is a ‘Busfarht.’
Hey, we can all stop worrying about Donald Trump doing a first strike on North Korea: Wednesday’s big briefing for the entire Senate on the White House grounds (the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, actually) turned out to be little more than an exciting photo op for the Trump administration. There was no reason at all to pile almost all of the members of the Senate into a couple of buses and take them down Pennsylvania Avenue; the briefing could have just as well been held in a secure Senate room. But without the theatrics, why would anyone have paid much attention to it? Finally, we have bipartisan agreement on something: This Very Important briefing was no great shakes.
The briefing was classified, with input from Defense Secretary James Mattis, Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats, Joint Chiefs chairman General Joseph Dunford, and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who was roused from a nap to remind everyone the State Department is still, technically at least, part of the U. S. government. To underline the wholly arbitrary nature of bringing the Senate to the White House, the same crew later traveled to Capitol Hill to brief members of the House of Representative. But for the Senate briefing, Donald Trump Himself showed up for a few minutes to introduce the whole thing, as did Mike Pence. That’s what makes the Senate the more distinguished branch of Congress, you know.
