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Month: May 2017

Just documenting the chaos

Published by digby on May 17, 2017
Just documenting the chaos
by digby

I wrote about yesterday’s crazy day for Salon this morning:

Tuesday began with the White House in total chaos over reports that President Donald Trump had spilled sensitive intelligence to the Russians on the morning after he fired FBI Director James Comey over what he later admitted was the investigation into Russian ties to the Trump campaign. This was not what administration officials wanted to be talking about in the days before the president’s first big overseas trip. In the middle of the crisis, they had to hold a previously scheduled meeting and press conference with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Here’s the dispatch from the pool report:

Shortly after that, Israel’s media reported that it had been that nation’s intelligence that Trump had shared with Russia without permission, justifying Israeli officials’ earlier fears that he would do exactly that.

Yes, it was that kind of day.

Every Democratic official’s hair was was on fire and even the Republicans on the Hill were starting to smoke a little bit around the ears. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who goes along with every Trump outrage, even roused himself to declare that he wished there was less drama coming from the White House.

And then came the really shocking news. James Comey wrote memos — detailed memos. And he gave copies to friends. And one of them described a meeting with the president, vice president and Attorney General Jeff Sessions on the day after Flynn was fired. That meeting had been previously reported. What we hadn’t heard was that, according to Comey, after the meeting Trump told Pence and Sessions to leave the room and then asked Comey to drop the case against Flynn.

Here’s the account from The New York Times:

“I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go,” Mr. Trump told Mr. Comey, according to the memo. “He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go.”

Mr. Trump told Mr. Comey that Mr. Flynn had done nothing wrong, according to the memo.

The White House is saying there’s nothing untoward about this: Everyone knows Trump likes Flynn, he didn’t said those exact words and anyway Comey should have brought this up earlier. In other words, Comey must be lying because otherwise he would have shouted it to the world. Most experts on TV observed that isn’t the way investigations are done.

CNN’s Jake Tapper spoke with a source who is familiar with the memos and close to Comey. That source said the FBI director had assumed that one meeting would be the end of it. Tapper quoted this person explaining why Comey didn’t say anything:

. . . because it wasn’t a very successful effort and he thought he had pushed back on it. Living with this president is about standing up and pushing back. He thought he had pushed back and was working to regularize communications between the bureau and the White House and he knew more work was needed, thought he was starting to succeed, and he was very sensitive to how difficult it was going to be to work with this president. He also thought he could do it.

Tapper then added:

It should be noted that [Comey] is somebody, and I don’t mean this in a pejorative sense, he is somebody who has rather high regard for his own sense of integrity and what he can accomplish.

Later on Tuesday during CNN’s Anderson Cooper’s interview with former acting Attorney General Sally Yates, she responded to the question of whether Comey was a “showboat” and a “grandstander,” as Trump had claimed, by smiling slightly and simply saying, “Jim is candid.”

Coincidentally, on the morning of the interview with NBC News’ Lester Holt when Trump used those words to describe Comey, I had published a piece for Salon in which I also called him a “showboat.” It’s true. He is. And Comey’s high regard for his own integrity and rectitude has led him to make terrible political judgments, such as the one that led him to announce on Oct. 28 that there was new information in the Clinton email case, throwing a live grenade into the presidential campaign.

But for all that, James Comey isn’t known to be a liar. In fact, he’s known to be a scrupulous if somewhat supercilious prig. Donald Trump, on the other hand, is a constant, unrepentant liar of colossal magnitude. In a battle between the two grandstanders there is no contest as to which one has more credibility.

The White House also attempted to use the words of scting FBI Director Andy McCabe as cover, saying he testified before Congress that the administration had not interfered. That’s not what he said. Here is the exchange between McCabe and Sen. Marco Rubio:

Rubio: Mr. McCabe, can you — without going into the specific of any individual investigation, I think the American people want to know, has the dismissal of Mr. Comey in any way impeded, interrupted, stopped or negatively impacted any of the work, any investigation, or any ongoing projects at the Federal Bureau of Investigation? 

McCabe: As you know, Senator, the work of the men and women of the FBI continues despite any changes in circumstance, any decisions. So there has been no effort to impede our investigation today. Quite simply put, sir, you cannot stop the men and women of the FBI from doing the right thing, protecting the American people and upholding the Constitution.

McCabe was replying to a question about whether the investigation had been impeded by Comey’s firing. He clarified further by saying, “there has has been no effort . . . today.”

