Skip to content

Month: July 2017

“He will torture him every single day”

Published by digby on July 26, 2017

“He will torture him every single day”

 by digby
I wrote about Trump and Sessions for Salon this morning:

Attorney General Jeff Sessions is so committed to his draconian white nationalist agenda that he’s willing to allow the president of the United States to repeatedly humiliate, denigrate and demean him in public rather than resign. And the president who made his name growling “You’re fired” every week on his reality TV show is reported to be unable to personally fire anyone in real life, so he’s instead displaying what MSNBC’s Chris Hayes has called “titanic levels of passive-aggressiveness” with his constant expressions of “disappointment” in his attorney general.

Donald Trump has always been a big fan of torture and according to Politico, that’s part of the fun for him here:

“He wants to fire him but he doesn’t want the confrontation,” said one adviser who frequently speaks to him. “He doesn’t mind the long negative storyline. He will torture him every single day.”

This person said Trump also wants to see how Sessions will respond to humiliation and has mocked his response so far.

It’s embarrassing to watch at this point. This administration is a bad soap opera on a good day, and these two are the rival divas of the moment. But the drama obscures the serious issue that lies at the heat of this dispute. Our president is abusing the powers of his office to try to stop an investigation into Russian interference in the presidential campaign and his own possible complicity in the crime.

It’s not necessary to go over all the weirdness of Trump’s strange affection for Russian President Vladimir Putin again. This has been well documented, and nobody has yet fully explained his motives in any persuasive way. Considering all the evidence of Russian government meddling and the contacts with members of his campaign, investigations are necessary. That Trump cannot seem to grasp this and is so determined to shut down any inquiry only raises the suspicions even higher.

Trump seems to be ordering Sessions to go after Hillary Clinton and James Comey, which is highly inappropriate in itself. Over the weekend, he sent this series of tweets:

Suggesting that the attorney general go after his defeated rival and the former FBI director and start hunting for leakers among their own ranks is bound to blow back on him. On top of his swipes at Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and Acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe, Trump seems to be determined to antagonize the entire Department of Justice and the intelligence community for reasons that are both self-serving and self-destructive.

Trump has been complaining bitterly about people he perceives as disloyal to him; he disparaged Sessions’ early endorsement of his campaign in an interview with The Wall Street Journal, suggesting that it was to Sessions’ advantage, not his own. At a news conference on Tuesday with the prime minister of Lebanon, the president refused to say that he wouldn’t fire Sessions, saying, “Time will tell, time will tell …”

Trump is obviously upset by the revelations about Donald Trump Jr. and Jared Kushner taking that meeting with the Russian lawyer and has reportedly told confidantes that he’s worried about special counsel Robert Mueller getting ahold of his tax returns. Clearly, he is also panicked by the fact that the Russia investigation is now turning to look at his family’s finances. Trump told the New York Times that he considers this a “violation,” as if he were unaware until now that law enforcement always follows the facts wherever they lead. This realization that his finances will be scrutinized seems to have unhinged him even more than usual. Believing that he could run for president without serious legal exposure, as may very well be the case, was the craziest thing he’s done — and that’s saying something.

Trump certainly has no understanding of the role the attorney general plays in our system and the requirement that he be independent from exactly this sort of interference. The irony is that during Sessions’ Senate career on the Judiciary Committee he was specifically known for his insistence that officials in the Department of Justice be completely independent of the executive branch, often haranguing nominees on the subject during confirmation hearings. (He memorably did that here to former Acting Attorney General Sally Yates — later fired by Trump for being too independent.)

Most experts speculate that the president believes that driving Sessions from office will allow him to appoint a new A.G. who won’t need to recuse himself or herself from the Russia probe and can then keep a tight leash on the Mueller investigation, or even end it. For a variety of reasons, that’s unlikely. And in the process, Trump is blowing himself up.

We’ve wondered for months what it might take for the president to lose his base of support, and treating a far-right loyalist like Jeff Sessions as his personal doormat might just be it. The right-wing media, starting with Breitbart News, is very unhappy about this. They have reminded their readers that it was Trump who backed away from their religious crusade to put Hillary Clinton in jail. (The congressional committees are following their president’s orders and getting ready to “investigate” Clinton again, so that should appease them a bit.)

