Will the weight of George Papadopoulos' sins bring Impeachment down on the President?

George Papadopoulos. Not a name anyone in the world knew 2 weeks ago. Now the guy who might bring down the presidency of Donald Trump.

Now before we get started lets explain one thing about Impeachment: Namely that it doesnt actually require a crime (despite what you will hear people on both sides claim). Articles of Impeachment were drawn up against Richard Nixon, who resigned before they could be voted on.....but to this day Nixon has yet to be proven to have committed a crime. Weve also has successful impeachments and removals of federal officials for Drunkenness, and Political Bias.  And weve declared behaviors abouse of power or corruption simply because they defied any other label.

So while crimes are helpful, they arnt really necessary for impeachment, it a political maneuver.

Which is the biggest problem for Trump and the reason Papadopoulos might be the one to lead to his downfall, even if no direct chain from Papadopoulos to Trump ever surfaces. Because at the end of the day, Impeachment is a political, not legal device. So like Nixon before him....Trump could go down from the sheer weight of the corruption around him. And well Papadopoulos delivered a ton of that.

Ok so, for those unfamiliar Papadopoulos was a mid level Trump staffer, who got an offer from what he believed to be the Russian government who wanted a meeting with Trump in exchange for dirt on Hillary....and Papadopoulos tried to take them up on it.  This is of course illegal, but on its own, just one corrupt staffer.

Except that Papadopoulos went up the chain and pitched the idea to a LOT of people. One of whom was Paul Manafort, who was just indicted.

Ironically though, it wasnt Papadopoulos that brought down Manafort. In fact it may be the other way around.

On July 26th Manafort's home was raided by the FBI and documents pertaining to the campaign were taken.

On July 27th Papadopoulos was arrested for having previously lied to to FBI in his initial interviews in January.

Now to be clear, I have no idea how the FBI discovered her was lying, but just based on those dates, it seems highly likely they found Paul Manafort's end of the emails between the two of them....and could use those to force the truth out of Papadopoulos.

But this isnt the end of the story. First Papadopoulos did what anyone trying to save their ass might do when caught in a lie that would put them in jail.....he flipped. And the thing is, no one knew about it for months, even his arrest wasnt known.

So for 3 months, he filtered in and out of Trump world (presumably with a wire), and took everything he found to the Special Prosecutor.  And as of now, we have no idea what he found and who its going to lead too.

Though its clear given his arrest was made public that Mueller is done with him, and got as much as he thinks he can out of him. One of those things appears to have been Sam Clovis, who until earlier this week (when the Papadopoulos arrest was made public) was Donald Trump's nominee to be the Chief Scientist at the USDA (despite not in any respect being a scientist).

The reason of course he's no longer the nominee is he was one of those guys Papadopoulos emailed about the meeting, and his reaction was to encourage Papadopoulos to take it.

But it doesnt end there for Clovis or Trump. See unbeknownst to the very White House that was nominating him for a position in their government, Clovis had testified in front of Mueller Grand Jury at some point in the last few months, and like Papadopoulos' appears to have flipped and is now a cooperating witness for the Senate and Mueller's investigations.

And like Papadopoulos' we dont know much Clovis has given those investigations, or long he's been giving them information, or where it will lead.

But Clovis isnt the only person who we've already been able to connect back to Papadopoulos, and the next one is YUGE.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions is apparently another higher up messaged by Papadopoulos about the meeting. Now to Sessions credit by all accounts he shut the idea down and refused to go along with it in any way. Which normally would be a great thing......except for this:

SEN. AL FRANKEN: "If there was any evidence that anyone affiliated with the Trump campaign communicated with the Russian government in the course of this (2016) campaign, what would you do?,"

SESSIONS: "I'm not aware of any of those activities. I have been called a surrogate at a time or two in that campaign and I did not have communications with the Russians."


Thats a transcript of Jeff Sessions confirmation hearings when he was being nominated to be the attorney general. And well, he clearly clearly clearly clearly lied, as he knew about Papadopoulos.

Actually to be honest, thats not the only trouble that exchange has made for Sessions. The reason he was forced to recuse himself from the russian investigation is because he had had several meetings himself with Russian Officials, that obviously dont match up with his claim in that statement, and he was forced to amend the statement later, but still neglected to mention Papadopoulos

So this is now the second time he got caught lying under oath about connections to Russia.

And by second, I mean 3rd. Remember the name Carter Page? He was a mid level Trump staffer that got a ton of attention early on in the investigation because Russia attempted to recruit him as a spy?

Turns out he also is claiming he notified Jeff Sessions about his plans to travel to Russia and give a speech during the campaign.  Furthermore, like Sessions and Clovis, he's also claiming to have been on the Papadopoulos  email list about the Russian meeting.  (and he's claiming he has names of others who were as well, but wont make them public, but is cooperating with Mueller)

Basically, between the previous lies, Page and Papadopoulos, Sessions appears to be in deep deep shit (as in could be forced to resign) here, as its undisputed at this point he lied left right and center about his knowledge of campaign officials communications with Russia. 

Which is odd, since he appears to have done nothing wrong as far as actually handling those communications and dismissing and discouraging them.  So the only real justification that makes sense as to why he lied was to protect his boss, Donald Trump, and he knew any communications legal or otherwise would be super scrutinized.

Speaking of Trump though, the major question is did he know about any of this?

And according to Papadopoulos, the answer is yes.....sorta.

Papadopoulos' claims he directly pitched the idea of a Trump/Russia meeting to Trump, however didnt mention the quid pro quo of the damaging Hillary info.


Now in and of itself, Trump deciding to meet with a foreign leader as candidate isnt illegal. So in theory if he didnt know about the Quid Pro Quo he's fine legally.

But maybe not politically. After all enough Nixon advisers went down over Watergate that no one believes its possible Nixon didnt know about it, despite no evidence to support that.

Trump's ex campaign manager is already indicted (Manafort), as was his Lieutenant Rick Gates (who was still working on behalf of Trump Adviser Tom Barrack, as part of the White House staff as late as June (possibly unbeknownst to Trump)). Carter Page, part of Trump's foreign policy team now seems deeply connected to this, as does [obviously] George Papadopoulos, another member of the foreign policy team who already has a guilty plea on the record. Trump's also already lost one nominee, Sam Clovis to previously unknown russian connections, and its not unreasonable anymore to say he might even lose his Attorney General, Jeff Sessions as well.

That's a lot of people, and there will be more, for any president to lose for a single scandal.

And keep in mind, this is only one "branch" of this particular scandal.