For the moment, all eyes will be upon the new deputy attorney general, Rod Rosenstein, who is overseeing the investigation, and his boss, Jeff Sessions, who is vetting Comey’s replacement. Sessions is obviously a Trump loyalist and it appears that Rosenstein has no complaints. According to the Baltimore Sun, when the news broke that Trump was using his memo as the excuse for firing Comey, a friend told Rosenstein he should quit and he replied, “There is no place I would rather be.”

The Washington Post reported late on Tuesday that its sources had told the publication that “details of Comey’s notes have been shared with a very small circle of people at the FBI and Justice Department.” If the people with whom those notes were shared include Sessions and Rosenstein, their involvement in Comey’s firing takes this scandal to a whole new level. It would mean they knew that Trump had tried to shut down an active investigation by asking Comey to lay off Flynn — and still recommended that Trump fire Comey. Stay tuned.

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“His development essentially ended in early childhood”

Published by digby on May 17, 2017

“His development essentially ended in early childhood”

by digby

Tony Schwartz, Trump’s biographer, writes about Trump’s personality for the Washington Post:

For me, none of what he has said or done over the past four months as president comes as a surprise. The way he has behaved over the past week — firing FBI Director James B. Comey, undercutting his own aides as they tried to explain the decision and then disclosing sensitive information to Russian officials — is also entirely predictable.
Early on, I recognized that Trump’s sense of self-worth is forever at risk. When he feels aggrieved, he reacts impulsively and defensively, constructing a self-justifying story that doesn’t depend on facts and always directs the blame to others.
[…] 

To survive, I concluded from our conversations, Trump felt compelled to go to war with the world. It was a binary, zero-sum choice for him: You either dominated or you submitted. You either created and exploited fear or you succumbed to it — as he thought his older brother had. This narrow, defensive worldview took hold at a very early age, and it never evolved. “When I look at myself today and I look at myself in the first grade,” he told a recent biographer, “I’m basically the same.” His development essentially ended in early childhood. 

Instead, Trump grew up fighting for his life and taking no prisoners. In countless conversations, he made it clear to me that he treated every encounter as a contest he had to win, because the only other option from his perspective was to lose, and that was the equivalent of obliteration. Many of the deals in “The Art of the Deal” were massive failures — among them the casinos he owned and the launch of a league to rival the National Football League — but Trump had me describe each of them as huge successes.

With evident pride, Trump explained to me that he was “an assertive, aggressive” kid from an early age and that he had once punched a music teacher in the eye and nearly been expelled from elementary school for his behavior.
Like so much about Trump, who knows whether that story is true? What’s clear is that he has spent his life seeking to dominate others, whatever that requires, and whatever collateral damage it creates along the way. In “The Art of the Deal,” he speaks with streetfighting relish about competing in the world of New York real estate: “They are some of toughest, and most vicious people in the world. I happen to love to go up against them, and I love to beat them.” I never sensed from Trump any guilt or contrition about anything he’d done, and he certainly never shared any misgivings publicly. From his perspective, he operated in a jungle full of predators who were forever out to get him, and he did what he must to survive. 

Trump was equally clear with me that he didn’t value — nor even necessarily recognize — the qualities that tend to emerge as people grow more secure, such as empathy, generosity, reflectiveness, the capacity to delay gratification or, above all, a conscience, an inner sense of right and wrong. Trump simply didn’t traffic in emotions or interest in others. The life he lived was all transactional, all the time. Having never expanded his emotional, intellectual or moral universe, he has his story down, and he’s sticking to it.
A key part of that story is that facts are whatever Trump deems them to be on any given day. When he is challenged, he instinctively doubles down — even when what he has just said is demonstrably false. I saw that countless times, whether it was as trivial as exaggerating the number of floors at Trump Tower or as consequential as telling me that his casinos were performing well when they were actually going bankrupt. In the same way, Trump sees no contradiction at all in changing his story about why he fired Comey and then undermining the explanatory statements of his aides, or in any other lie he tells. His aim is never accuracy; it’s domination. 

Trump derives his sense of significance from conquests and accomplishments. “Can you believe it, Tony?” he would often begin late-night conversations with me, and then go on to describe some new example of his brilliance. But the reassurance he got from even his biggest achievements was always ephemeral and unreliable — and that appears to include being elected president. On the face of it, Trump has more opportunities now to feel significant and accomplished than almost any human being on the planet. But that’s like saying that a heroin addict has his problem licked once he has free and continuous access to the drug. Trump also now has a far bigger and more public stage on which to fail and to feel unworthy.