Rush Limbaugh said that while he agrees there was no reason for Sessions to recuse himself, he’s a by-the-book legal mind and it’s “a little bit discomforting, unseemly for Trump to go after such a loyal supporter this way. Especially when Sessions made it obvious he’s not gonna resign.” The Drudge Report’s banner headline read “Civil War” on Tuesday morning.

Right-wing media is not Trump’s only problem. Republican senators are speaking out as well:

Members of the Cabinet are also starting to freak out. Erick Erickson reported that he spoke with one Cabinet member who said: “If he can get treated that way, what about the rest of us? … It’s more of a clusterf**k than you even know.” This Cabinet member confirmed that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is seriously considering quitting and said that Defense Secretary Jim Mattis is also bothered by Trump’s behavior.

Despite his hiring of a new communications director, the president seems to be hurtling more and more out of control, and it’s finally starting to penetrate the right-wing bubble. So far they seem to be most concerned about the mistreatment of one of Trump’s most loyal soldiers. It hasn’t quite sunk in yet that this also demonstrates how little Trump really cares about their agenda.

Sessions is the most effective member of the Trump administration, working day and night to take the nation back to the ’50s — the 1850s. Donald Trump could not care less.

Trump only cares about Trump. It’s amazing it’s taken them this long to see that.

“We have seen this with cults and religions.” by @BloggersRUs

Published by Tom Sullivan on July 26, 2017

“We have seen this with cults and religions.”
by Tom Sullivan


Saucepan Revolution, Iceland, 2008-2009.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., appeared on MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow Show last night after the Senate voted 51-50 to begin debate on … something unspecified related to gutting Americans’ access to health care. Warren was defiant, visibly shaken, and emotional at the prospect that Republicans might vote to take away health care coverage from tens of millions. Madame professor was gone. A mother was speaking:

For me, it’s about the families … This is about the mammas and the daddies who were out there, who ended up just creating a crowd this afternoon after our vote to stand on the steps of the United States Capitol and to plead, plead for health care coverage for their children.

Vice President Mike Pence cast the tie-breaking vote for Republicans to begin debate after Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain, a few days out of brain surgery, flew in on a private jet to vote for the motion. Republican Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, who had reason to give Sen. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) his middle finger, spent ten minutes speaking with a tense and red-faced McConnell before voting aye after McCain did.

There will be a lot of histrionics over the next few days, but even for Republicans they could be meaningless even if something passes out of the Senate. David Dayen and Ryan Grim explain at The Intercept:

This upends the long-standing promise McConnell made these wavering senators over health care. He said repeatedly that they would have the opportunity to amend the bill to their liking on the floor, if they’d only pass a motion to proceed. Even in his floor speech before the vote, McConnell referred to an “open amendment” process, where Senators could “work their will.”

But what McConnell has set in motion would rob these Senators of that ability.

That’s because skinny repeal is just a vehicle to advance the process, as Thune articulated. What’s in it doesn’t really matter, and that includes any additional amendments senators manage to attach. The real action would occur in that House-Senate conference negotiation, where the leadership teams of both Republican caucuses would hash out the final bill. Portman, Murkowski, Heller and their colleagues would be as distant from that negotiation as they were from knowing what they would voted on today.

And then the so-called moderates, with no chance to pass an amendment, would be told to vote for the bill out of party solidarity, to keep the seven-year promise of repealing Obamacare. They would face enormous pressure to advance a bill they had no say on. It is the exact opposite of what McConnell promised.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) told a crowd following the vote:

Make no mistake about it: There is no doubt-and we all know when the bill gets to conference-who’s going to call the shots. The Freedom Caucus which will be for full repeal or something even worse than what came from the House. And remember-on the House bill, a whole number of Republican Senators said they wouldn’t vote for it.

Those Republicans promised they could make changes will face an up-or-down vote on whatever emerges from the conference, with even more pressure to pass it than they faced on Tuesday.

After the vote, McCain delivered a self-serving lecture about how the Senate doesn’t behave like the Senate anymore, having just reaffirmed the non-deliberative process he decried. That he drew plaudits for a speech after failing to take a stand spoke more loudly than his words.