We also, have the Mike Flynn side of this, after Flynn was forced out as National Security Adviser over  Russian Connections,

And we have the Trump Jr/ Kushner/ Manafort meeting with a Russian Lawyer in Trump tower.
 
And the Nexus point of all of this, Donald Trump's decision to fire James Comey.

For those who forgot, Comey was investigating Mike Flynn at the time Donald Trump fired him. Trump claims he fired him on the advice of Jeff Sessions (who as we just found out has been lying about his own Russian connections and knowledge of it) and Jared Kushner (who connects into the Russian Lawyer side of this, as does the indicted Manafort) possibly as a way to stop the Russian investigation (that again everyone who advised him is now directly caught up in)

And if it turns out everyone else involved in the decision to fire Comey was corrupt, will anyone believe that Trump wasnt? I dont think so.

And one last point.....we could see the walls start to close in much much faster very soon, as by all accounts Mueller has enough evidence to indict Mike Flynn and his son (likely over the things I detailed in a blog post a few months ago, read it here)

So in the next few days we are going to see more and more and more and more connections between Trump officials and Russia coming up as a second branch of this investigation comes to light, and this branch could lead to the Vice President (as Trump Transition team members apparently sent warning about Flynn to Trump and the team was headed by Pence....making it unlikely he didnt know)

So  we are left with a question.....how many people close to Trump can fall before it becomes politically unlikely he didnt know about at least some if not all of it?  And I think we are soon to cross that line....and it will be because of what started with Papadopoulos.

How John McCain tried to undo the greatest political mistake of recent history

So by now, you've probably heard the GOP fight to repeal Obamacare is dead....for like the 5th time. And while some GOP members want to keep fighting, this time around most of them are pretty much resigned to the fact the fights over they failed.

Thats right, the GOP has failed at the thing they ran on for the last 4 elections. They failed at the one and only consistent promise they made in election after election after election. They failed at something they managed to do successfully, only to find it vetoed when Obama was president.

How did this happen?

Its simple......it was never supposed to work. This entire quest was never EVER supposed to be about repealing and replacing healthcare coverage for millions of Americans. No this entire thing was about repealing and replacing the greatest political mistake made in the last century....Obamacare.

Confused? let me explain. The current american healthcare system ISNT Obamacare. its actually officially named the ACA, the Affordable Care Act, and would likely be offically known as "Affordable Care"   "Affordcare" or just straight up "Healthcare" if it wasnt for the Republicans creating and getting the public to use the name "Obamacare"

And thats a problem for 2 reasons
1) At its heart Obamacare is actually a Republican idea. Its based on "RomneyCare" in Massachusetts which itself was based on the Republican healthcare plan put forth by Republicans during the Clinton Administration to oppose HillaryCare, and was spawned inside the Heritage Foundation, one of the major groups behind the Tea Party movement.

In short, if think the current healthcare system is better than the one before the passing of the ACA, its the GOP who should get a lot of the credit....but they dont because they named it "Obamacare" and then lied about their participation (for example the imfamous part of the bill that was slandered and intentionally misinterpreted to lie about death panels was written by a Republican), so no one realizes they should get some credit.

2) Speaking of credit....which president passed Medicare into law? Medicaid? Social Security? I dont really think that many people know...especially among those who were born after the programs were implemented.

Its going to be much much easier in the future for people to remember which president passed "Obamacare" because its named after the guy. And generally speaking Americans think highly of presidents that they can associate with positive things IE FDR and the "new deal" Lincoln and the Civil War, Reagan and the Berlin Wall collapse,  Jefferson and the Constitution, Wilson and winning World War 1

Now this is true even when the presidents record has some major problems. As example: FDR made it harder for Jews to come here when the Holocaust started, Lincoln believed blacks were inherently inferior to whites and would have kept slavery to stop the civil war in a heartbeat,  Reagan sold weapons to terrorists and paid to train what became Al-Qadea, Jefferson owned slaves, one of which hes famous for repeatedly raping from the time she was like 15, and Wilson was a raging racist who re-segregated the federal government, and loved the Pro KKK birth of a nation film.

My point is, if Obamacare is seen as good, and its associated with Obama, in the minds of all future Americans, well Obama was an amazing president, no matter the rest of his record. Which is kinda a bad thing if your entire purpose as a party was "We hate that guy".

Now to be fair (sort of) to Republicans, the name "Obamacare" predates the passage of the ACA....they named it that during the legislation stage because the reverse is also true, a president who is associated with a bad thing is seen as a disaster in the future no matter their record.

So they created the Obamacare name because they were hoping the ACA would fail (this is why none of the them voted for it) and then presumably they could come in a few years later after winning an election and pass their own version of a healthcare bill likely more or less identical to the ACA.

Granted the cynicism of that strategy.....that people will basically hate this idea that we actually secretly like, so we get the credit later for passing it and can use it to forever ruin the other guys reputation, is one of the major reasons the GOP wound up in this mess.

If you think some republicans would realize the inherent cynicism there, and start prepping to move before anyone else noticed, youd be right.

The biggest break the GOP caught was that the ACA's implementation was going to be delayed several years. If they made up things, like say death panels, to turn people against the law before it actually happened...and therefore could repeal it and eventually present their own plan.

Dont believe me that republicans realized literally from day one how badly they miscalulated and immediately tried to get out of the hole they dig themselves into?

The ACA was signed into law on March 23th 2010. That same day, Senator Jim DeMitt (who would leave congress to go run the heritage foundation, the group that created what eventually became the ACA in the first place)  and Rep's Michelle Bachmann and Steve King introduced bills into congress to repeal the ACA. 14 Republican State Attorney Generals also filed suit that same day.

Keep in mind as this point the ink wasnt even dry on this thing. So yea, the GOP realized pretty fast how badly they fucked that up.

And by this point they had already set the ground work for the identical replacement idea, with then Minority Whip Eric Cantor saying in an interview published in January of 2010 that if the ACA passed Republicans would want to repeal alot of it...but not all of it, since it had some good parts and the GOP would NOT campaign for full repeal.  For the record, Cantors comments would be echoed by other republicans (including Senators Corker and Burr) in the up coming months.

But then the Tea Party happened....and everything started to go to shit. The Tea Party which was born a libertarian movement go co-oped by FOX news and the republican right wing fringe,   and they HATED Obama and Government so they damn sure hated a government program created by Obama and they wanted it out instantly. Steve King, an early adherent to the Tea Party spoke out against Cantor's faction saying “if we leave any component of it in there, it has, it’s just become a malignant tumor that’s attacking our liberty and our freedom and it’s diminishing our aspirations and it saps our overall productivity as a nation,”

Trying to reach a compromise between these two sides is what lead to the idea of "repeal and replace" in may of 2010.