Any addiction has a predictable pattern — the addict keeps chasing the high by upping the ante in an increasingly futile attempt to recreate the desired state. From the very first time I interviewed him in his office in Trump Tower in 1985, the image I had of Trump was that of a black hole. Whatever goes in quickly disappears without a trace. Nothing sustains. It’s forever uncertain when someone or something will throw Trump off his precarious perch — when his sense of equilibrium will be threatened and he’ll feel an overwhelming compulsion to restore it. Beneath his bluff exterior, I always sensed a hurt, incredibly vulnerable little boy who just wanted to be loved. 

What Trump craves most deeply is the adulation he has found so ephemeral. This goes a long way toward explaining his need for control and why he simply couldn’t abide Comey, who reportedly refused to accede to Trump’s demand for loyalty and whose continuing investigation into Russian interference in the election campaign last year threatened to bring down his presidency. Trump’s need for unquestioning praise and flattery also helps to explain his hostility to democracy and to a free press — both of which thrive on open dissent. 

As we saw countless times during the campaign and since the election, Trump can devolve into survival mode on a moment’s notice. Look no further than the thousands of tweets he wrote attacking his perceived enemies over the past year. In neurochemical terms, when he feels threatened or thwarted, Trump moves into fight or flight. His amygdala gets triggered, his hypothalamic-adrenal-pituitary axis activates, and his prefrontal cortex — the part of the brain that makes us capable of rationality and reflection — shuts down. He reacts rather than reflects, and damn the consequences. This is what makes his access to the nuclear codes so dangerous and frightening. 

The Trump I got to know had no deep ideological beliefs, nor any passionate feeling about anything but his immediate self-interest. 

Over the past week, in the face of criticism from nearly every quarter, Trump’s distrust has almost palpably mushroomed. No importuning by his advisers would stand a chance of constraining him when he feels this deeply triggered. The more he feels at the mercy of forces he cannot control — and he is surely feeling that now — the more resentful, desperate and impulsive he becomes.

This guy observed him close up years ago and tried to warn people before the election. Trump’s always been a twisted weirdo with serious issues. It all looks very familiar to anyone who watched this campaign closely.

What stuns me is that tens of millions of people liked what they saw. It was obvious that he was completely full of shit for years and years. And yet, they liked him first on TV and then on the campaign trail.

I don’t get it. I never will.

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It’s only Wednesday by @BolggersRUs

Published by Tom Sullivan on May 17, 2017

It’s only Wednesday
by Tom Sullivan

If you are President Donald Trump, it’s not a good morning when a New York Times headline reads: What Qualifies as Obstruction of Justice?

The main controversy of the day stems from the fact that, whatever his misjudgments ahead of the election, James Comey was an FBI agent for a long time. “The man probably writes a memo every morning on what he had for breakfast,” observes Charlie Pierce. Which is to say Comey takes notes that are admissible in court:

“I hope you can let this go,” the president told Mr. Comey, according to the memo. The existence of Mr. Trump’s request is the clearest evidence that the president has tried to directly influence the Justice Department and F.B.I. investigation into links between Mr. Trump’s associates and Russia. Mr. Comey wrote the memo detailing his conversation with the president immediately after the meeting, which took place the day after Mr. Flynn resigned, according to two people who read the memo. The memo was part of a paper trail Mr. Comey created documenting what he perceived as the president’s improper efforts to influence a continuing investigation. An F.B.I. agent’s contemporaneous notes are widely held up in court as credible evidence of conversations.

Comey called Trump’s bluff about the White House taping their conversations and raised him contemporaneous written notes. The dealmaker really doesn’t get how this Washington deal works.

From Charlie Savage’s “Obstruction” article:

Julie O’Sullivan, a former federal prosecutor who now teaches white-collar criminal law at Georgetown University, said the power relationship between a president and the F.B.I. director could elevate a request to shut down a case into an act that amounts to impeding an official investigation.

“He really needs a lawyer,” Ms. O’Sullivan said of Mr. Trump. “He is building a beautiful case against himself.”

The Washington Post cites another expert:

“There’s definitely a case to be made for obstruction,” said Barak Cohen, a former federal prosecutor who now does white-collar-defense work at the Perkins Coie law firm in the District. “But, on the other hand, you have to realize that — as with any other sort of criminal law — intent is key, and intent here can be difficult to prove.”

Especially when you are the president and someone who doesn’t do a lot of intending before speaking and doing. Savage reminds readers that the two president who faced impeachment actions in the last century – Bill Clinton in 1998 and Richard M. Nixon in 1974 – both faced obstruction of justice charges.