Norman Ornstein, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, spoke with Slate after the vote. What is on display in the Senate, particularly among Republicans “of otherwise admirable character and intelligence,” is behavior similar to people fearful of being shunned by their tribes. “We have seen this with cults and religions.” Ornstein explains our system is supposed to defend itself against, “I will be blunt, a deranged president.” And yet, members with larger responsibilities are jumping to his tune. “This vote tells me: Be very afraid.”

Clearly, some Democrats are. Warren is.

Yes, this is very tiresome. But that’s how it is with zealots. When you run out of steam, they run right over you. Not this time. Look, I’m not the protesty type. But I ran by a dollar store the other day and grabbed a cheap pot and a wooden spoon to keep in the car. You never know where you’ll be when a deranged president fires Robert Mueller and sparks “the greatest constitutional crisis since Watergate.” Besides, I might need them before that. I thought what Icelanders did in 2008-2009 was pretty cool.

Go watch the Warren interview (can’t embed here).

MSNBC Number One

Published by digby on July 26, 2017
MSNBC Number One

by digby

It isn’t just the Trump bump:

MSNBC finished as the most-watched network in all of basic cable in primetime on Monday, for the first time in its 21-year history, according to Nielsen Research. 

The Comcast-owned network averaged 2.34 million viewers, edging Fox News and its average of 2.25 million. Disney’s 1.74 million viewers, USA Network’s 1.57 million viewers and HGTV’s 1.51 million viewers rounded out the top five. 

Cable news rival CNN finished ninth behind the Discovery Channel in total viewers in primetime, averaging 875,000 viewers. 

Fox News still finished first in the “Total Day” (6 a.m. to 6 a.m.) category, extending its winning streak over all basic cable channels to 29 consecutive weeks, averaging 1.4 million viewers. 

New daily developments regarding investigations into Russian election meddling and possible collusion with Trump campaign associates has been a boon for progressive MSNBC, particularly host Rachel Maddow. 

Maddow again had the No. 1 program of the week in cable news, averaging 2.94 million total viewers and 711,000 in the key 25-54 demographic advertisers covet most. In all of basic cable, WWE (World Wrestling Entertainment) on USA Network was the most-watched, with Maddow coming in second.

MSNBC’s shows consistently have an interesting  rotation of experts, pundits, reporters and political insiders while CNN hasa format of featuring the same people spouting predictable talking points day after day. It’s dull.

Fox, of course, is simply in Bizarroworld.

.

About that incivility

Published by digby on July 25, 2017

About that incivility


by digby

We’re being admonished not to say anything critical of John McCain’s vote to proceed with the destruction of health care for millions of people because it would be indecent considering what he’s dealing with.

Just a little reminder:

Note that those signed were printed.

.

“I think he’s crazy”

Published by digby on July 25, 2017

“I think he’s crazy”

by digby


Yeah, no kidding:

At the end of a Senate subcommittee hearing on Tuesday morning, Chairman Susan Collins (R-Maine) didn’t switch off her microphone. Apparently speaking to Sen. Jack Reed (R.I.), the ranking Democrat of the committee, Collins discussed the federal budget — and President Trump’s lack of familiarity with the details of governing.

After Reed praises Collins’s handling of the hearing, held by the Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies subcommittee of the Senate Appropriations Committee, she laments the administration’s handling of spending.

“I swear, [the Office of Management and Budget] just went through and whenever there was ‘grant,’ they just X it out,” Collins says. “With no measurement, no thinking about it, no metrics, no nothing. It’s just incredibly irresponsible.”

“Yes,” Reed replies. “I think — I think he’s crazy,” apparently referring to the president. “I mean, I don’t say that lightly and as a kind of a goofy guy.”

“I’m worried,” Collins replies.

“Oof,” Reed continues. “You know, this thing — if we don’t get a budget deal, we’re going to be paralyzed.”

“I know,” Collins replies.

 Twitter Ads info and privacy
“[Department of Defense] is going to be paralyzed, everybody is going to be paralyzed,” Reed says.

“I don’t think he knows there is a [Budget Control Act] or anything,” Collins says, referring to a 2011 law that defines the budget process.

“He was down at the Ford commissioning,” Reed says, referring to President Trump’s weekend event launching a new aircraft carrier, “saying, ‘I want them to pass my budget.’ Okay, so we give him $54 billion and then we take it away across the board which would cause chaos.”