Basically they could repeal the ACA, and then pass another more or less identical bill instead and claim they saved us from Obama and they fixed the healthcare system.

The first attempt at this was in May 2010 with a 9 page bill.....that like all future GOP plans until about 2017, looked pretty much like a lose framework of the ACA.  Hell they took the idea of "pass something that looks basically like the ACA" so far that in 2012 the ran Mitt Romney, the guy who successfully implemented the first real version of the ACA as their candidate because his healthcare program was better than the ACA.

This weird dichotomy of we hate it/we love it would continue though 2010, Republicans like then Tea Party backed Senate Candidate Marco Rubio would sign a pledge to repeal ALL of the ACA, and also to keep the preexisting condition coverage and keeping kids on parents insurance until 26 parts of the bill.

Now in fairness to the Republicans, they did pretty well in 2010. As the ACA wasnt anything more than a piece of paper at the time, they could and did freely demonize the bill without that many people noticing they wanted to keep so much of it it couldnt possibly be as bad as they said.

Fast Forward to 2011 where the newly GOP controlled House would pass the first of 50 different bills to repeal the ACA...and in every single case by a much much much large margin than the attempt that eventually passed in 2017.

Notice of course I say "repeal" the ACA, not "repeal and replace". While the GOP did have the occasionally replacement plan (most of which got instantly shelved the minute the media noticed it was pretty much the ACA under a different name), they didnt really need to vote on those. See all the experienced politicians knew all the votes they took were never going to become law, and therefore never actually had to worry about any impact from them.

The mistake the Republicans made here, which bit them in the ass 6 years later, is that it seems many of the newly elected Republicans didnt get that part. They didnt seem to realize the votes to repeal the ACA were totally for show and were done specifically because they wouldnt pass and it would allow the GOP to play off the anger they had made up with their supporters to win the next few elections.

Now I know what your thinking, what I'm saying sound good/sounds like a steaming pile of shit (depending on your inherit bias coming up) and either way all I've shown you is like my opinion man.

So you want some support for what I'm saying....fair enough.

Quoting an interview from the Washingtonian from last week with former Majority Leader Eric Cantor (who was Majority leader during much of the Repeal/Replace push)

"Asked if he feels partly responsible for [Republicans] current predicament, Cantor is unequivocal. “Oh,” he says, “100 percent.”

He goes further: “To give the impression that if Republicans were in control of the House and Senate, that we could do that when Obama was still in office . . . .” His voice trails off and he shakes his head. “I never believed it.”

He says he wasn’t the only one aware of the charade: “We sort of all got what was going on, that there was this disconnect in terms of communication, because no one wanted to take the time out in the general public to even think about ‘Wait a minute—that can’t happen.’ ” But, he adds, “if you’ve got that anger working for you, you’re gonna let it be.”

It’s a stunning admission from a former member of the party leadership—that the linchpin of GOP electoral strategy for the better part of a decade was a fantasy, a flame continually fanned solely because, when it came to midterm elections, it worked. (Barring, of course, his own.)"

There you have it folks....the guy responsible for all the Repeal votes saying even he didnt believe they could actually do this and only did it to capitalize off angry voters for electoral success.

In fact, as early as 2012, it should have become clear to the GOP they were in deep deep trouble as far as people/new members of congress actually having drunk enough of the repeal/replace kool-aid to no longer realize what the real goal was.

Coming into the 2012 election then Senate Minority Leader McConnell said he didnt really want to vote on repeal again...at least not until after the election maybe. McConnell was forced to change his mind after several conservative groups threatened to throw a shit ton of money into having him removed from office in his reelection...if they couldnt force him to resign first. For what its worth, in his reelection campaign in 2014, McConnell was forced into the position of running against the ACA and for its full repeal, while also promising not to repeal Kynect, the state exchange set up by Kentucky as part of the ACA.  Because as it turns out, now that its going into affect, people really like "Obamacare"....though republican demonization has successfully soured them on the name.

This of course creates a bigger problem for the GOP. Among the half who remember this is a scam to change the name and not much else, they have to start putting out alternatives even closer and keeping more of the ACA.....which the half of the party too damn stupid to realize the scam hate.

Keep in mind, in 2013, as the "WE LOVE OUR STATE HEALTHCARE/OBAMACARE SUCKS ASS"  division was starting up, the half of the GOP not in on the scam shut down the government over the funding of Obamacare. They lost so badly in the bill to reopen the government they had to agree to accelerate parts of the ACA's implementation. So its not like they didnt have fair warning that even among people who hated Obamacare, they may not have hated it as much as congress thought, given again, they had to back down and reopen the government after everyone blamed them for all the other services they lost. 

Now given that the ACA didnt even start to go into affect until 2012, and not full effect until 2014, you can see how fast the public turned around on the idea....within a year the GOP was already being forced to defend it and just obscure what they were defending. Hell by 2015 the GOP was writing legislation to save the ACA from earlier actions taken by the GOP.  In fact by that point they'd basically given up on the repeal idea all together, and instead the idea had been to tweak the ACA and take credit for the tweaks to claim it was a new program. Even Candidate Donald Trump had been onboard with the scam as a candidate....his website claimed he had 10 different proposals to repeal Obamacare...of course you dont need 10 proposals to repeal the ACA, that only takes 1. You need 10, if and only if, the plan is to tweak the ACA and then claim its a different program.

And given they never wanted to repeal the program at all, and enough republicans are around who remember this is a scam, its not surprising they cant seem to get it done now in 2017, even though they were very unexpectedly handed the chance thanks to Trumps surprise victory in the 2016 elections.

And thats something else to remember too.....the GOP never expected to win the white house in 2016. If youve been reading my blog for a while, especially in 2015 and 2016 I pointed out repeatedly the number of times were saying things suggesting they had already given up the 2016 election and preparing to battle with President Hillary Clinton to get her out of office in 2020.  This likely would have given them a better exit strategy....they would have had 4-8 more years to slowly wind down the assault on the ACA (recognizing that it was here to stay) and move on from what would have been a decade+ long war to something else without it being as obvious.

But then Trump won....and shit looks like they are going to have to carry through on this campaign promise they didnt really want to do anyways.  And since they never wanted to do it, theyd never given any actual though to it.....hence why the GOP was so so fractured over what exactly to replace Obamacare with.

Its why they failed on the first attempt in the House.....in 7 years theyd never needed to plan that part out. Yet they had promised their voters it was a thing they would do on day 1. So they were never able to plan anything out. Yes they got something out of the House, but it was already known when that happened it would never pass the senate.

And the senate, its worth noting, has a much slower turn over rate due to those longer terms, so the senate also has a higher concentration of Republicans who are senior enough to remember the entire replace idea was a scam.

Which is why after 4 months of work and multiple attempts that all got pissed down the tube and the final repeal bill (Skinny repeal) went down in defeat. But not without making Obamacare the most popular its ever been as people realized all the benefits it gave them that the GOP wanted to take away.

Now of course publicly, John McCain is getting all the credit....and some people are trying to argue Collins and Murkowski should get some too as they were consistent no votes.

But trust me when I tell you, they are far far far from the only people in the senate who actually oppose the bill. Remember up until a few hours before the final vote, something like 10-12 republicans, including McCain were on the fence.

Of course we found out later McCain had made up his mind before.....early enough to tell Democratic Senate Minority Leader Schumer which way he voting. In fact Schumer and former VP Biden had been reaching out to McCain for days, an its highly unlikely he was the only one they reached out too.  The big shock is that apparently none of this was known to Mitch McConnell at a minimum. 

So why did McCain play the part of undecided in the run up to the vote? political cover for his colleagues

Many republican senators found themselves in a tight spot on the last vote....the bill was so precision focused it went only for the mandates the GOP had raised the most hell about for years.  So for most of them there was no good excuse not to vote for it.

Murkowski and Collins had an excuse....the same one they had always had, they come from the states most likely to be crushed by the effects of repeal that they are safe if not even helped (in collins case) by voting against the bill.

Other senators didnt have that luxury....their voters had drunk so much of the GOP bullshit kool-aid, they couldnt not vote for the bill without losing their seats. At the same time, they couldnt possibly allow the bill to pass and not risk losing their seats when their voters realized exactly how much bullshit they had been tricked into swallowing when repeal went into effect.

And the precision focus of the bill meant people like Shelly Moore Capito, Lindsey Graham and Dean Heller (among others) who had managed to create excuses for previous no votes on technicalities and issues with the bills, had by doing so created a situation where they had to vote for this as it had none of those problems. If they didnt, theyd be voted in in primaries.

 Now to be clear, I'm not excusing their votes. The fact they voted for the "skinny repeal" bill even though they all thought and said it would be a disaster if it became law is definitely something they should be held to account for, and likely should all lose their seats, and they are just praying you forget about it in 1,3 or 5, years when they are up for reelection. Im just explaining why they bothered with the maneuver at all.

So how does McCain factor into this?

Simple: He's not running in another election ever again.

Now he hasnt publicly said as much yet, and no one else will either because its incredibly brash, rude 

and morbid as can be to bring it up, but the fact of the matter is, John McCain's form of brain cancer has a 4% survival rate  over 5 years for people in their 40's and 50's. The older you are from that, the lesser the chance of survival. And McCain is about to turn 81.

Now I dont wish death on ANYONE, so I personally hope John McCain is alive and well in 2022 when he would be up for reelection, but the only way he even has a chance is to devote all of his time and effort to beating cancer. And he cant do that and be a senator at the same time.  Now he may choose to try (id be surprised) but he has to know even if he does he wont be able be an absentee senator and win in 2022.

So in essence John McCain is immune to any political fallout or consequences from the Right wing over his vote. There is nothing they can do to him.

Furthermore to be honest, they cant even really attack him that much.......because if they try to they public is going to think they look like dicks for attacking a guy with brain cancer. So they basically have to let the matter drop. (this by the way is also why Murkowski and Collins arnt exactly rushing for their share of the credit)

Which is perfect for the Republican party as a whole...if you cant talk about the repeal bills failure, you cant really talk about repeal. Which gets them out of the circular firing squad they found themselves in, where not repealing Obamacare would get them killed in primaries from the right, and repealing obamacare would get them killed in the general election

Admittedly some major damage was already done. The GOP has already started workings with democrats to find ways to improve the hated "Obamacare"...and the Democrats took the lead on that the minute the last repeal bill went down. So the democrats are likely to get at least half the credit for any improvements to the thing they already get the credit for creating. The GOP therefore gets left with the scraps on the credit....but they will take it as it will help to convinced the voters who turned on them over their repeal crusade, that they actually dont just want to harm or kill them to give the rich a tax cut.  It wont be enough, many of them are going to lose their seats in the next election...but at least they have an a route to rebuilding....not to mention changing the subject

Plus as another hit they are going to take, thanks to the "word  association" of Obamacare Barack Obama will be seen by the people of the future as a great president...meaning the republicans completely failed at their objective. But I think the GOP decided they would rather live with that than live with the backlash of what would have happened if they had passed the skinny repeal bill and got left holding the bag.

Or at least that was the plan. It appears Donald Trump, desperate to do something ANYTHING at all on any issue at all, forgot the whole thing was a scam (despite being in on it before), and sent his team out on TV today to basically demand the Senate keep fighting and losing on this issue. Office of Budget and Management Director Mulvaney says its official white house policy the senate keeps working to repeal Obamacare. President Trump believes if the senate doesnt keep fighting this dead issue they are all quiters and Kellyanne Conway is promising that Donald Trump will decide if hes going to implode Obamacare this week.....presumably with the intention of forcing the senate to do this again.

So at the end of the day, it appears John McCain may have been too little too late. He tried to reverse the biggest political mistake of  recent memory, and get the GOP out of this mess....but the presidents a kool aid drinker and now the GOP may wind up shooting themselves in the face a few more times as their party continues to crumble and look incompetence and unable to govern over the miscalculation of being against "Obamacare" but for most of their own idea, the ACA and the fallout from it, and lying to their voters about it.

Mar-a-lago Nights: The Ballard of Donnie Dumb-Dumb

So earlier this week, Donald Trump had a sit down interview with the New York Times. And it went about as well as all of his interviews do.....though admittedly this time he didnt go on TV and admit to obstruction of justice, so I suppose it could have gone worse.

