The Philadelphia Eagles didn’t want to go to the White House because they can’t stand the president in dozens of different ways, not just because of the take a knee movement. One player told Jake Tapper that they didn’t even discuss that.
Sarah Huckabee Sanders said today that they were just trying to embarrass the president. Apparently, she is unaware that he embarrasses himself and the United States every minute of every day.
Pretty sure RNC staff and the new White House interns got told to pack the lawn. https://t.co/ojHmo0UsLQ— Greg Greene (@ggreeneva) June 5, 2018
Yeah. You’ll recall that Trump hired actors for his presidential campaign announcement.
Fox News tweeted a video of Eagles players kneeling. But it was fake news:
As you can see, there are a number of still shots of Eagles players (and former Eagles players — a 2016 picture of Jordan Matthews is included for some reason) kneeling in this video. Clearly, the Eagles are being incredibly disrespectful to America!
Except they’re not. They’re not even kneeling during the National Anthem. Those photos are pictures of players praying in pregame warmups. I know this because I was at the games. Players from both teams stand on the sideline facing the flag during warmups. No one is kneeling in the end zone.
Eagles tight end Zach Ertz, who caught the game-winning touchdown in Super Bowl LII, reacted to the images of him being used in this clip.
This can’t be serious…. Praying before games with my teammates, well before the anthem, is being used for your propaganda?! Just sad, I feel like you guys should have to be better than this… https://t.co/kYeyH2zXdK— Zach Ertz (@ZERTZ_86) June 5, 2018
And then there’s this, from our alleged uber-patriot:
Imagine wanting to please the boss so very badly that you run stills of guys knelt down PRAYING during pregame. Not one Eagles player knelt for the anthem this yr. Keep carrying his water to sow division while misrepresenting Christian men. Aren’t many of your viewers.. nevermind https://t.co/QdlOvL0btq— Chris Long (@JOEL9ONE) June 5, 2018
The president who has made respect for patriot songs a core plank in his administration doesn't know the words to patriot songs pic.twitter.com/YPBiBDzqAT— Robert Maguire (@RobertMaguire_) June 5, 2018
He sings “stand beside me” instead of “stand beside her”
He doesn’t know the words to the national anthem either:
Did I mention that he is an embarrassment every minute of every day?
Chinese leaders must “make a full public accounting” of the 1989 crackdown on protestors in Tiananmen Square, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Sunday.
“On the 29th anniversary of the violent suppression of peaceful demonstrations in and around Tiananmen Square on June 4, 1989, we remember the tragic loss of innocent lives,” Pompeo said. “As Liu Xiaobo wrote in his 2010 Nobel Peace Prize speech, delivered in absentia, ‘the ghosts of June 4th have not yet been laid to rest.’”
“We join others in the international community in urging the Chinese government to make a full public accounting of those killed, detained or missing; to release those who have been jailed for striving to keep the memory of Tiananmen Square alive; and to end the continued harassment of demonstration participants and their families,” Pompeo said.
Or is he just trolling to gin up more global antagonism? That’s all true. But it’s surprising coming from this administration that loves the strongmen. His boss certainly has different ideas about all that:
Donald Trump still thinks the Chinese government showed “strength” when they killed more than 200 people to crush pro-democracy student protests in 1989 — but he’s not saying he agrees with what the regime did.
“That doesn’t mean I was endorsing that,” Trump said. “I said that was a strong, powerful government. They kept down the riot, it was a horrible thing.”
Trump told Playboy in a 1990 interview: “When the students poured into Tiananmen Square, the Chinese government almost blew it. Then they were vicious, they were horrible, but they put it down with strength. That shows you the power of strength. Our country is right now perceived as weak.”
They’re all over the place creating chaos and “disruption” which seems to be a catch-phrase they all interpret as guaranteed to create a wonderful result.
That’s wrong. This isn’t a neat new ap that will change the dating market. Sometimes disruption causes millions of people to die.
Maybe Pompeo’s words sound credible to the Chinese. But I doubt it. They know trolling when they see it.
Fourteen lawyers and law professors sent a letter to the White House on Monday rebutting a memo from President Donald Trump’s lawyers which asserted broad presidential power that would protect Trump from any ramifications in the Russia probe.
“The Office of the President is not a get-out-of-jail free card for lawless behavior,” the lawyers wrote. “Indeed, our country’s Founders made it clear in the Declaration of Independence that they did not believe that even a king had such powers…Our Founders would not have created — and did not create — a Constitution that would permit the President to use his powers to violate the laws for corrupt and self-interested reasons.”
