One of the hosts of Fox and Friends called Donald Trump a dictator, and I could not be more tickled about it. Seriously, I’ve watched the clip like 4 times, and I laughed equally hard every time. The only big shame is that the camera wasn’t on Abby Huntsman or any of the other jackasses, including Anthony “the Mooch” Scaramucci, at the time, so I couldn’t see them look deer in headlines. That would have been television magic on par with the moon landing. Huntsman later went on to clarify that it was just a slip of the tongue in the moment on Live TV. I’d like to offer an alternative explanation: She said what she thought was true at the time and had to be corrected later. I can’t prove that, but I think we all know it’s the truth in our heart of hearts.
Here’s the thing, I feel like even the most ardent supporters of Presidents past weren’t afraid to admit their guy made questionable judgments. Bush diehards were pretty angry to find out that the whole WMD in Iraq thing was a crock. Sure they didn’t yell for impeachment, and stood by their guy, but they could admit he was being shady. Obama supporters, more often than not were willing to admit that some shady dealings seemed to go on behind the scenes. But Trump’s cult of personality seems to have eclipsed rational discourse at this point. Among his supporters and party members, everyone else is at fault. His dissenters are all traitors and the media is all fake news and liars, except Fox News, which is basically an organization of true blue patriots. I just don’t know that there is a point where enough is enough any more. Which is a scary thought indeed.
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I might be going crazy, but did Sean Hannity just try to tamper with witnesses in an ongoing federal investigation? I mean, he literally went on the air, and told anyone who was a witness in the investigation that before they hand over their phones to Mueller, that they should methodically (and he was alarmingly specific about what he thinks they should do) destroy the data on their phones, before physically destroying the actual phones, then hand THAT over to Mueller. Considering that Paul Manafort is under the gun for Witness Tampering, I’d have thought other Trump associates would be working a bit harder to keep themselves off that particular radar, yet here Hannity is, trying to outsmart the feds. But it appears even the brilliant mind of Sean Hannity can’t recall every method of getting past the long reach of the Feds.
Sometimes I genuinely wonder if Rudy Giuliani is on Donald Trump’s side. I mean, at a certain point, I remember thinking Giuliani was a reasonable person. Sure, he’s always been highly conservative in his politics, but I vaguely recall him not coming off as a crazy person at one point. Then he starts being Donald Trump’s lawyer, and he starts saying things which sort of feel like he’s sabotaging his own case. He rarely talks about Trump’s innocence, and mostly just refers to how Trump can snake his way around the law as the President. He talks about how Trump could get away with murder, and Trump’s recollection is “always changing”. I’ve seen more than one episode of Law & Order, I know that’s how lawyers imply folks are lying. It’s just…is he actually trying to help the President or sink him? Is this one elaborate long con?
I’m starting to love when Betsy DeVos goes and speaks to Congress. It’s the funniest thing C-Span gets to air. Seriously, she says things that are blindingly stupid or ignorant, and everyone’s soul in the room dies a little every time it happens. Even the Republican who have to pretend to think she isn’t totally incompetent at her job, have trouble holding it together. It’s really entertaining. This week, it was watching Senator Patrick Leahy grill her about funding and her School Safety Commission. When asked if her Commission would look into the role guns play in gun violence (you know, that thing the White House, including the Donald himself and in tears Sarah Huckabee Sanders assured the nation this commission was set up to do) she said no, and acted like she was completely baffled as to why she would be asked such a question. The problem is that it should have been a dumb question. He should have asked that, and the obvious answer should have been “Well of course. It’s Gun Violence. Gun is in the description.” The answer should not have been “No, and why are you looking at me like I’m a crazy person?” Seriously, watching her fumble her way through these interviews like a drunk driver talking to a police officer is wonderful…wonderful in a way that has me worried about the education of our kids.
So, is Donald Trump just abandoning all pretense that he needs to play fair with the law? I mean, he just announced to the whole world that could absolutely pardon himself should it come to that, saying that on the same day that Sarah Huckabee Sanders comes out and says that “don’t worry, the President doesn’t consider himself above the law.” He may not consider himself above it, but he certainly seems to think he stands apart from it. It’s a bit super-villainy when he starts talking about his pardoning power being his “absolute right”. The scary thing is, it’s not a black and white issue. He could be totally wrong, but he could unfortunately be absolutely correct as well. So here we wait with baited breath, wondering what happens next with President who wants us to be fully aware that he could kill someone and get away with it. Just something to think about.
Piling on to the mountain of absurd statements that Rudy Giuliani has made in the past month, he recently told the Huffington Post that the President could theoretically murder someone and not get indicted. So here’s the thing…I know that presidential lawyers like throwing around theoretical arguments about what the President can legally get away with under the constitution, but let’s be real, if Donald Trump killed a guy, you can bet money that putting theory to into practice might be pretty darn difficult. I’d be willing to bet that, sitting president or not, the DoJ would find a way to prosecute. But that said, I wouldn’t put it past Trump to test the theory.
Trump’s pardoning power has been something that has seen a lot of speculation in the face of this intense investigation which is seeing many of Trump’s oldest friends and allies facing some potentially serious legal trouble. So when Trump pardoned Dinesh D’Souza last week for his own shady campaign malfeasance, many people saw that as a message to Trump’s allies under fire that he has their back. And it’s certainly hard to see it any other way. Though, D’Souza really is a man after Trump’s own heart. Seriously, the guy wrote a book called Obama’s America that spent a chapter that basically served as one long “Yo Mama” joke against Stanley Ann Dunham, Obama’s mother, making multiple references to her weight and alleged that she was…well very promiscuous. All of this in a book that was supposed to be aimed at Obama’s politics in office. It makes me wonder if that sort of cruel, schoolyard bullying behavior didn’t also play into Trump’s decision…
Donald Trump is so dedicated to exposing the media as shifty liars, that he’s started attacking his own sources to discredit them. When the White House released information from an anonymous source regarding the now cancelled summit with Kim Jon Un in Singapore, the New York Time reported it. Donald Trump then decided to call out the New York Times for using a fake source…even though it was provided by his people OFFICIALLY. It’s bizarre, and goes to show that Trump isn’t even bothering to understand the context of the words he’s saying before he evens says them. He’s just lying to lie.
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