“Right,” Collins replies.

“It’s just — and he hasn’t — not one word about the budget. Not one word about the debt ceiling,” Reed says.

“Good point,” Collins replies.

“You’ve got [Budget Director Mick] Mulvaney saying we’re going to put in all sorts of stuff like a border wall. Then you’ve got [Treasury Secretary Steve] Mnuchin saying it’s got to be clean,” Reed continues. “We’re going to be back in September, and, you know, you’re going to have crazy people in the House.”

Yikes.

And now he’s insisting that the DOJ  prosecute Hillary Clinton.

Will Sessions be fired? I don’t know. But this could be something that finally dislodges some members of the base.They don’t care about much of anything he does but this might shake them a bit.

.

The health care holy grail

Published by digby on July 25, 2017

The health care holy grail

by digby

I wrote about it for Salon:

Going all the way back to the first months of Barack Obama’s administration, when the Tea Party rose up in the midst of the worst economic crisis in half a century to oppose heath care reform, I’ve been struck by the right’s visceral loathing for the concept of expanding access to health insurance. There’s almost a cultish component to this opposition, an apparent belief that health care is a devil’s bargain of some sort that will doom America to burn in hell. When the Affordable Care Act was being debated in the long months of hearings and town halls back in 2009, its opponents worked themselves up into a frenzy of outrage over a market-friendly program that would allow people to have access to health care at a reasonable cost and wouldn’t discriminate against sick people.

Did all the stories of suffering and financial ruin associated with lack of health care not move them at all? Did they believe it could never happen to them, that they or their loved ones could never lose their health insurance or go bankrupt from medical bills? Beyond the obvious fact that they hated President Obama and that their team was against government in general so they were too, I never understood the overwhelming rage this seemed to induce in so many Republicans. It exposed a streak of cruelty in some Americans that I have to admit surprised me.

Since last November’s election the ACA has grown substantially in popularity. Nonetheless,the GOP majority in Congress is hellbent on repealing it even though they clearly have absolutely no idea what to do about the inevitable chaos that will ensue. It’s a crusade whose purpose is no longer clear — the act itself is apparently the goal.

At this point, Republicans aren’t under particular pressure from the faction of their coalition one might expect to push for this repeal. Doctors, hospitals, insurance companies, many businesses and the AARP are all on record opposing the current GOP strategy. Some of their big ideological donors, including the Koch brothers, support repeal but don’t seem to be making a huge deal out of it. The most loyal base supporters want it, of course. They also want a 2,000-mile border wall and think that Donald Trump is going to bring back the Industrial Revolution. But the fear of the Tea Party running primaries against anyone who fails to vote for this seems overblown at this point. That bubble burst. (Early indications are that Republicans are lagging far behind in candidate recruitment for the 2018 midterms.)

This is just a mindless drive for a “win,” in order to justify a cynical political ploy that energized their voters to oppose the hated Obama and took on a life of its own. Now Republicans would rather see people’s lives destroyed than admit to all that.

The Senate will vote on Tuesday whether to proceed to debate on a bill that nobody except Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has seen. For all we know, the bill doesn’t yet exist. It’s possible they will be voting on the Obamacare Repeal Reconciliation Act (ORRA) — which is total repeal, causing 32 million people to lose their health insurance — or the Better Care Reconciliation Act (BCRA), the Senate’s “repeal and replace” bill that will cause 22 million to lose insurance. That latter bill has changed so many times that nobody has any idea what’s in it. There are a number of provisions that have been rejected by the parliamentarian, some of which will result in a death spiral for the individual insurance industry — although there’s no reason to think Republicans care about that in the least.

Nothing matters at all except somehow getting to 50 votes in the Senate. And the truly astonishing thing is that through this entire chaotic process, the leadership has consistently had well over 40 votes, no matter what insane proposal it was contemplating. As Sen. Richard Burr of North Carolina said on Monday when asked if he was worried about what was in the bill, “it doesn’t concern me. As I said, I’ll vote for anything.”