The letter came in response to a New York Times report on Saturday that the Trump legal team sent Mueller a 20-page memo in January arguing that Trump was incapable of obstructing justice in the Russia collusion case because he could “if he wished, terminate the inquiry, or even exercise his power to pardon.”
In their Monday letter, the legal experts argued that Trump could not end Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation or pardon himself afterwards without running afoul of the Constitution.
“The federal obstruction laws, with their bar on corruptly-motivated actions, apply whether the President obstructs an investigation through firing officials leading it, shutting down the investigation, ordering the destruction of documents, or dangling or issuing pardons to induce witnesses to impede the investigation,” they wrote.
“Just as the President could not use otherwise lawful firing powers in exchange for a bribe without running afoul of federal bribery laws, he is not free to exempt himself from the application of the obstruction of justice laws,” they added.
The letter is addressed specifically to Trump attorneys Donald McGahn and Emmet Flood and was organized by a group called “Protect Democracy,” a nonpartisan watchdog.
I think this is a good strategy. It should draw out which right wing legal intellectuals are going to sign on with the Trump cult. There will undoubtedly be a response.
Amidst the brouhaha about the president’s lawyers declaring that he is above the law, there is other news, some of it just as alarming as the idea that the president has decided that he has “absolute power” to pardon himself. I touched upon the growing trade war in my column yesterday and discussed how Trump is alienating America’s traditional allies in Europe and North America while cozying up to strongman dictators who clearly see him as a mark. Even his good pal the French president Emmanuel Macron is in the doghouse for failing to properly kowtow. CNN described a phone call about migration and trade between the two leaders:
“Just bad. It was terrible,” one source told CNN. “Macron thought he would be able to speak his mind, based on the relationship. But Trump can’t handle being criticized like that.”
Earlier Macron had stated publicly that “economic nationalism leads to war — this is exactly what happened in the 1930s,” which undoubtedly meant little to Trump who knows nothing about history or economic nationalism. In any case, all that hugging and hand holding didn’t get him too far. With Trump everything is a one-way street leading directly to his ego.
Trump’s understanding of trade is simplistic and he is not conversant in economics. He is just using the issue to show his dominance and make the world “stop laughing at us” which he has said a thousand times:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PrTs8bdVT78
However, there are others with a more sophisticated agenda, which may be even more concerning since they seem to see Trump as a useful tool. One of them is former Trump campaign chief and senior adviser Steve Bannon who has been out of the limelight these last few months.The last we heard Trump was calling him “sloppy Steve” but apparently Bannon hasn’t lost his affection for the big guy in spite of that. And frankly, Trump may not have lost his for Bannon either — as long as someone is willing to kiss his ring he’ll invite them back into his circle before long.
Fareed Zakaria interviewed Bannon in Rome recently where he was enthusiastically cheering on the chaos of the recent Italian elections, implying that a new day of economic populism was surging across Europe like a Panzer division on methamphetamines. He was full of the usual contradictions and muddled philosophical compost, but he essentially made the case that right wing nationalism is the wave of the future although he tried unsuccessfully to claim that race, ethnicity and religion have nothing whatsoever to do with it. And he sputtered his way through an unconvincing explanation as to how Trump’s massive tax cuts were the basis of Trump’s economic populism. He said:
“Europe is about a year ahead of the United States. . . . You see populist-nationalist movements with reform [here]. . . . You could begin to see the elements of Bernie Sanders coupled with the Trump movement that really becomes a dominant political force in American politics.”
It’s hard to say what’s going to happen in America but it’s hard to imagine a marriage between Sanders’ left populism and Trump’s right nativism. The xenophobia and racism is a real sticking point.
In Europe there is certainly a rising right wing movement about which Bannon and his allies are closely observing for tips on how to use Trump to make it happen in the US. For instance, Trump’s newly confirmed Ambassador to Germany, a former right wing hit man and odioustwitter troll, Richard Grenell, has made one of the worst first impressions of any diplomat in history with this tweet:
Ric: my advice, after a long ambassadorial career: explain your own country’s policies, and lobby the host country – but never tell the host country what to do, if you want to stay out of trouble. Germans are eager to listen, but they will resent instructions.
There was widespread indignation from across the German political spectrum but Grenell refused to back down, basically telling the German people he was only following orders:
the exact language sent out from the White House talking points & fact sheet. https://t.co/vKYRny6Hkq
He was the only Ambassador to do such a thing. But over the week-end he went even further, giving an interview to Breitbart, in which he said that he was “excited” by the rise of far-right parties in Europe and was prepared “to empower other conservatives throughout Europe, other leaders.” Breitbart reported:
Unafraid to name names, Mr Grenell expressed a deep respect and admiration for the young Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz saying, “Look, I think Sebastian Kurz is a rockstar. I’m a big fan.”
Chancellor Kurz, leader of the conservative Austrian People’s Party (ÖVP), formed a coalition with the populist Freedom Party (FPÖ) earlier this year, and has been one of the strongest advocates for securing the European Union’s external border.
Not long after the formation of the coalition, Kurz stood up to German Chancellor Angela Merkel, rejecting the controversial European Union migrant quota system.He was also been a leading conservative on the topic of counter-Islamisation while Foreign Minister in the previous coalition government, advocating and helping to pass a ban on the full-face Islamic veil.
The German government was not amused. According to Robert Mackay at The Intercept they “demanded a formal explanation from the United States on Monday of what, exactly, the new U.S. ambassador in Berlin, Richard Grenell, meant when he promised to use his office to help far-right nationalists inspired by Donald Trump take power across Europe.” Grenell tweeted that he did not plan to endorse anyone but stood by his claim that Europe, like America,is “experiencing an awakening from the silent majority — those who reject the elites and their bubble. Led by Trump.”
No doubt all of America’s European allies were thrilled to hear that, especially with the neo-fascist rumblings coming from Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban and now Slovenian right wing nationalist hard-liner Janez Jansa.
The trade war is bad enough. White nationalist Trumpies stomping around Europe shooting off their mouths and giving support to far right politicians is making it worse.
By the way, Trump just named an extremist Bannon ally to lead the broadcasting arm of the U.S. government, a $685 million agency that oversees prominent U.S.-funded outlets including Voice of America and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. What could go wrong?
Bannon: to learn from and provide support to the unusual coalition of populists and nationalists who together won half the vote in Italy’s recent elections and have formed a government. Bannon sees that sort of coalition — mixing left and right, old and young — as his goal for the United States.
What’s seems more bizarre than Trump/Giuliani’s assertion that the president can’t be indicted even if he shot Comey? The fact that Republicans haven’t risen up in alarm to condemn that obscene remark. It appears to makes no sense. Don’t Republicans realize their acclaiming Donald Trump the King of America will come back to haunt them when Democrats regain power?
Actually, it makes perfect sense and Republicans are being entirely consistent. It rests on the following assumption:
Democrats will never regain power over any federal branch again. They will never regain a majority of governorships or a majority of statehouses. Ever.
The November election will test, to some extent, whether this assumption is valid…but only to some extent. If Democrats win, Republicans will simply move their fight to permanently retain power to other venues than the ballot box. And not just to the courts. Charlottesville comes to mind, only far worse.
My American life has seen the Missile Crisis, Vietnam, Cambodia, the resignation of a president, El Salvador, 9/11, state-sponsored racist murders, and the needless slaughter and torture of one million Iraqis by a drooling psychopath of a president.
But today, we are living in potentially the most tragically awful period of all. It is the word “potentially” that provides me some hope but I’m well aware of another way of putting it: Five hundred dreadful days into the Trump presidency, the worst is probably ahead of us.
June 5 primary states
Alabama
California
Iowa
Mississippi
Montana
New Jersey
New Mexico
South Dakota
Big primary day. None bigger than California’s notorious “jungle primary.” In California since 2012, all candidates run on the same primary ballot regardless of party. The top two vote-getters run against each other in November. Again, regardless of party. FiveThirtyEight explains, this was supposed to give moderates a better shot at appealing to voters across the political spectrum. It hasn’t always worked out that way:
What it has done is occasionally let two candidates of the same party slip through to the general election, which critics say deprives voters of a true choice in November. Let’s say you have a district that’s perfectly split — 50-50 — between Democratic and Republican voters, but 10 Democratic candidates run for the seat compared with only two Republicans. The two Republicans might get 25 percent of the vote apiece, while the Democrats each receive 5 percent. That would advance the two Republicans to the general election, locking up that district for the GOP.
That’s the fear today, with many fresh-faced Democrats activated by the election of the Propaganda President vying for a seat in Washington. Several of California’s congressional districts could see Democrats shut out in November. Complicating matters in the 48th Congressional District (incumbent Republican Dana Rohrabacher), eight Democrats are on the ballot, yet three have already dropped out.
Seven districts won by Hillary Clinton plus three others are on the Democrat’s target list today. The Los Angeles Times reports:
The party is preparing for what it sees as the worst-case scenario: Democrats get shut out of one or two California races. That would leave them to compete in at least five GOP-held districts where Clinton won in 2016. Two of those districts in the Central Valley have proved hard for Democratic House candidates to penetrate. If they are shut out of more than a couple of districts in the primary, Democrats will have to scramble to find opportunities elsewhere in the country to flip the 23 seats they need to retake the House.
Democrats have expanded their map of targets around the nation in part due to an intense boom of enthusiasm they are seeing and the bumper crop of first-time candidates stepping up to run. But here, in the epicenter of the resistance, that enthusiasm could cost them.
On the upside for Democrats, none of the incumbent Democrats targeted by the GOP have attracted challengers able to raise significant money. Republican registration in the state is now so low that the party recently fell to third-party status.
Dear @realDonaldTrump: Now that Independents outnumber Republicans in California, can you please come and do one of your toxic rallies? Unleash your anger, call people names & go full #MAGA.
Former law professor Antoinette Sedillo Lopez has raised more than $1 million in her race. She has been endorsed by the political arm of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and liberal groups including the Our Revolution and Working Families Party chapters in New Mexico. Former state Democratic Party Chairwoman Deb Haaland is also a top candidate and would be the first Native American woman elected to Congress if she wins.
Albuquerque city councilman Pat Davis dropped out of the race and endorsed Haaland. Prior to that, NMPolitics.net reports, “Haaland was polling at 19 percent to Damon Martinez’s 22 percent and Antoinette Sedillo Lopez’s 17 percent, according to the Albuquerque Journal (Davis was at 5 percent in that poll).” Polls close tonight at 9 p.m. EDT.
* * * * * * * *
For The Win 2018 is ready for download. Request a copy of my county-level election mechanics primer at tom.bluecentury at gmail.
Giuliani said impeachment was the initial remedy for a president’s illegal behavior ― even in the extreme hypothetical case of Trump having shot former FBI Director James Comey to end the Russia investigation rather than just firing him.
“If he shot James Comey, he’d be impeached the next day,” Giuliani said. “Impeach him, and then you can do whatever you want to do to him.”
But look at the violent rhetoric Giuliani uses, “If he shot…“ Shot, not punched with his tiny hands. Shot, not stabbed in the back. Shot. Not fired from a fake Apprentice job.
Trump wants to shoot and kill his enemies.
I think this comment is about something on the #TrumpTapes. Rudy says what Trump wants to do out loud. The media and some of us are using the “Rudy is a dotty old man bit” to discount his comment. But to diminish them allows the Trump Team to float outrageous trial balloon after trial balloon to reset expectations on normalcy.
Let’s imagine audio of Trump telling Michael Cohen to threaten Stormy Daniels with violence. Violence ordered by Trump might not sound so bad as compared to him using personal lethal violence with a gun.
This is all about setting expectations. It’s like the old joke where the kid tells his dad some horrible story and at the end of it he says, “It’s not true!” because it makes the fender bender of the car sound better.
I’ve been writing about the terrible effect of the right wing using violent rhetoric for over a decade.
I like to remind people that threatening speech is not protected speech. Giuliani could have used a number of other words, but he wanted to create an NRA-approved image. “Trump can personally shoot and kill someone.”
The image Giuliani uses is Trump personally shooting the head of the FBI. Executing him.
You will note this isn’t an image of Trump acting in self defense. Giuliani created an image of Trump shooting and killing someone who he feels wronged him. This is Trump using lethal violence.
For Comey in this scenario there is no arrest. No trial. No Judge. No jury of peers. Just BLAM! Trump as the gunfighter shooting the bad guy, Comey.
But even mob bosses don’t do their own killing. they order others to do it for them. They have people “whacked” or other euphemisms for physical violence.
When a comms team floats a trial balloon of the most extreme case, they are hoping to learn something and set up something. Rudy’s trial balloon tells us to expect the next level down from Trump personally executing a defenseless man with a gun.
In Rwanda the radio hosts for the Hutu’s said “Cut the tall trees” when they wanted to tell Hutus to kill the Tutsis. They didn’t say, “Take a machete and kill your neighbor.” But people knew that was what they were talking about. I’ve got 5 Quatloos on Trump telling Cohen to do some kind of physical violence to Stormy Daniels. Then people will start arguing about what is to be taken seriously vs what is hyperbole. “It’s not like Trump told Cohen to shoot her!”
Therefore, when the #TrumpTapes come out, please keep in mind that this is not a TV show. This was not some clowns joking. This was not some dotty old men shaking their fists at some mean lady with no actual plans to do anything. This happened before the election. Just because Trump personally didn’t shoot someone doesn’t make the threats he DID make okay.
This is real life, not Apprentice Mob Boss
Following the release of the #TrumpTapes the public and the media must demand all the elected adults act. This means impeaching the president, then indicting him. Then arresting and trying him. That’s what normal people do in a democracy.
When the president embraces the tactics of a monarch, it becomes incumbent on Congress to wield the constitutional power it has to stop it.
Congress, representing the voice of the people, should use every tool available to prevent the president from subverting the rule of law.
When the president usurps the legislative power and defies the limits of his authority, it becomes all the more imperative for Congress to act. And Congress should use those powers given to it by the Constitution to counter a lawless executive branch—or it will lose its authority.
He may not have studied the pardon question but he sure seemed to be clear on the fact that a president cannot subvert the rule of law, embracing the tactics of a monarch. I’m pretty sure a president pardoning himself fits the bill just a little bit better than the subject he was writing about: DACA.
And Cruz knows that. Lyin’ Ted was one of the more apt of Trump’s puerile nicknames. Sometimes his projections also fit the target.
Marcy Wheeler has been speculating about this for many months but after the memo was released this week-end it seems her speculation might be getting some traction. This is her post today:
As early as January 8, Robert Mueller’s team was asking Donald Trump what his role in this statement on the June 9 Trump Tower meeting with Russians offering dirt on Hillary was; Don Jr’s lawyer released the statement on July 8, 2017.
It was a short introductory meeting. I asked Jared and Paul to stop by. We primarily discussed a program about the adoption of Russian children that was active and popular with American families years ago and was since ended by the Russian government, but it was not a campaign issue at that time and there was no follow up. I was asked to attend the meeting by an acquaintance, but was not told the name of the person I would be meeting with beforehand.
The answer Trump’s lawyers gave in January seems to admit Trump dictated the statement.
You have received all of the notes, communications and testimony indicating that the President dictated a short but accurate response to the New York Times article on behalf of his son, Donald Trump, Jr. His son then followed up by making a full public disclosure regarding the meeting, including his public testimony that there was nothing to the meeting and certainly no evidence of collusion.56
This subject is a private matter with the New York Times. The President is not required to answer to the Office of the Special Counsel, or anyone else, for his private affairs with his children. In any event, the President’s son, son-in-law, and White House advisors and staff have made a full disclosure on these events to both your office and the congressional committees.57
Note: the statement is assuredly not accurate. The SJC materials show the Russian participants in the meeting spent weeks in November 2016 trying to follow-up, but the follow-up got deferred (maybe, or maybe not) because of new difficulties in scheduling.
In any case, saying that the notes, communications, and testimony “indicate” that Trump dictated the statement stops short of saying that he did so.
As a reminder, here’s the timeline of events leading up to that statement getting released.
Early July 7: NYT approaches WH officials and lawyers; WH schedules a conference call w/NYT for next morning.
July 7: Trump chats up Putin at dinner. (Note, whenever Melania decides it’s time to get revenge on Trump for treating her like shit, she can go tell Mueller what she overheard of this conversation.)
July 8, morning: Conference call doesn’t happen. NYT submits 14 questions about the meeting to the WH and lawyers of Trump campaign aides who attended the meeting (do these aides include all of Don Jr, Kushner, and Manafort?); Trump and his aides develop a response on Air Force One, with Hicks coordinating with Don Jr and his lawyer Alan Garten, who were both in NY, via text message.
July 8, afternoon: Jamie Gorelick provides a statement describing his revisions to his security clearance forms.
He has since submitted this information, including that during the campaign and transition, he had over 100 calls or meetings with representatives of more than 20 countries, most of which were during transition. Mr. Kushner has submitted additional updates and included, out of an abundance of caution, this meeting with a Russian person, which he briefly attended at the request of his brother-in-law Donald Trump Jr. As Mr. Kushner has consistently stated, he is eager to cooperate and share what he knows.
July 8, evening: Garten issues a statement in Don Jr’s name stating,
It was a short introductory meeting. I asked Jared and Paul to stop by. We primarily discussed a program about the adoption of Russian children that was active and popular with American families years ago and was since ended by the Russian government, but it was not a campaign issue at that time and there was no follow up. I was asked to attend the meeting by an acquaintance, but was not told the name of the person I would be meeting with beforehand.
Right in the middle of this heated effort to respond to the NYT, Trump bizarrely spent an hour chatting Vladimir Putin up over dinner at the G-20 (yeah, I wrote that comment about Melania in February!). The question here is not just “why did you release such a partial statement that the documentary record proves is inaccurate?” Nor is it, “why did you emphasize adoptions — Russian code for sanctions — rather than the sanctions that were at the core of the meeting?”
It’s also the unstated question: “Did you dictate that statement? Or did Vladimir Putin?”
Here’s the nutty bit. We don’t actually have to speculate about whether that spin — adoptions rather than sanctions — came up in the chat between Putin and Trump. In an interview not long after news of the June 9 meeting broke, Trump actually told the NYT he and Putin were talking about adoptions.
TRUMP: She was sitting next to Putin and somebody else, and that’s the way it is. So the meal was going, and toward dessert I went down just to say hello to Melania, and while I was there I said hello to Putin. Really, pleasantries more than anything else. It was not a long conversation, but it was, you know, could be 15 minutes. Just talked about — things. Actually, it was very interesting, we talked about adoption.
HABERMAN: You did?
TRUMP: We talked about Russian adoption. Yeah. I always found that interesting. Because, you know, he ended that years ago. And I actually talked about Russian adoption with him, which is interesting because it was a part of the conversation that Don [Jr., Mr. Trump’s son] had in that meeting. As I’ve said — most other people, you know, when they call up and say, “By the way, we have information on your opponent,” I think most politicians — I was just with a lot of people, they said [inaudible], “Who wouldn’t have taken a meeting like that?” They just said——
HABERMAN: The senators downstairs?
TRUMP: A lot of them. They said, “Who wouldn’t have taken a meeting like that?”
By his own admission, Trump went from the July 7 dinner chat about adoptions with Putin and “dictated” a statement that just happened to focus, misleadingly, on adoptions.
So, yeah, the big question in this entire list is the unstated one: did you dictate that statement? Or did Putin?
Marcy isn’t the only one:
I think about this every day.
Trump discussed adoption policy with Putin one day before 'dictating' son's statement about 'adoptions' https://t.co/COP7SVsshl— Natasha Bertrand (@NatashaBertrand) June 4, 2018
Josh Marshall went deep on this today as well, concluding:
So the President learns news of the 2016 Trump Tower meeting is going to break. His staff is chattering and brainstorming about it all day. He seeks out President Putin and has a highly irregular private meeting with Putin with no other Americans. He discusses Russian adoptions. The next day he takes over the press response and personally dictates a statement which is false and makes Russian adoptions the centerpiece of the meeting.
It is not only clear that the discussion of adoptions with Putin informed Trump’s false statement. It seems impossible to imagine that Trump didn’t raise the Trump Tower meeting explicitly with Putin during their chat. Indeed, it seems highly likely that that is why he went out of his way to meet with him a second time. Remember, this is the guy who two months earlier bragged to Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov: “I just fired the head of the FBI. He was crazy, a real nut job. I faced great pressure because of Russia. That’s taken off.”
We don’t know what the two men discussed. (The Russians no doubt have a record of it. Their translator was there.) But given the facts and chain of events, it seems close to impossible to believe this wasn’t one of the things the two men discussed. Good bet it was the entirety of what they discussed.
Every day that Trump’s enablers in the administration and the congress along with the tens of millions of voters who think this stuff is ok they reveal their fundamental corruption:
[B]efore he left the White House, former National Economic Council Director Gary Cohn would withhold jobs report data from President Trump until shortly before their release because he was worried the president couldn’t help but say something about them.
It’s now easy to see why he did this. I wrote at some length on Friday about Trump’s extraordinary tweet an hour before the May jobs report suggesting that he was “looking forward” to the numbers, which turned out to handily beat expectations. Markets jumped on Trump’s tweet, which pushed right up to the line (and perhaps beyond) of rules forbidding federal officials from saying anything about the data until an hour AFTER its release.
Current NEC Director Larry Kudlow followed the usual protocol in calling Trump on Air Force One on Thursday and gave him Friday’s figures. Kudlow did nothing wrong here. But Trump did, even if it wasn’t a direct disclosure of the numbers.
He’s now created a scenario in which traders will be looking for Trump tweets each jobs Friday. Does no tweet mean a bad number is coming? He’s inserted a new variable where none should exist.
And he’s raised the question of whether he’s dishing on the numbers in his regular late night calls to friends from the White House. And if he is, what are those friends doing with the numbers?