Seriously though, I surprised Trump hasnt fired whoever it is in the white house who keeps scheduling these because they NEVER go well.  Instead of a sit down interview with the President of the United States, and all that title is supposed to suggest about the capabilities of the person holding it, it instead winds up being a 1-on-1 with Trump's true self Donnie Dumb-Dumb. (yes I know the nickname is childish....thats kinda the point, it fits well with Lyin Ted, Crooked Hillary, ect I wanted to give him a nickname in his own language)

Donnie Dumb-Dumb is the Donald Trump that he tries hard to hide from the world when he tries to convince them hes a success at anything, Donnie Dumb-Dumb is the result of a life time of never bothering to learn anything because no matter how bad you fucked up, you had money.  Donnie Dumb-Dumb is what happens when you use that money to hire people to tell you only the things you want to hear, and never tell you bad news or even intellectually challenge you or ask you to learn anything.

And if you want to know why Donald Trump's presidency is failing, or why the entire republican agenda writ large seems to be in trouble, its usually due to the existence of Donnie Dumb Dumb.

Now unfortunately the NYT has not released the entire conversation they had with Trump, but have put out a ton of excerpts. What that means though is that instead of going in order like I usually do, this one if going to be a bit random in order.

Anyways,
Donnie Dumb-Dumb moment #1: Why the Republicans cant pass Trumpcare.

"So pre-existing conditions are a tough deal. Because you are basically saying from the moment the insurance, you’re 21 years old, you start working and you’re paying $12 a year for insurance, and by the time you’re 70, you get a nice plan. Here’s something where you walk up and say, “I want my insurance.” It’s a very tough deal, but it is something that we’re doing a good job of."


$12 a year for insurance? Seriously? SERIOUSLY? Dumb-Dumb thinks insurance costs a dollar a month.

Well that actually explains a lot....such as why Trump seems to think he can cover everyone with great health insurance and do it so cheaply......he apparently doesnt know how much it costs.  Or how it works.

You dont start paying into healthcare at 21 so that you can go somewhere in 50 years and be like "Hey I'd like my money now". In fact, as far as I know, thats not how any kind of insurance works. That is how social security works I guess....though again its no where near $12 a year.

But as I said, it does explain quite a bit. President Trump cant come up with a healthcare repeal plan, because Donnie Dumb Dumb thought it was social security. So of course no one is listening to him, and republicans arnt getting any leadership from him.

Donnie Dumb-Dumb moment #2: Some kinda dumb and creepy shit about the french  
   
"After that, it was fairly surprising. He [President Emmanuel Macron of France] called me and said, “I’d love to have you there and honor you in France,” having to do with Bastille Day. Plus, it’s the 100th year of the First World War. That’s big. And I said yes. I mean, I have a great relationship with him. He’s a great guy."

No, its not the 100th year of the first World War Dumb-Dumb. That war ended 99 years ago. Its not still going on.

Nor does Bastille Day  have anything to do with World War I. Its the anniversary of the storming of the Bastille during the French Revolution in 1789.

TRUMP: [Macron] a great guy. Smart. Strong. Loves holding my hand.

INTERVIEWER: I’ve noticed.

TRUMP: People don’t realize he loves holding my hand. And that’s good, as far as that goes.

TRUMP: I mean, really. He’s a very good person. And a tough guy, but look, he has to be. I think he is going to be a terrific president of France. But he does love holding my hand.

If there is one thing Donald Trump is not obsessed about its his hands. No not obsessed at all....just mentioned it 3 times in 3 sentences.....kinda creepy....but not overly sensitive about them, no sir.  
 
Donnie Dumb Dumb moment #3: Russian Winter

TRUMP: Well, Napoleon finished a little bit bad. But I asked that. So I asked the president, so what about Napoleon? He said: “No, no, no. What he did was incredible. He designed Paris.” [garbled] The street grid, the way they work, you know, the spokes. He did so many things even beyond. And his one problem is he didn’t go to Russia that night because he had extracurricular activities, and they froze to death. How many times has Russia been saved by the weather? [garbled]

[crosstalk/unintelligible]

TRUMP: Same thing happened to Hitler. Not for that reason, though. Hitler wanted to consolidate. He was all set to walk in. But he wanted to consolidate, and it went and dropped to 35 degrees below zero, and that was the end of that army.

We found out not to long ago that Dumb-Dumb thinks Kim Il Sung, Kim Jong Il, and Kim Jong Un, are all the same "gentleman" in North Korea. So I guess we shouldnt be too surprised that he doesnt know there were multiple french rulers named Napoleon, and the one who commissioned the redesign of paris was nephew of the one who invaded Russia.

Also apparently Dumb-Dumb thinks Russia was invaded in a single day? Or if Napoleon had left a few hours earlier he would have succeeded, but his homework was due or something. Honestly I'm not entirely sure what the fuck Dumb Dumb is babbling about with nights and extracurricular activities.

The one thing I know for sure is Napoleon's men didnt exactly freeze to death. Napoleon was actually fully prepared for Russian winters....the problem was, Russia had the warmest winter in a century the year he invaded, and therefore the rivers actually didnt freeze so he couldnt supply his men.  Though shockingly Dumb Dumb is almost right about Hitler, he wasnt consolidating his forces, but he did expect that he would face the 1 in 100 years warm winter and didnt prepare.  

Donnie Dumb Dumb moment #4. No English

TRUMP So, I was seated next to the wife of Prime Minister Abe [Shinzo Abe of Japan], who I think is a terrific guy, and she’s a terrific woman, but doesn’t speak English.

INTERVIEWR: Like, nothing, right? Like zero?

TRUMP: Like, not “hello.”

Yea about that: This is a speech given by PM Abe's wife:

So yea, she definitely speaks some English, dont know if shes fluent, but she can damn well say hello.

So either, Trump is lying here, because thats what he does for fun, or Mrs. Abe spent a few hours pretending not to know english so as to not talk to Trump and he totally bought it....which is hilarious if true.

Donnie Dumb Dumb moment #5: When he threw his son under a bus, and backed it up over him

TRUMP: [Putin and I] 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——

INTERVIEWER: The senators downstairs?

TRUMP: A lot of them. They said, “Who wouldn’t have taken a meeting like that?”

INTERVIEWER: You asked them about it at lunch?

TRUMP: Nah, a couple of them. They — now, that was before Russia was hot, don’t forget. You know, Russia wasn’t hot then. That was almost a year and a half ago. It wasn’t like it is, like it is radioactive, then. Russia was Russia.

First: Putin didnt end the anti american adoption thing years ago.