Late in the day it was announced that Sen. John McCain would return to D.C. today to cast a vote despite having just undergone brain surgery. Why GOP leaders could not hold off on this vote for a week or so to allow him to recuperate a little more is a mystery. They’re in a big hurry to get this done. It is assumed that McCain would not return under such circumstances if he weren’t going to vote for the motion to proceed, so that much is likely a done deal. Whether there will be enough votes for whatever monstrosity McConnell eventually gets to the floor is still unknown.

But as I wrote last week, even if this effort fails in the Senate, that’s not the end of the story. Even more dispiriting, perhaps, President Donald Trump believes that such a failure has a silver lining since he can then sabotage the existing Obamacare law and “blame it on the Democrats,” which he believes is smart politics.

According to the Daily Beast, the administration is already using money designated to encourage enrollment in Obamacare to spread propaganda against the program and urge people to push their congressional representatives to repeal it, which is against the law. Your tax dollars are being used to fund the cynical partisan work of the Trump administration and the Republican Party. That’s just for starters.

As Ian Millhiser of Think Progress explains, due to some complicated legal issues, it’s possible that the Trump administration will simply stop paying the subsidies that make the Obamacare exchanges work. They could basically pull the fiscal plug, and that would be that. Politico reported last week:

Trump has repeatedly told aides and advisers that he wants to end the subsidy payments, and he has not changed his position, according to several people who have spoken with him. “Why are we making these payments?” Trump has asked.

This will throw the Obamacare exchanges into turmoil and chaos, which is evidently something he would very much enjoy. Polling shows that six in 10 Americans will blame Republicans for the catastrophe, but bear in mind that Donald Trump’s entire life has been organized around blaming others for his mistakes, so he’s confident he can pull this off too.

Tuesday is going to be a dramatic. If this latest attempt at repeal goes down in flames in the Senate, Republicans may have to table their dream for a little while. But they’ll come back with something. It’s a fixation. And until they do, Trump will have his henchmen do everything in their power to undermine the existing program. Either way, these people are going to ensure that the poor and middle class who have the bad luck to need Medicaid or individual insurance will pay the price.

.

The one-eyed man is president by @BloggersRUs

Published by Tom Sullivan on July 25, 2017

The one-eyed man is president
by Tom Sullivan

A “Listening to America” RNC survey signed by Donald J. Trump is going around via email. Example: “Are you concerned by the potential spread of Sharia Law?” Trump wants to hear from “the REAL America.” (I’m guessing readers of this blog do not qualify.) He writes:

The mainstream media and Hollywood love to tell you “how America is feeling.” But they know nothing. They live in a world where you get to your keep job even if you fail to get anything done.

We are going to have to come up something better than “irony is dead” for the Trump presidency. There’s no tread left on it.

With any luck, Senate Republicans and their twittering leader will fail again today at getting anything done regarding the Affordable Care Act. Afterwards, perhaps Trump will fire someone and blame Hillary Clinton.

The scary part is they just might pull off something, whatever that is. Sam Baker writes at Axios:

* Stranger things have happened, but Sen. John McCain probably isn’t taking a break from his brain-cancer treatments to travel 2,300 miles across the country so he can torpedo a bill about an issue he’s never been especially invested in, which he could have torpedoed just as easily by staying in Arizona.

* If McCain is a “yes” on today’s motion to proceed — and, sure, take nothing for granted, but if — then Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is in a considerably better position.

* Sen. Susan Collins is a “no.” But it sounds like Sens. Rand Paul and Mike Lee will get their request to begin the voting with a modified version of the 2015 straight-repeal vote. If those two support the motion to proceed, it would take two more moderates to join Collins and prevent a vote-a-rama.

If Sen. Mitch McConnell gets his motion to proceed, the legislative show will probably begin with a substitute amendment. Senate aides believe it would be the 2015 repeal-only bill. A version of the Republican repeal-and-replace scheme could come as an amendment to the amendment. Clear? After 20 hours of debate have expired, the Congressional Budget Office will not have time to score the final bill before voting occurs.

But to get there, McConnell will have to break out the big carrots and sticks on holdouts like Sens. Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska. Trump appeared yesterday at a national Boy Scouts gathering in Capito’s West Virginia and told Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price on stage that he’d better get Capito’s vote. Talking Points Memo reports that Murkowski told reporters last week, “I have said all along that I felt that the Medicaid reforms should have been separate from the effort that we were undertaking with the ACA fixes.” There is no indication yet this morning on whether they are still no votes.