In other news, the Comey memo reportedly describes how the president is hot to jail reporters he describes as the enemies of the people for reporting on leaks from the White House.

Trump ghostwriter Tony Schwartz explains what motivates Trump:

You either dominated or you submitted. You either created and exploited fear or you succumbed to it … he treated every encounter as a contest he had to win, because the only other option from his perspective was to lose, and that was the equivalent of obliteration.

Trump’s Republican colleagues practice the same alpha-dog style of politics. Showing any kind of weakness means you are not fit to lead, and ripe to be deposed by any of the alpha-dogs in waiting, so don’t expect them to hold Trump accountable:

Asked Tuesday if he had concerns about the president’s ability to handle classified information, given reports he’d shared highly sensitive information to Russian officials, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell chuckled briefly before replying, “No.” Is he starting to lose confidence in President Trump? Again, “No.”

It’s not just party leaders like McConnell and Speaker Paul Ryan who are standing by the president. Even the latest bombshell, that Trump asked former FBI Director James Comey to quash the investigation into his ex-national security adviser, Michael Flynn, drew a shrug from New York Congressman Peter King. “I’ll have to wait and see,” King told reporters at the Capitol Tuesday evening. Coming out of a briefing with CIA Director Mike Pompeo regarding Trump’s meeting with Russian officials last week, King said, “My level of concern is not high.”

Which at this point is about as credible as any statements from the White House.

It’s never a good sign when you are the president and this “obstruction” story is what is splashed across front pages. Especially since the Monday-Tuesday headlines were about how you gave highly classified intelligence to Russian officials and TASS in the Oval Office. And after last week when your staff was in chaos scrambling to explain that you didn’t really fire the FBI Director because he would not drop the investigation into your presidential campaign’s ties to Russia – the people who interfered in the American election – and then you admitted as much on television.

Trump likes to brag about his ratings. Much more of this and he’ll get the biggest of his life. He’ll paint it as a great victory.

That was the week that was. It’s only Wednesday.

The US Media is more responsible with sensitive intelligence than the president

Published by digby on May 17, 2017

The US Media is more responsible with sensitive intelligence than the president

by digby

They told the press not to report what Trump told the Russians because it could get people killed. The press kept it a secret. Trump spilled the beans:

Then there’s this from the state owned Russian media TASS:

Here’s the translation:

The White House denied sharing info about military operations.

But, as you know, they lie. So who knows?

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Ok, this is just scary

Published by digby on May 16, 2017

Ok, this is just scary

by digby

The New York Times reports today:

Mr. Trump’s appetite for chaos, coupled with his disregard for the self-protective conventions of the presidency, have left his staff confused and squabbling. And his own mood, according to two advisers who spoke on the condition of anonymity, has become sour and dark, turning against most of his aides — even his son-in-law, Jared Kushner — and describing them in a fury as “incompetent,” according to one of those advisers.

[…]

A dozen of Mr. Trump’s aides and associates, while echoing Mr. Trump’s defiance, privately agreed with Mr. Corker’s view. They spoke candidly, in a way they were unwilling to do just weeks ago, about the damage that was being done to the administration’s standing and the fatigue that was setting in after months of having to defend the president’s missteps, Twitter posts and unpredictable actions.

The latest crisis comes at the worst possible time for Mr. Trump’s team. His national security and foreign policy staffs have been spending much of their time planning for his coming eight-day trip to the Middle East and Europe — his first major overseas trip as president, and an opportunity, they thought, to reset the narrative of his presidency after the lingering controversy of Mr. Comey’s sudden dismissal last week.

There is a growing sense that Mr. Trump seems unwilling or unable to do the things necessary to keep himself out of trouble, and that the presidency has done little to tame a shoot-from-the-hip-into-his-own-foot style that characterized his campaign.

There is a fear among some of Mr. Trump’s senior advisers about leaving him alone in meetings with foreign leaders out of concern he might speak out of turn. General McMaster, in particular, has tried to insert caveats or gentle corrections into conversations when he believes the president is straying off topic or onto boggy diplomatic ground.

This has, at times, chafed the president, according to two officials with knowledge of the situation. Mr. Trump, who still openly laments having to dismiss his first national security adviser, Michael T. Flynn, has groused that General McMaster talks too much in meetings, and the president has referred to him as “a pain,” according to one of the officials.

In private, three administration officials conceded that they could not publicly articulate their most compelling — and honest — defense of the president: that Mr. Trump, a hasty and indifferent reader of printed briefing materials, simply did not possess the interest or knowledge of the granular details of intelligence gathering to leak specific sources and methods of intelligence gathering that would do harm to United States allies.

That’s what constitutes an honest “defense” of the president of the United States? That he’s too lazy and stupid to be able to consciously leak sources and methods?

Needless to say, that is not the question here. He’s so lazy and stupid that without permission, he blurted out highly classified intel provided by a foreign country in such a way that sources and methods could be discerned by the Russian government. This means that he is so stupid he can’t be trusted with classified information at all.

This is a problem. He’s the president.

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Blast from past

Published by digby on May 16, 2017

Blast from past

by digby

Donald Trump in Virginia Beach July 2016:

Hillary Clinton, on the other hand, is weak, ineffective, pandering, and, as proven by her recent email scandal, which was an embarrassment not only to her, but to the nation as a whole, she is either a liar or grossly incompetent…

Hillary Clinton went to great lengths to create a private email server and to bypass government security in order to keep her emails from being read by the public and by federal officials.

In other words, she was willing to risk our foreign enemies reading her emails as long as the voting American public could not.

Her conduct was willful, intentional, and unlawful – and her repeated false statements about her conduct prove that she was fully aware of
her guilt.

This was not just extreme carelessness with classified material – which is still totally disqualifying. This is calculated, deliberate, premeditated misconduct – followed by a cover-up that included false statements and lies to Congress, the media and the American people.

In fact, when the FBI interviewed her for only 3 hours during the 4th of July weekend, her interview was not recorded, and she was, amazingly, not even put under oath.

She carried out her dangerous email scheme at the same time as her bad judgement and enthusiasm for regime change was unleashing ISIS across the world.

Afterwards, as a further demonstration of guilt, Hillary Clinton erased more than thirty thousand emails as part of the cover-up. The fact that she got away with all of this could be her single most impressive accomplishment.

When thinking about her e-mail destruction, let’s not forget: many foreign and corporate entities, and other special interests, with business before Hillary Clinton’s State Department were making massive financial contributions. These contributions were made to both the Clinton Foundation and to the Clintons directly.

If elected, Hillary Clinton would become the first President of the United States who wouldn’t be able to pass a background check.

Just look at what the FBI Director said about her – her misconduct is a disgrace and embarrassment to our country.

Clearly, Hillary Clinton thinks she is above the law. Come November, the American people will show her that she is not.

The easiest way to understand Trump is to simply assume that all criticisms of others are projections of himself.

*And by the way, Comey said a bunch of idiotic things in that press conference, but he didn’t say that.

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Who did they think he was?

Published by digby on May 16, 2017

Who did they think he was?

by digby

This astonished me:

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said on Tuesday that he would like to see “less drama” from President Trump and the White House, as well as an “apolitical” choice for the new FBI director. “I think it would be helpful if the president spent more time on things we’re trying to accomplish and less time on other things,” McConnell told Bloomberg News. 

Less drama? What does he think this was all about?

Drama is this guy’s schtick.

The unctuous creep McConnell also said he support putting Merrick Garland into the FBI. Of course he does. He wants Trump to appoint his successor on the federal bench.

At this point these people have two objectives under Trump: pack the court with wingnuts and get as get as many tax cuts as possible. That way, even if they can’t gut every program today they can use the deficits they’re creating as an excuse to make Democrats do their dirty work in the future.  Let’s hope Democrats don’t fall for it.
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Maybe there’s hope

Published by digby on May 16, 2017

Maybe there’s hope

by digby

The new PPP poll:

PPP’s new national poll finds that Republicans are facing significant backlash over the health care bill that’s having the effect of firing up Democrats and putting them in position to make major gains in the House next year.

Democrats now have a 49-38 lead overall on the generic Congressional ballot, up from 47-41 a month ago. Even more notable though is that among voters who say they’re ‘very excited’ to turn out in the 2018 election, the Democratic lead balloons to 27 points at 61-34. The outcome of lower turnout midterm elections often hinges on which side is more engaged, and Democrats have the clear advantage at this point on that front- 63% of their voters say they’re ‘very excited’ about voting in next year’s election, compared to only 52% of Republicans who say the same.

The American Health Care Act has been a complete disaster politically for Republicans. Only 25% of voters support it, to 52% who are opposed. Even among Republican voters there’s only 49% support for the measure, while Democrats (76%) are considerably more unified in their opposition to it. Voters say by a 20 point margin that they’re less likely to vote for a member of Congress who supported the AHCA- just 27% say they’re more likely to vote for a pro-AHCA candidate, compared to 47% who are less likely to vote for one.

The health care debate has left Congress with a 15% approval rating and 68% of voters disapproving of it. Paul Ryan (25/59 approval) and Mitch McConnell (21/55 approval) are both very unpopular individually as well.

The current health care debate is also stoking new found respect for the Affordable Care Act. By a 53/27 spread, voters say they prefer the current ACA to the new AHCA. And just 29% of voters say they want to repeal the Affordable Care Act at this point, to 64% who would prefer to keep it and make fixes as necessary.

This is important. The 2018 election will certainly be a referendum on Trump. But it will also be an election for specific seats and this vote is emblematic of the GOP’s cravenness and cowardice. People seem to be waking up a little bit.

And from the looks of it, it isn’t going to get better. The Republicans are so in love with their tax cuts that they seem prepared to martyr themselves and go down in flames to get them. They are tax cut suicide bombers.

But there’s more:

Comey/Russia:

Americans don’t like James Comey. Only 24% see him favorably, to 40% who have a negative opinion of him. But they don’t like the decision to fire him either. Only 37% support Donald Trump’s decision to fire Comey, to 48% who are opposed. Voters aren’t buying the officially stated reasoning behind Comey’s firing- 54% think the FBI’s investigations into Russian involvement in the 2016 election is the reason Comey was fired, to only 34% who say they don’t think that’s what it was. Something else voters- even Trump voters- are very clear on is that it’s not the job of the FBI director to be loyal to the President. Overall only 23% of voters think the FBI director needs to be loyal to the President, to 66% who say that is not their job. This view is held emphatically by Clinton voters (8/87) but also by a plurality of Trump voters (38/48).

We find 62/28 support both for an independent investigation into Russia’s involvement in the election generally, and for the appointment of a special prosecutor specifically. We find that an increasingly large percentage of voters think that Russia did want Trump to win the election- 60% now say that Russia was pulling for Trump to only 16% who claim they think Russia wanted Hillary Clinton to win. Voters are still pretty evenly divided though when it comes to whether they think Trump’s campaign team and Russia directly worked together to try to influence the election- 43% say they think there was collusion between Russia and Trump’s aides to 38% who don’t think there was.

The stakes for Trump on this issue are high- if it does turn out his campaign coordinated directly with Russia, 54% of voters think he should resign to only 34% who believe he should stay in office. And voters do want to see the bottom of this story gotten to- only 33% consider it to be ‘fake news.’

This is also important. Trump is a nightmare in every way. But this Russia thing, including the money angle, has metastasized into the most important of Trump’s various scandals.

Which brings me to this:

General Attitudes Toward Trump:

Only 40% of voters approve of the job Trump is doing to 54% who disapprove. For the first time we find more voters (48%) in support of impeaching Trump than there are (41%) opposed to the idea. Only 43% of voters think Trump is actually going to end up serving his full term as President, while 45% think he won’t, and 12% aren’t sure one way or the other.

Voters are both having buyer’s remorse about the outcome of the 2016 election and wishing they could return to the good old days of 4 months ago. By an 8 point margin, 49/41, they say they wish Hillary Clinton was President instead of Trump. And by a 16 point margin, 55/39, they say they wish Barack Obama was still in office instead of Trump.

One thing hurting Trump is that Americans expect honesty from their President and his aides, and they feel like they’re not getting it. Last week Trump tweeted that it was unreasonable to expect his press staff to always tell the truth, but 77% of voters say they do expect the President’s Press Secretaries to tell the truth all the time compared to only 14% who say that isn’t that expectation. Only 38% of voters say they consider Trump to be honest, to 55% who say they don’t think he is. And a majority of voters (51%) outright say they consider Trump to be a liar to 41% who say they disagree with that characterization.

One issue that’s not going away is Trump’s failure to release his tax returns. 62% of voters continue to think he needs to release them, to only 29% who think it’s not necessary for him to. 61% would even support a law requiring candidates for President to release 5 years of tax returns in order to appear on the ballot, with just 28% opposed to such a provision.

When it comes down to it voters don’t think Trump has delivered on the core promise of his campaign- just 34% think he has ‘Made America Great Again,’ while 55% think he has not.

I can’t help but point out that it was patently obvious that he was a lying sack of manure during the campaign so this shouldn’t be a revelatoin to anyone. But I guess some people thought it was just another erality show.

Well, reality bites. And it’s drawing blood.

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