Second: the reason that policy exists is because of american sanctions put on Russia. Russia will remove the policy when we remove the sanctions. Which means you talked sanctions with Putin...which to be fair, on its own is perfectly fine

Third: According to your son Dumb Dumb Jr, the lady he met with wasnt a Representative of the Russian government. However according to you its interesting they would talk to you after talking to Jr. So it seems like your admitting the lady your son talked too was believed by your side to be part of the Russian government. Incidentally if this is true, this is literally the same thing Mike Flynn originally got in trouble for, and carries a possible 5 year jail sentence. Something tells me your not getting a fathers day gift from Jr any time soon.

Forth: "Part of the conversation"? Whats the rest of it? because according to Jr, the ENTIRE thing was about adoption. So yea, whats the rest of it? what else did you guys not tell the public yet

Fifth: Unrelated to all the above, the fuck happened at the end there? Notice how fast "a lot of them" went down to "a couple of them"? right about the time it was suggested the "lot " of them could be tracked down and asked if they would have been as stupid as Dumb Dumb Jr.

Donnie Dumb Dumb moment #6: It turns out I'm not the only person in the world and whats a lie?

TRUMP: Yeah, I think so. In retrospect. In retrospect. You know, when he wrote me the letter, he said, “You have every right to fire me,” blah blah blah. Right? He said, “You have every right to fire me.” I said, that’s a very strange — you know, over the years, I’ve hired a lot of people, I’ve fired a lot of people. Nobody has ever written me a letter back that you have every right to fire me.

[crosstalk]

BAKER: Do you think in hindsight, because of what’s happened since then

TRUMP: Comey wrote a letter.

HABERMAN: Which letter?

SCHMIDT: To you? To the F.B.I. staff or to you?

TRUMP: I thought it was to me, right?

BAKER: I think he wrote it to the staff, saying——

TRUMP: It might have been——

BAKER: That “the president has every right to fire me.”

TRUMP: It might have been. It was just a very strange letter to say that.

BAKER: But do you think in hindsight, given that——

TRUMP: What was the purpose in repeating that?

BAKER: Do you think what’s given that——

TRUMP: Do you understand what I mean? Why would somebody say, “He has every right to fire me,” bah bah bah. Why wouldn’t you just say, “Hey, I’ve retired …”
So apparently Dumb Dumb has trouble figuring out that a letter released to the FBI wasnt actually for him.....its almost like he doesnt realize the FBI exists. Also I love the suprise when the interviewers suggest that. He's like "oh...well yea, I guess that makes sense, I had never considered it might not have been for me despite not being given to me"

Also notice Donnie just a bit confused why Comey said the president had the right to fire him, when a lie (he was retiring) would have been simpler. And Republican wonder why they cant seem to get anything done with Dumb Dumb in the white house......


Donnie Dumb Dumb Moment #7: Hope theres some room left under that bus.....


TRUMP: Look, Sessions gets the job. Right after he gets the job, he recuses himself.

BAKER: Was that a mistake?

TRUMP: Well, Sessions should have never recused himself, and if he was going to recuse himself, he should have told me before he took the job, and I would have picked somebody else.

HABERMAN: He gave you no heads up at all, in any sense?

TRUMP: Zero. So Jeff Sessions takes the job, gets into the job, recuses himself. I then have — which, frankly, I think is very unfair to the president. How do you take a job and then recuse yourself? If he would have recused himself before the job, I would have said, “Thanks, Jeff, but I can’t, you know, I’m not going to take you.” It’s extremely unfair, and that’s a mild word, to the president. So he recuses himself. I then end up with a second man, who’s a deputy.

HABERMAN: Rosenstein.

TRUMP: Who is he? And Jeff hardly knew. He’s from Baltimore.

TRUMP: Yeah, what Jeff Sessions did was he recused himself right after, right after he became attorney general. And I said, “Why didn’t you tell me this before?” I would have — then I said, “Who’s your deputy?” So his deputy he hardly knew, and that’s Rosenstein, Rod Rosenstein, who is from Baltimore. There are very few Republicans in Baltimore, if any.
First: Of course Jeff Sessions recused himself. This is something everyone should have agreed was a good idea. Ok so pretend your a Trump supporter and you think Trump's totally innocent, which would you prefer? Jeff Sessions investigating a campaign he worked on, and claiming they didnt do anything wrong...and you should totally trust him on that, because its not like he could possibly be covering his own ass, or would you prefer someone with no connection to the campaign clear you so there is no question that it really IS nothing to see here and not an ass covering?

Yea well see Dumb Dumb may not understand that. 

Second: OK I suppose its possible Trump does actually understand that....but the problem is, Trump is actually guilty of something. Now it makes sense, of course youd want your hand picked guy in charge of the investigation because you're expecting him to cover for you.  Now it makes perfect sense why youd be mad he recused himself and didnt tell you before hand. And why it would be extremly unfair that your about to get caught for your own crimes.

Granted, even if that was the case, I wouldnt say anything implying that to the news, but then again Im not a Dumb Dumb.

Third: Ok so if being from Baltimore is a problem, if Jeff Sessions allegedly not knowing who the guy is is a problem,  and if you dont know who Rosenstein is....WHY DID YOU APPOINT HIM?

Wait....you do know YOU appointed him right?......Oh No....Dumb Dumb, did you sign the nomination paper without reading it first?  Did Bannon make you do it? Was Preibus bullying you?  Did Kushner say you could borrow his toy? Damn it Dumb Dumb....

Donnie Dumb Dumb Moment #8 Wait why'd I fire Comey?
TRUMP: Look, there are so many conflicts that everybody has. Then Rosenstein becomes extremely angry because of Comey’s Wednesday press conference, where he said that he would do the same thing he did a year ago with Hillary Clinton, and Rosenstein became extremely angry at that because, as a prosecutor, he knows that Comey did the wrong thing. Totally wrong thing. And he gives me a letter, O.K., he gives me a letter about Comey. And by the way, that was a tough letter, O.K. Now, perhaps I would have fired Comey anyway, and it certainly didn’t hurt to have the letter,

So Donnie was going to fire Comey on the word of a guy he just said was totally unknown and trustworthy...except not cause he might have done it anyways...Looks like Dumb Dumb forgot which excuse hes supposed to be going with to stay out of legal trouble here. He also just implied the letter was good cover for firing Comey if he was going to do it anyways. Someone please read Dumb Dumb the 5th amendment.....slowly, and use small words.

Donnie Dumb-Dumb Moment #9: He aint no Nostradamus
SCHMIDT: Last thing, if Mueller was looking at your finances and your family finances, unrelated to Russia — is that a red line?

HABERMAN: Would that be a breach of what his actual charge is?

TRUMP: I would say yeah. I would say yes.[...]

HABERMAN: Would you fire Mueller if he went outside of certain parameters of what his charge is? [crosstalk]

SCHMIDT: What would you do?

[crosstalk]

TRUMP: I can’t, I can’t answer that question because I don’t think it’s going to happen.

This morning it was announced that Bob Muller crossed the red line....he's looking at Trump's personal, family and business fiances.  But hey, generally thats why you dont tell someone investigating you "Dont you dare look here" because thats exactly where they are going to look.....

Anyways, that wraps up the 8 biggest times (cause the last one doesnt really count) that Donnie Dumb Dumb took front and center stage in the most recent interview with President Trump. And I got to say, as someone who assumes Trump will be impeached or resigned, I for one am grateful that Donnie Dumb Dumb exists, cause hes a huge help in accomplishing that goal.

How to get to The Impeachment of a President

In November of 1998 Newt Gingrich tried to impeach a president, now 19 years later, it seems he may get his wish.

And this isnt entirely a cheap shot at Gingrich either....his attempt to impeach Clinton might actually link into the future impeachment of President Trump.

So despite what was written on the articles of impeachment for Clinton, the public case was basically the guy was immoral cause he was cheated on his wife and was having all of these affairs and Gingich and rest of the GOP keep bringing up new stories and new allegations to attack Clinton with...what his wife called a "vast right wing conspiracy", and some of these allegations started prior to the actual impeachment proceedings

Well one of the "Conspirators" was a gentleman named Peter W. Smith, who back in the 1990's actually worked for Newt Gingrich's political action committee.  Smith was the one who went digging into some reports by Arkansas State Troopers and eventually led him and David Brock (at the time a conservative and working with Smith) to one Paula Jones...the first of many well known stories about Bill Clinton's affairs.

Now how does this have any bearing on Donald Trump's possible impeachment nearly two decades later?

Simple. Smith never gave up the cause. He kinda made it his lifes mission to attack the Clintons.  And not too long after then Candidate Trump suggested the Russians did hack and should turn over Clintons emails during a campaign speech, Smith decided to test that exact theory.

So he, and a group he put together to assist him with this task reached out to Russian hackers and operatives to try to acquire the emails.  Of course this wound up being futile because while its true Hillary's servers COULD have been hacked, but as the FBI itself determined there is no evidence it was.

But thats not to say his attempts were inconsequential. Far from it. In fact based on the timeline Smith gave to the Wallstreet Journal, it seems possible that it was Smith's attempts at reaching out to the Russian hackers, that were picked up by the FBI and used as the justification to start the investigation into collusion between Trump and Russia in the first place, as the intercepted communications mentioned trying to get the Hillary Emails to the Trump campaign.

However, it should be noted Smith denies working for the Trump Campaign, and they deny employing him....and that seems to be true.

But wait I hear you ask, how does this get Trump impeached? Afterall didn't I just prove it was possible the communications the FBI intercepted originated with someone outside the Trump campaign, and therefore actually clear the Trump campaign of any wrongdoing?

Nope. Because it turns out, just like in the 1990's Smith wasnt working alone...he claims he had a partner....Michael Flynn. And not just Michael Flynn either, Smith claims that the Flynn Intel Group, Flynns consulting firm was partnered with him, and that Michael Flynn Jr was actually one of the members of his investigative group.

Now for what its worth, Flynn Sr, Jr, and the firm have all refused to comment on the connection, but the Trump campaign allowed it was possible Smith was working for Flynn in his role as a private individual but not as part of the campaign.

In short, what this means (if true) is that Smith's efforts were directly connected to a member of the Trump campaign, and therefore the Trump campaign was in fact attempting to collude illegally with Russian operatives. It may be worth noting here that Smith says he is pretty sure several of the groups he got in contact with that either claimed they had or could obtain the emails were connected to the Russian government. (though even if they arnt it doesnt really matter, colluding with any foreigner to interfere in an election is a crime)

But even this would just prove that one member of the Trump campaign was engaging in illegal activity, it doesnt prove Trump did. And had Trump just let things play out he'd likely be fine right now.

But he didnt...instead he made 2 major mistakes that now make this rise to the level of an impeachment level threat to his presidency.

Mistake 1) He refused to fire Mike Flynn when first first got caught
Mistake 2) He fired James Comey and went on TV and stated it was because of "that Russian thing"

Now admittedly I already covered the details and as step by step of the Flynn firing a few blogs back so I wont waste time rehashing it here, but if you want the full version click here.

But basically of those 2 events the important facts are these:

Trump didnt fire Flynn [who he already knew was taking money from the Turks] for 18 days after the FBI alerted him to [what would be from trumps point of view, additional] possible wrongdoing by Flynn with Russia, and appears to have only fired him because the media got the story. This is in stark contrast to Paul Manafort who was canned almost immediately after Trump became aware he was working for a Ukrainian group funded by the Russian

After being fired Flynn tried to get an immunity deal.....suggesting he had something on Trump.

Then we move on the James Comey firing. Trump has already said it was because of the Russia thing, and at the time the focus of the investigation was the already fired Mike Flynn.

So, based on those 3 things, it seems Trump for whatever reason didnt want to fire Flynn and tried to prevent him from even being investigated, for an as of then unknown reason. And that Flynn at least seemed to think no matter what he got in trouble for, he had something worse on the President.

And well, this would seem fit perfectly into the "holes" of the above summery.

Consider, if Donald Trump at least knew about (if not outright asked or suggested it in the first place) Flynn working with Smith to reach out to foreign agents to hack the US government, it would be the perfect reason for him to want to keep Flynn on his staff no matter what, to make sure Flynn couldnt sell him out for what is definitely illegal and would be seen by many as an act of treason (it probably isnt but good luck convincing people of the difference).

It would also explain the reports coming out from time to time that Trump wants to and expects to bring Flynn back to his circle after the investigation concludes. He needs to keep Flynn close by.

And it would explain why even after Flynn was fired, Trump still tried to protect him from the investigation by firing James Comey, to stop the FBI from finding out about this.

And lastly it would explain what Mike Flynn though he could offer in exchange for immunity. And if I was Donald Trump i'd be up at night wondering if the reason he was turned down was because at the time this was so disconnected from everything else, the FBI didnt know about it yet and didnt realize the value of what Flynn had, or if they already knew, and therefore Flynn had nothing to offer him.

Now admittedly this entire thing has two major bits of speculation in it. The first is the assumption the Smith is telling the truth about working with Flynn, which its possible he was not.