Others in the caucus are finding McConnell’s closed-doors horse-trading offensive:

“It’s starting to feel like a bazaar, $50 billion here, $100 billion there, and I feel like it’s losing coherency so I hope that somehow or another it can move in a different direction,” Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN) told reporters last week.

And then there’s the biggest question: will the replacement legislation be the actual final bill the Senate votes on, or will McConnell put forward a bill modeled after 2015 legislation that repealed Obamacare without a replacement, but with a two-year delay.

As of Monday evening, Republicans weren’t sure exactly which bill they’d be moving forward after Tuesday’s procedural vote.

Trump’s incoherence is rubbing off.

UPDATE:

McConnell and his leadership team are throwing everything they have at wavering senators: the threat of political disaster if they fail, an open amendment process to allow their ideas to be debated — and the argument that a flawed Senate bill can be fixed later in conference negotiations with the House. Administration officials and senators are discussing adding as much as $100 billion more to earlier drafts to help low-income people with premiums, Republicans said, while senators also may consider a scaled back version of Obamacare repeal that would allow them to at least pass something in the Senate and get to conference, Republicans said.

[…]

Republicans are strongly considering a strategy that would tee up two separate votes — one on the repeal only and another on the plan the Senate has been working on to repeal and replace Obamacare.

“They would never do this to the Clintons”

Published by digby on July 25, 2017

“They would never do this to the Clintons”

by digby

via GIPHY

This made me laugh out loud:

Jason Chaffetz, who recently stepped down from the House of Representatives and into a Fox News gig, wondered why congressional investigators are focusing on Jared Kushner instead of Chelsea Clinton. 

Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and White House senior adviser, released an 11-page statement detailing his contacts with Russian officials during the campaign ahead of his closed-door hearing with congressional lawmakers — and Chaffetz echoed President Donald Trump’s recent Twitter complaints. 

“Republicans need to get a backbone,” Chaffetz said. 

“Every time the Democrats say they need to call up Jared Kushner or Don Jr. — call up Chelsea Clinton, call up the Clintons.” 

The president tweeted over the weekend that Republicans had not done enough to protect him from the Russia investigation, and suggested Hillary Clinton should instead be the target — which Chaffetz endorsed. 

“There we have an inspector general who issues a report stating an actual crime,” Chaffetz said. “You have Bill Clinton, the former president, taking millions and millions of dollars from countries, that Hillary Clinton is going in and then doing business.” 

“So every time a Democrat says ‘I gotta talk to Donald Trump Jr.,’ then go up and bring Chelsea Clinton in there,” Chaffetz continued, “because she was involved in the Benghazi situation, she was involved with the (Clinton) Foundation.” 

He didn’t detail what possible crimes Chelsea Clinton may have committed, but Chaffetz said it was ridiculous that congressional investigators wanted to speak with Kushner about the foreign contacts and loans he failed to disclose on his security clearance forms. 

“They would never, ever, ever do this to the Clintons,” Chaffetz said.

ROTFLMAO!!!!

Yeah, they Clintons are immune from investigations.

Well, except for the dozens of bogus investigations including impeachment during the 90s and Cheffetz’s own Benghazi crusade. But other than that …

More here from Wonkette. Oy …

.

Oh those darned Republican women

Published by digby on July 24, 2017

Oh those darned Republican women

by digby

They’re ruining everything:

During a radio interview on a Corpus Christi station last Friday, Farenthold said he finds it “absolutely repugnant” that “the Senate does not have the courage to do some of the things that every Republican in the Senate promised to do.”

Farenthold singled out female senators for opposing the repeal of Obamacare, before suggesting that if they were men, he’d ask them to settle things with a gunfight.

“Some of the people that are opposed to this [i.e., repealing Obamacare] — there are some female senators from the northeast,” Farenthold said. “If it was a guy from south Texas I might ask them to step outside and settle this Aaron Burr-style.”

I’m not sure when Alaska and West Virginia became part of the Northeast. Republicans across the board don’t seem to be good with basic grade school level facts.

More importantly, I’d put my money on Murkowski, Capito or Collins in any duel with this guy: