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Month: June 2019

Will he stay or will he go?

Published by digby on June 21, 2019

Will he stay or will he go?

by digby

Everyone is scoffing at these concerns by Democrats but maybe they shouldn’t:

In 2016, Donald Trump waffled over whether he would accept the election results if he lost.

Since then, Trump has repeatedly joked about staying in office beyond the two terms the Constitution allows. Jerry Falwell Jr., Trump’s most prominent evangelical supporter, has suggested Trump should get two years tacked on to his first term as “pay back” for the Mueller investigation. The president’s own former lawyer, Michael Cohen, has warned that “there will never be a peaceful transition of power” should Trump fail in his reelection bid.

The scenarios all seem far-fetched — “It’s almost a question for science fiction movies,” cracked a former top Secret Service official — but the constant drumbeat nonetheless has people chattering in the halls of Congress and throughout the Beltway: What if Trump won’t accept defeat in 2020?

And one scenario in particular has Democrats nervous: the lawsuit-happy Trump contests the election results in court.

“It’s been a worry in the back of my mind for the last couple years now,” said Rep. Brendan Boyle, a Pennsylvania Democrat. California Rep. Ted Lieu, a frequent Trump critic and early impeachment inquiry supporter, acknowledged the same concern but said he trusted law enforcement “would do the right thing” and “install the winner” of the election. Even House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has told her party to prepare for the possibility that Trump contests the 2020 results.

Constitutional experts and top Republican lawmakers dismiss the fears as nonsense, noting there are too many forces working against a sitting president simply clinging to power — including history, law and political pressure.

“That is the least concern people should have. Of all the silly things that are being said, that may be the silliest,” said Missouri GOP Sen. Roy Blunt, who presided over the 2016 inauguration ceremony and expects to do so again in 2020. “The one thing we are really good at is the transition of power.”

Constitutional law expert Jonathan Turley said a lingering incumbent would simply become irrelevant once the new and duly elected president is sworn in. At that point, the defeated president is nothing more than a guest, “if not an interloper,” in the White House, the George Washington University professor noted.

“The system would make fast work on any president who attempted to deny the results of the election,” he said.

But a court battle over a presidential election is not unprecedented. And Trump has shown a willingness to tie up his disputes in winding litigation. The Democratic National Committee and Trump’s campaign were in court all the way up to Election Day 2016, fighting over charges of voter intimidation and ballot access.

“All candidates have a right to contest results in federal court,” Turley said. “It’s not up to the candidate to decide if an election is valid. It’s not based on their satisfaction or consent. They have every right to seek judicial review.”

Even so, contesting the results of the election in more than one state would be “a massive undertaking,” said Bradley Shrager, a lawyer specializing in election litigation who has worked with several Democratic campaigns. He added that “given the time frames to launch recounts and election contests, you’d have to be preparing months in advance to be able to do that.”

There are also deadlines for submitting an official electoral vote tally, Shrager said, so a legal battle wouldn’t drag out indefinitely.

Still, Pelosi’s comments nodded to the Democratic suspicion that Trump will put up a fight. She argued the Democrats’ must win by a margin so “big” that Trump can’t challenge the results.

The sentiment, Democrats say, is fueled by Trump’s cavalier attitude toward presidential term lengths.

Trump continues to talk up the prospect that he could serve past the constitutionally mandated period. On Twitter last weekend, Trump pondered, “do you think the people would demand that I stay longer?” The line mirrored language he used at a rally in Pennsylvania last month where he talked about living in the White House for 20 years.

“We ran one time and we’re 1-and-0. But it was for the big one. Now we’re going to have a second time. And we’re going to have another one. And then we’ll drive them crazy,” Trump said. “And maybe if we really like it a lot — and if things keep going like they’re going — we’ll go and we’ll do what we have to do. We’ll do a three and a four and a five.”

I suspect he will leave — and spend the rest of his life ginning up the cult to believe it was stolen from him. He’ll enjoy that more than being president.

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“The critical moment will come when American personnel are killed”

Published by digby on June 21, 2019

“The critical moment will come when American personnel are killed”


by digby

This piece by Christopher Dickey is one of the smartest I’ve read about where we are with Trump and Iran:

Could American policy toward Iran look any more reckless, feckless, or just plain nuts? One is tempted to ask: What happens when your actions are based on a madman theory, but conducted by an actual madman?

Nothing good. And the last few hours are an illustration. On Thursday, the Iranians shot down a big, high-flying, very, very expensive unmanned American surveillance drone that they say was in their airspace near the strategic Strait of Hormuz. The Americans say the drone was over international waters, and administration hawks wanted to teach a lesson to whoever in Iran had the effrontery to do such a thing.

Then President Donald J. Trump went on a confusion offensive, starting with a tweet saying Iran had made a “big mistake!” A few hours later during a photo op with Canada’s prime minister,Trump compounded the befuddlement by saying he thought the downing of the drone might have been a mistake like, you know, an accident, but hinted there would be a big bad response.

Overnight we read reports he had indeed ordered attacks on Iranian installations, sending ships speeding across the seas and planes soaring into the air, but then changed his mind and had everybody stand down.

Friday morning, after fulminating about other topics like “the Russia hoax,” the president took to Twitter again to do a little Trumpsplaining, insisting that after the drone was shot down (on Monday, he said, contrary to all other information), “We were cocked & loaded to retaliate last night on 3 different sights when I asked, how many will die. 150 people, sir, was the answer from a General. 10 minutes before the strike I stopped it, not … … proportionate to shooting down an unmanned drone.”

So, back to our original question: Is there method to this madness? The increasingly obvious answer is no, in the sense of any long-term policy or strategy. But Trump’s actions do have their own internal logic.

First of all, the president may be a warmonger, but his weapon of preference is the dollar, using tariffs and sanctions to try to bring other leaders to their knees. He dreads the idea of conventional wars in far away places

Trump is the man who once paid $94,801 in 1987 to place ads in The New York Times, Washington Post, and Boston Globe attacking President Ronald Reagan’s naval deployment in the Persian Gulf to defend oil tankers from Iranian attacks. Trump’s full page advertisements said the world was laughing at American politicians for protecting “ships we don’t own, carrying oil we don’t need for allies who won’t help.” One might say the same thing today, and Trump knows it.

Trump listens, up to a point, to U.S. generals itching to give Iran a “bloody nose,” and to the Boltons and Pompeos who fantasize about regime change. But “Art of the Deal” Trump’s objective always was and remains to get a better deal with Iran than Barack Obama did, which, as he made clear in his Friday tweetstorm, was why he provoked this crisis in the first place by pulling out of the nuclear accord last year.

It must gall Trump to realize, as some day he must, that that is not going to happen.

The best thing about Trump is his aversion to war. The worst is his addiction to tough-guy posturing. Where Iran is concerned, the combination is a series of bluffs that beg to be called. And the mullahs and Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps will keep testing.

What they are learning is that there’s not going to be any fire and fury. More likely there will be what Trump called “proportionate” response by American forces, a tactic with which the Middle East is mightily familiar. It was the characteristic of the long-forgotten “Tanker War” that Reagan waged and Trump deplored back in 1987 and 1988.

Ambassador Barbara Bodine, who was central to that State Department end of that operation 32 years ago, and now heads the Institute for Study of Diplomacy at Georgtown University, notes that the Iranians, famous as chess players and poker players, “are not generally rash.”

“One of the things that struck me at the time of the tanker protection regime [in ’87-’88] and even more so in retrospect its that they seemed to calculate very carefully how far they could push and not get a reaction from us, and we were very careful about how far we could push them,” she says. “That went on for two years.”

The critical moment will come when American personnel are killed, which would fit a classic pattern when an American administration wants to go to war. It starts with picking villains, then picking a fight, and carrying out a series of provocative moves to push them into a corner, until someone at some level in the target regime kills an American. Then the U.S. responds with a major military action, very likely intending to knock off the top guy in the regime as well. The American bombing of Libya in 1986 after a disco bombing in Berlin and the invasion of Panama in 1989 after a violent traffic stop near the Canal Zone would be two examples.

He cites a number of other examples. Of course, at least semi-sane people were in the executive branch at the time and however malevolent their goals, they did at least have a strategy and some idea of the consequences of their actions.  We have a very different set of circumstances today.

Dickey points out in that piece that Trump’s “weapon of preference is the dollar, using tariffs and sanctions to try to bring other leaders to their knees. He dreads the idea of conventional wars in far away places.”  This is true. Trump’s goal is total economic dominance. But he also built up the American military as a tool to back up his economic threats. Witness his willingness to use troops at the Mexican border.  He also likes to threaten to withdraw American security guarantees if allies don’t bow to his will.

He’s too simple to understand how he’s using these threats of violence to dominate the world. He thinks he’s a peacenik who doesn’t want war because he isn’t running around openly threatening to invade other countries. But doing what he’s doing is essentially the same thing.

Trump’s preference is to threaten to destroy a country’s economy rather than use an invading army to do it.  But let’s not pretend that having the worlds most powerful military isn’t an intrinsic part of that threat.  We see this with Iran. He wanted to “break” them economically and force them to negotiate a “deal” that was more to his liking.  But we are now dealing with threats of military force.

That’s how these things tend to go.

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Hey Never Trumpers — we’re not Republicans

Published by digby on June 21, 2019

Hey Never Trumpers — we’re not Republicans

by digby

I’m not one to bash Never Trumpers, generally. Republican apostates are welcome to join the fight on the right side as far as I’m concerned. We can settle old accounts when the emergency has passed.

But some of them really need to step off and recognize that they may not be the best people to advise the Democrats on politics considering where their party ended up. For instance, the Daily Beast’s Matt Lewis has an article chastising Democrats for trying to elect someone they want for president. Here’s the headline:

Democrats, Your Twitter Mob Is Going to Re-Elect Trump

They rip into Joe Biden, who has the best shot at beating Trump. They defend AOC up and down, even though she misspoke. Twitter Dems, whose side are you on?

Democratic voters are watching Biden step in it over and over again which doesn’t bode well for a strong campaign against Trump. Even if all you care about is beating Trump this isn’t a good sign. Just because a bumbler eked out a victory in the electoral college in 2016 by dazzling easily duped Republicans doesn’t mean it will work for Democrats.

He’s making ridiculous mistakes that a front-runner should easily be able to avoid. The best you can say for him is that he’s rusty, in which case he needs a primary to get him in shape. The worst is that he’s a man whose time has past.

Never-Trump Republicans should know all about that. They ran men like that in 1996 and 2008 and they lost. Democrats aren’t going to make the same mistake. Not when the stakes are so high.

Biden may figure out a way to finesse his past starting with recognizing that the party and the country have changed since the 1970s and 80s and harkening back to that time is not exactly considered a big selling point. (After all, Republican presidents dominated those alleged glory days in case he doesn’t remember…) If he can’t figure out how to use his experience and resume to appeal to swing voters while at the same time assuring his liberal base that he’s capable of leading the country in the 21st century then maybe he’s not a guy who can win the general election.

This is what primaries are for. Republicans who ineffectually flailed about in 2016 as Trump took over their party probably aren’t the best people to lecture anyone about how to prevent his winning again. Just saying …

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Baby Trump has a tantrum when asked about Lewandowski

Published by digby on June 21, 2019

Baby Trump has a tantrum when asked about Lewandowski

by digby

More whining:

During an interview with the publication in the Oval Office on Monday, Trump asked the reporters to go off the record while he showed them the letter he received from Kim.

According to the interview transcript, the photographer appeared to try and snap a photo of the document, but White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said it wasn’t allowed.

Later on in the interview, the publication asked Trump about former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, who testified that the president, “under threat of prison time,” told him to direct former Attorney General Jeff Sessions to reverse his recusal from the Justice Department’s investigation into Russian election interference.

“Excuse me,” Trump said. “Under Section II — well, you can go to prison instead, because, if you use, if you use the photograph you took of the letter I gave you … confidentially, I didn’t give it to you to take photographs of it.

“So don’t play that game with me,” Trump said.

“I’m sorry, Mr. President,” the reporter responded. “Were you threatening me with prison time?”

“Well, I told you the following. I told you you can look at this off-the-record. That doesn’t mean you take out your camera and start taking pictures of it. O.K.?” Trump said. “So I hope you don’t have a picture of it.”

“You can’t do that stuff,” he continued. “So go have fun with your story. Because I’m sure it will be the 28th horrible story I have in Time magazine. … With all I’ve done and the success I’ve had, the way that Time magazine writes is absolutely incredible.”

I know by this time everyone just says, “oh that crazy Trump.” But last night’s aborted military attack should remind everyone that this unstable president has tremendous power and he has a group of henchmen around him these days who will eagerly carry out his orders.

Yes, he’s probably just blowing smoke. But his constant threats are changing the way we think about this. And not in a good way.

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Why did he wait until 10 minutes before the strike to ask that question?

Published by digby on June 21, 2019

Why did he wait until 10 minutes before the strike to ask that question?

by digby

Answer: He didn’t.

John Amato at C&L notes that Trump’s alleged decision-making on the Iran strike doesn’t pass the smell test:

As many journalists and analysts who cover the military know, the CONOP briefing includes a casualty assessment before getting approval.

CNN’s Sam Vinograd has a great Twitter thread on this:

We still don’t know why he called this off at the last minute but it’s more obvious than ever that he’s likely going to make a very big mistake in any crisis. He is simply incompetent.

But he’s very proud of himself:

Amato also caught George Conway, the husband of the president’s senior adviser, speaking truth as well:

Amato also caught Fox and Friends this morning. 

Oh no:

This is bullshit. War with Iran would not be a walk in the part. It is not Iraq, and that wasn’t a walk in the park either.

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The Trump Doctrine: “You’ll find out”

Published by digby on June 21, 2019

The Trump Doctrine: “You’ll find out”

by digby

My Salon column this morning:

Bright and early Thursday morning, President Trump angrily declared on Twitter: “Iran made a very big mistake!” He had obviously heard the news that Iran’s Revolutionary Guards had shot down a very expensive American unmanned drone over international waters. (You know how he feels about money.) It was obviously some kind of threat but not too much later he met with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and told the assembled press corps that he had “a feeling … that it was a mistake made by somebody,” giving the impression that he either knew this wasn’t an act ordered by the top Iranian brass or was just trying to offer them a way out.

Later in the evening, this happened:

According to the New York Times, the operation was already underway with planes in the air and ships in position to fire missiles just before dawn on Friday. As of this writing nobody seems sure what prompted Trump to pull back when he did. There’s no word on whether or not it was due to a change in the situation or simply another of his impulsive actions. The fact that the news media found out about it so quickly argues for the latter. People don’t leak something like that unless they are shocked by what went down.

Considering Trump’s behavior on Thursday, it’s possible he is simply playing out some elaborate “Madman” kabuki. But I’m afraid it’s even more likely that he was watching Tucker Carlson, who argued on his Fox News show that war with Iran wouldn’t be popular with the Republican base. (If so: Thank you, Tucker.)

Whatever the case, we very nearly went to war on Thursday night. And yes, this is 100% Trump’s fault. He and his team have been putting what they call “maximum pressure” on Iran and this is the result. Evidently, Trump thought the Iranians would immediately start sending him “beautiful letters” but they are trying a different tack.

You’ll recall that during the early months of the 2016 campaign, when asked about the Iran deal, Trump told “Meet the Press” that he expected Iran to get nuclear weapons and bring on a nuclear holocaust. He nonetheless said he wouldn’t violate the non-proliferation agreement because “it’s very hard to say, ‘We’re ripping it up.’” As the campaign unfolded he changed his mind but until he fired former national security adviser H.R. McMaster and hired John Bolton, the most fanatical anti-Iran hawk in America, he had been persuaded to stick with the nuclear deal.

When Bolton joined the team, the agreement was quickly abrogated and the inevitable escalation began. Former Defense Secretary Jim Mattis was able to keep Bolton on a short leash for a while but when fellow Iran hawk Mike Pompeo became secretary of state and Mattis resigned (to be replaced by a player to be named later) all bets were off.

Ever since, the administration has been more and more provocative, hitting Iran with crippling sanctions, designating the Islamic Revolutionary Guard a terrorist organization (against the advice of the State Department) and letting Bolton run his mouth with ever more belligerent rhetoric, daring the Iranians to respond. Meanwhile, Trump dithers, pretending that his inability to understand the situation or make a decision is actually a conscious strategy of being “unpredictable.”

Trump’s credibility is nonexistent around the globe so nobody believes him no matter what he says. Russia, North Korea, China and Iran are all starting to circle, flex their muscles and poke at the beast to see what it will do. And here we are.

Jacob Heilbrun, writing in the Spectator USA, points out that Trump really doesn’t want war with Iran but observes that he’s unknowingly assembled a war Cabinet:

If Trump stumbled into war, he would resemble Kaiser Wilhelm during World War I, who backed Austria, only to be sidelined by his generals once the conflict began. Trump would be utterly at sea in trying to preside over a war in the Persian Gulf that could easily spiral out of control. If Trump can’t even appoint a permanent defense secretary, why would anyone imagine he has the competence to conduct a war against Tehran?

It’s very unclear if his war hawks are any more competent than he is. Heilbrun notes that Pompeo has even been advancing “loopy theories, reminiscent of the George W. Bush administration’s folderol on the eve of the second Gulf War, that the Iranians are in cahoots with al-Qaeda.”

In response to that fatuous argument, which was clearly designed to make the post-9/11 Authorization for Use of Military Force against al-Qaida apply to these planned military strikes, the House voted to end the AUMF. (That legislation will die in the Senate, of course.) But Pompeo should have checked with the fourth horseman of the apocalypse, Attorney General William Barr, who would have told him there’s never any need for congressional authorization for military action. That’s what he told President George H.W. Bush when he was contemplating launching the first Gulf War. (In Bush’s defense, he didn’t buy it, asked the Congress and the UN for a vote and pulled together a global coalition.)

As many of you no doubt remember, back during the crazed days after the terrorist attacks on 9/11, these arguments were flying all over the place. George W. Bush got a vote in Congress with no problem but couldn’t get global buy-in because his rationale for invading Iraq was nonsensical and everyone knew it. It was well known that certain hard-right war hawks were hoping that it would be just the first step. As Paul Krugman noted at the time:

It’s a matter of public record that this war with Iraq is largely the brainchild of a group of neoconservative intellectuals, who view it as a pilot project. In August a British official close to the Bush team told Newsweek: ”Everyone wants to go to Baghdad. Real men want to go to Tehran.” In February 2003, according to Ha’aretz, an Israeli newspaper, Under Secretary of State John Bolton told Israeli officials that after defeating Iraq the United States would ”deal with” Iran, Syria and North Korea.

Remember, allegedly reluctant warrior Donald Trump is the one who hired that guy to be his national security adviser. He also hired Pompeo. And he is almost certainly listening to his good buddy, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., who’s been advising him that he needs to get “points on the board,” meaning he must use military force somewhere in order to be taken seriously. (Graham was pushing for a Venezuela invasion, but Trump has lost interest in that one, so Iran will have to do.)

I suspect that argument carries some weight. But Trump really only cares about one thing: re-election. If they want to convince him to let the bombs fly to prove he’s got brass, his hawks are going to have to convince him that his base will love it. They will, of course. They are America’s most fervent supporters of military action and if Trump does it they’ll love him all the more.

Shh. Don’t anybody tell him about Republican voters’ love of war. His ignorance of that fact is the only thing keeping the peace.


Update: oy vey

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Regime change begins at home by @BloggersRUs

Published by Tom Sullivan on June 21, 2019

Regime change begins at home
by Tom Sullivan

“My fellow Americans, I am pleased to tell you that I have signed legislation to outlaw Russia forever. We begin bombing in five minutes,” President Ronald Reagan quipped into a live mic during his 1984 reelection campaign. Swap out ‘Russia’ with ‘Iran’ and it’s déjà vu all over again.

Only this time, National Security Advisor John Bolton isn’t kidding. Nor are Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and CIA director Gina Haspel who approved the plan with Bolton. The president of the United States was in there somewhere.

The White House ordered air strikes against Iranian radar installations and missile batteries for Friday morning in retaliation for the downing of a U.S. surveillance drone in the Strait of Hormuz. The U.S. and Iran dispute just where the drone was in respect to Iranian air space when it was shot down. The Iranians claim they had sent multiple warnings to the unmanned drone several times before firing on it. If true, how the drone might receive them is unclear.

Donald Trump issued a threatening tweet Thursday morning: “Iran made a very big mistake.” Hours later, he said the attack was likely an accident. “I think probably Iran made a mistake – I would imagine it was a general or somebody that made a mistake in shooting that drone down,” Trump said.

Yet, Trump sent warnings of retaliatory strikes overnight to Iran through Oman. Then, Trump abruptly called them off. Planes were already in the air and ships positioned, the New York Times reports.

Readers feeling whipsawed by that changing narrative may be forgiven. CNN assesses Trump’s dilemma, noting it is not clear what thinking or events stopped the imminent strikes:

The President is caught between Republicans demanding a hawkish response, Democrats warning he could “bumble” into war and Iranian policy hardliners on his own national security staff who welcome the confrontation. There is no obvious outcome that gives him the clear political win that is a frequent motivating force behind his foreign policy ventures.

[…]

It’s often been remarked in Washington that Trump has been lucky not to face a sudden, serious national security emergency so far in his presidency. Well, his luck has now run out — though he will get little sympathy from critics who long predicted his hard line Iran policy would precipitate exactly this scenario.

Trump campaigned on avoiding foreign entanglements and may need to look tough in advance of his reelection without taking the associated risks and costs that come with staring another war in the Middle East. Trump called George W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq the “worst single mistake ever made in the history of our country.” If Trump owned Halliburton, he might see it differently.

Intentionally or not, Trump has assembled a “war cabinet” with its own set of goals, goals that came close to being realized overnight.

For his part, Bolton has wanted war with Iran since his moustache was still fledging. He has been looking for regime change in Iran for so long, The Onion satire site “quotes” Bolton claiming war with Iran is “the only suitable response for the heartbreaking deaths of our troops in that upcoming military conflict.”

Our acting president has been out of his depth since before taking office. War with Iran could stretch his improvisational abilities beyond their breaking point, leaving American foreign policy in the hands of John Bolton. The only saving grace is Trump will never stand for being upstaged by an employee.

“Don’t worry about it, I’ll just figure it out”

Published by digby on June 21, 2019

“Don’t worry about it, I’ll just figure it out”

by digby

This TIME Magazine inside look at Trump 2020 doesn’t really break any new ground but it is fascinating nonetheless.

‘My whole life is a bet,’ the President of the United States says, resting his forearms on the edge of the Resolute desk in the Oval Office.

It’s a steamy evening in mid-June, and Trump is facing a set of high-stakes tests around the world. Tensions rising with Iran. Tariffs imposed by India. Protesters flooding the streets of Hong Kong. But Trump is confident, ready to joust. He has invited a group of TIME journalists for an interview, blown past the allotted time and settled in for a wide-ranging discussion. Along the way, he orders a Diet Coke with ice with the push of a small red button set into a wooden box on the desk, and directs an aide to fetch a copy of a hand-delivered birthday letter sent from Kim Jong Un.

Politics is rarely out of mind for any man who wills his way into this rarefied sanctum. Especially not one who calls his campaign manager on many days by 7 a.m., and certainly not now, the day before Trump formally kicks off his 2020 re-election bid. So it doesn’t take much prodding for the President, a former casino magnate, to start making book on the sprawling field of Democratic challengers.

A “progressive” will probably win the primary, Trump predicts, running down the competition with evident relish. Joe Biden “is not the same Biden,” he says, adding later, “Where’s the magic?” Kamala Harris, he notes, “has not surged.” Bernie Sanders is “going in the wrong direction.” Elizabeth Warren’s “doing pretty well,” he allows, but Pete Buttigieg “never” had a chance.

Why? “I just don’t feel it,” Trump says. “Politics is all instinct.”

Once again, Trump is putting his own instincts at the center of his campaign. The political mercenaries who tried to discipline his impulses in 2016 have been shown the door. The 2020 campaign is unmistakably Trump’s show. “We all have our meetings,” the President says. “But I generally do my own thing.” Campaign staff have been hired to follow Trump’s lead, and the President has made it known that when he tweets a new policy or improvises an attack at a rally, everyone had better be ready to follow along. “He blows the hole and everyone runs into the breach,” says an aide.

Gone is the rickety operation that eked out an upset victory over Hillary Clinton. In its place, advisers boast, is a state-of-the-art campaign befitting an incumbent President. Trump’s campaign is gearing up to spend $1 billion, and may well get there. His team has spent more money, earlier in the campaign, than any re-election bid in recent history. Campaign staff sit in slick offices in a glass-skinned tower overlooking the Potomac River in Arlington, Va. And Trump has won total control of the Republican National Committee, which fought against him for much of 2016.

Despite the trappings of convention, however, Trump has for the most part thrown out the playbook for incumbency. The last three two-term Presidents were lifted in important ways by a bipartisan message. Bill Clinton ran on the 1994 crime bill and tax reform. George W. Bush ran on keeping America safe in the wake of 9/11. Barack Obama reminded voters that Osama bin Laden was dead and General Motors was alive.

Trump, who lost the popular vote in 2016 and is the only President in the history of Gallup polling never to crack 50% approval, says he’s ready to defy that legacy. “I think my base is so strong, I’m not sure that I have to do that,” he tells TIME, after being asked whether he should reach out to swing voters. The mantra of Trump 2020 is “turnout, turnout, turnout,” as campaign manager Brad Parscale puts it. “People all think you have to change people’s minds. You have to get people to show up that believe in you.”

There is, of course, a large section of the country, the government and its centers of power that have not bent to Trump’s politics. That can infuriate the President. Halfway through the TIME interview, the subject turns to special counsel Robert Mueller, who survived nearly two years of attacks by Trump and his allies to produce a damning 448-page document enumerating Russia’s efforts to help Trump win in 2016.

Some of the people closest to Trump offered damaging evidence. His former chief of staff, White House counsel, deputy campaign chairman, Deputy National Security Adviser, staff secretary, communications director and others testified under oath, at risk of prison time, to acts by Trump that Mueller said were designed to “influence” and “control” the probe. While Mueller declined to say whether those acts amounted to obstruction of justice, Democrats and at least one Republican say they did. Pressed by TIME about his aides’ testimony, Trump becomes angry. “It’s incredible,” he says. “With all I’ve done, with the tremendous success I’ve had, that TIME magazine writes about me the way they write is a disgrace, O.K.?”

The moment provides a glimpse into why the Trump re-election operation runs on perpetual outrage. Those closest to him know a conventional campaign couldn’t regulate a man who scorns political and ethical norms and is unable to let challenges to his authority pass. He isn’t faking his outrage—about the media, the Mueller report, his opponents—and that anger, whatever its ultimate source, is politically powerful. “Nobody has been treated as unfairly as Donald Trump,” the President says.

That in turn means that Trump’s team may not have much choice in the kind of campaign it runs. “A unique challenge Trump’s campaign will always have is Trump is not tethered to the campaign,” says Robby Mook, who managed Clinton’s 2016 presidential bid. “He is going to go out and do whatever he does every day. So his campaign will have to figure out, strategically and tactically, how to cope with that.” The machine that Kushner and Parscale have built is designed to harness the power of Trump’s grievance message, which resonates with tens of millions of voters. “He’s not pivoting,” Kushner tells TIME. “The President is who he is and doesn’t pretend to be anything else.”
[…]
[C]ranking the outrage machine for so long may make it hard for voters to hear a subtler frequency. Privately, some Trump advisers say they need to do a better job touting the President’s record, especially on the economy. But can that message break through the pain Trump’s tariffs have caused for many voters? And in the meantime, a large chunk of the campaign budget is still being spent on hot-button topics like immigration. “They are trying to say they are running a normal campaign and doing outreach,” says Messina, who now tracks ad buys for his consulting firm. “It’s all show.”

For the moment, polls show Trump trailing the Democratic front runners in some key states. Trump is being briefed on polling data at least twice a month, and in the past few weeks has been requesting more granular breakdowns, according to a former adviser who speaks to Trump. “He’s aware that he’s not beating any of the major candidates right now one-on-one nationally,” the adviser says. He fired some of his pollsters after internal surveys were leaked showing him trailing Biden.

Trump himself doesn’t seem to know whether he can really beat the odds. Still fuming about Mueller, Trump keeps coming back to the investigation and makes contradictory claims about its effects. “Based on the economy, I should be up 15 or 20 points higher,” he says, but “the thing that I have that nobody’s ever had before, from the day I came down the escalator, I have had a phony witch hunt against me.” Minutes later, he asserts the opposite. The Mueller probe “turned out to be an asset,” he says, “because it’s really energized our base like I’ve never seen before.”

There’s no question Trump has significant advantages as he looks ahead to the re-election fight, beginning with time and money and the biggest megaphone on the planet. In his position, most incumbents would appeal for four more years by pledging to unite the country. Casting this approach aside makes him “historically unusual” for an incumbent President, says Timothy Naftali, former director of the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum. “He basically wants to beat the house, politically, again.” Whether he wins his bet or not, Trump’s campaign will test the power of outrage.

I dunno… Trump is betting that he can dance out of trouble the same way he always has.

Here’s the perfect example of Trump’s “strategery”

Heading into the final weekend before Election Day, President Donald Trump stuck to a dark, familiar script at two campaign rallies Friday, equating a vote for Democrats with chaos and crime.

“A blue wave would equal a crime wave, very simple,” Trump told the crowd at his second rally of the day, in Indianapolis. “And a red wave equals jobs and security.”

Earlier, in West Virginia, he suggested again that that blue wave could prevail — adding that if they did, he would still be alright.

“It could happen, could happen,” Trump told the crowd of rally-goers in a Huntington airport hangar, with Air Force One in the background. “We are doing very well, and we are doing really well in the Senate, but it could happen.”

But if it did, said Trump, he’d be okay. “And you know what you do? My whole life, you know what I say? ‘Don’t worry about it, I’ll just figure it out.’ Does that make sense? I’ll just figure it out,” he said.

He just wakes up each morning hoping he dance as fast as he can get through the day without the whole thing blowing up. That’s it, that’s all there is.

Now the whole world depends on his luck holding out until we can get rid of him.

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Republicans in disarray

Published by digby on June 20, 2019

Republicans in disarray

by digby

If you think the inevitable Democratic circular firing squad is  bad get a load of the GOP:

The House GOP campaign arm is under fire from Republicans who are growing increasingly anxious about the party’s plan to win back the chamber in 2020.

Republicans still don’t have an answer to Democrats’ online fundraising behemoth ActBlue. GOP leaders are bickering behind closed doors. The head of recruitment has decided to retire. And some rank-and-file lawmakers are starting to express alarm about the party’s strategy as the campaign ramps up.

So National Republican Congressional Committee Chairman Tom Emmer tried to do damage control at a private caucus meeting Wednesday, arguing to GOP lawmakers that the campaign arm was on firm ground and any suggestions of turmoil were being fabricated by Democrats and the press.

“The plan and our strategy is working,” he said, according to multiple sources inside the room. “The media and DCCC are going to try to separate us and turn us against each other because we’re winning.”

The Minnesota Republican dismissed a POLITICO report of a clash over fundraising between him and Rep. Liz Cheney, the no. 3 House Republican. “She’s a friend of mine and I’m not going to let anyone in this town with their little blogging fingers divide us. It’s time to be unified,” he said in the meeting.

Emmer also defended the NRCC’s communications team, which is facing criticism from even GOP lawmakers for its personal attack on a Democrat — calling the 5’6” New York Rep. Max Rose “little” — and undercutting Republican leadership’s support for congressional pay raises with a press release slamming Democrats for backing the salary bump.

“Our communications team has a direct mandate from me and Leader [Kevin] McCarthy to be ruthless,” he said.

They are determined to alienate every last swing voter aren’t they? It’s clear that no matter how hard a Republican tries to tack to the center or reassure constituents that they don’t subscribe to Trump’s juvenile name-calling, the party will make it impossible for them.

The degradation continues …

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Trump’s real immigration plan, outsourced to Mexico

Published by digby on June 20, 2019

Trump’s real immigration plan, outsourced to Mexico

by digby

I’m pretty sure this makes Trump happy. Although he’d much prefer that Americans could take such “tough” action, he no doubt realizes that he can get just as much credit as the yuge-handed man who strongarmed Mexico into doing his dirty work for him:

Mexican authorities are investigating reports that police opened fire on a group of migrants from El Salvador last week, killing a 19-year-old woman and wounding two men.

The confrontation in the Gulf Coast state of Veracruz on Friday comes as Mexico expands immigration enforcement at the behest of the United States, creating new checkpoints and deploying thousands of national guardsmen across the country. Human rights advocates have expressed concern that those actions could lead to violence against migrants.

Reports of the shooting have circulated in local media for days. On Tuesday, the attorney general of Veracruz held a news conference to relate the accounts of the survivors.

Attorney General Jorge Winckler Ortiz said 17 migrants bound for the United States were traveling in a white truck near a checkpoint in the town of Agua Dulce when they heard sirens.

The driver of the truck, who officials said was likely a smuggler, sped up. A police patrol car gave chase and eventually reached the truck, according to the account shared by Winckler Ortiz.

Then people wearing police uniforms “opened fire,” he said.

[Trump vows mass immigration arrests, removals of ‘millions of illegal aliens’ starting next week]

On Wednesday, Mexico’s secretary of public security said his ministry’s own investigation indicated that the migrants sped through a checkpoint and shot at Mexican officials.

“In this case, the first information indicates that not only did they not stop, but they fired and there were attacks against the personnel of the checkpoint,” Secretary Alfonso Durazo told reporters at a news conference.

He said the investigation is ongoing, but “we would not be surprised if we ended up identifying elements of organized crime or those participating in human trafficking.”

The accounts provided by Durazo and Winckler Ortiz were at odds. Durazo didn’t explain why police who fired in self-defense would have fled the scene after killing the migrant. And it would be unusual in Mexico for a truck full of migrants to attack security officials while passing a checkpoint.

Winckler Ortiz referred to people “wearing police uniforms” and driving “a patrol car.” He did not say they were necessarily police, but other officials in Veracruz said there was no reason to doubt that they were.

A municipal police unit arrived at the scene and found the 19-year-old dead in the passenger seat. Salvadoran authorities said the woman’s father and other close relatives were living in the United States.

This is what Trump has really wanted from Mexico. And if he has his druthers, he’d have the Central American countries manning their own borders and shooting anyone who tried to escape.

But this is a good first step. He is convinced that the United States has a right to control all the economic power in the world and must achieve that by bullying allies and threatening adversaries with massive military might. He’s willing to coddle psychopathic dictators if they flatter him because he thinks he can cajole them into “making deals” that favor the US. (He thinks he’s much smarter than they are.)

All across the globe we are starting to see the fruits of this “doctrine.” They are rotten to the core.

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