The second is the assumption that Donald Trump knew about it. Its possible he didnt, and hes just stupid and the entire thing is a series of unfortunate coincidences.

But the problem for Donald Trump, at least from an impeachment standpoint, is only one of this bits of speculation matters.  We dont actually need conclusive proof Trump knew about any of this to impeach him, a "preponderance of evidence" that he probably did or should have is enough. After all, its been 45 years and we still cant conclusively prove Nixon knew about Watergate. (Quick show of hands by the way, anyone think he didnt do it? ANYONE?)

And thats where Trump's other problems feed into this.

First, while not claiming to directly work with them, Smith did claim he could get access to and had talked with Steve Bannon, Chief White house Strategist, and Kellyanne Conway, another of trumps advisors.  And well the more people in Trumps inner circle knew about the Smith, the higher the likelyhood Trump did do.

Second. At the moment Jared Kushner, the Presidents son in law and possibly his most trusted adviser (giving all the responsibility hes given), is being investigated for money laundering on behalf of the Russians. The investigation appears to hinge on two things, buying a building for more than its fair market value, which he then loaned to Deutsche Bank, which happens to be Donald Trump's biggest creditor, and at the time was involved in a russian backed money laundering scandal in which as part of it, Deutsche Bank would reemberse via rent people with accounts at the bank who over-payed for buildings, which is how they effectively cleaned the money (just to keep the explanation kinda simple if also imprecise). It should be noted by the way that this deal was worked out by Marc Kasowitz, who is currently severing as Donald Trump's personal lawyer defending him from the special prosecutor.

Kushner is also alleged to have had a private meeting (that he later failed to disclose on his security paperwork) with the heads of Vnesheconombank a bank run by the Russian government, that also happens to be another Trump creditor. At this meeting Kushner is alleged to have tried to set up a back channel line of communications between the Trump Campaign and Vladimir Putin, specifically to discuss Syria, and the point of contact he suggested for these conversations was Mike Flynn.

Third: (And this is new). The other day Trump and TV show Morning Joe got into a bit of a spat. Now to be honest with you, this would normally be totally irrelevant if not for the fact that both sides claim they had previously been in contact over a national enquirer story that was going to out the fact that the Morning Joe co-hosts had been carrying on an affair behind one of their spouses backs  (for the record, they deny the affair, claiming the relationship started after both were divorced).

Now Trump claims the two hosts contacted him to see if he could get the enquirer to pull the story, given that he and the owner of the enquirer are close friends and he refused, which is legal.

Morning Joe on the other hand, claims Trump's administration contacted them, and threatened them with having the enquirer run the story unless they both personally apologized to him for running negative coverage of him on their show. Furthermore Morning Joe claims to have kept copies of all the communications between them and team trump, as well as notify their employers NBCUniversial at the time of the original conversations a few months back. Lastly they are also claiming that the person who contacted them was Jared Kushner. It should be noted if Morning Joe is telling the truth Team Trump would have broken laws on extortion and coercion, in DC (where Trump lives) New York (Where morning Joe is) and the federal level.

What I'm getting at is, there are enough other things going on right now to easily paint a picture of a corrupt administration. So proving Trump's personally knowledge isnt necessary as a preponderance of evidence is starting to suggest that their is too much going on for him not to have some idea unless he's intentionally trying not to.

Nixon, again was never proven to have direct knowledge of anything, instead the "proof" stopped with the second incarnation of the "Watergate Seven" most famously H.R. Haldeman and John Ehrlichman.

Trump, its starting to seem may have his own haldeman and ehrlichman, Kushner and Flynn, who seem to be connected to .

Now I'll admit, this narrative here isnt all inclusive. For example it doesnt really explain Jeff Sessions' motivations or reasons for repeatedly committing perjury as far as his interactions with the Russian Ambassador, why he either didnt object to James Comey's firing, warn Trump it would blow up in his face (which is his job), and/or went along with the original bullshit justification, and as an result may expose himself to conspiracy charges, if shit hits the fan

It also doesnt explain Devin Nunes' motivations for his involvement, back when he was supposed to be investigating Trump and instead helped participate in a white house stunt in which he pretended to brief them on new information he'd uncovered that exonerated them, only to have it come out the information he briefed the white house on was given to him in secret the day before by the white house.

Nor does it deal with Roger Stone, a long time Trump adviser who claimed direct access to and influence over Wikileaks, who is under investigation for unknown (but believed to be related to Trump) reasons by the FBI.

However all of that suggests only that there is still more to come and that the pit around Trump is going to get deeper and deeper.

But, again assuming Smith is telling the truth, what we have now for the first time ever is an thread tying the original FBI investigation to the Trump campaign that also explains the fills the holes in that particular charges public narrative.

Which is exactly what you dont want if your trying to avoid impeachment.

Biggest losers and winners from James Comey's testimony

Ex FBI director James Comey gave his long awaited testimony on Capitol Hill today.  Given his testimony had the potential to bring down a president, everyone was paying attention. So given that level of attention, its important to ask, who exactly where the biggest losers and winners of what Comey had to say.

Losers:
3) John McCain. That whole bit where he seemed incapable of understanding that the Hillary investigation and the Trump investigation arnt the same thing and even refered to "president comey"? thats the most popular bit of the testimony on twitter. Something tells me McCain's reputation is gonna take a bit a hit....

2) Jeff Sessions. Comey basically just told the world "if you want to find a major news story and scandal, you should totally look over here" by claiming Sessions ties to the Russians run even deeper than whats already been reported. And given that Sessions appears to have played a key role many of the decisions now being investigated, he may want to start updating his resume.

1) Donald Trump. Remember when Trump said he had tapes of his conversations with Comey? Yea well Comey called his bluff, and it turns out their are no tapes. So that whole thing with tapes was a empty threat to try to convince Comey not to testify. By the way, trying to prevent someone from testifying via threat is witness intimidation, which a crime and of course an impeachable offense.

Speaking of impeachment.....the entire case that Trump didnt commit Obstruction of Justice now revolves around what the subtext and implications of his words were. We are quickly approaching "what the definition of "is" is" territory, and arguments at that level of technical detail tend not to work well in the court of public opinion (which is the one that matters as far as impeachment).

And incidentally, no less than the Speaker of the House Paul Ryan is saying Trump's conversations with Comey were improper. Ryan however just thinks they were the result of Trump's political naivete not realizing you cant do those kinds of things rather than anything insidious.  However given the impropriety of the conversations isnt being disputed...Trump's on really thin ice.

Finally, by all accounts Sessions is one of Trump's closest advisers, or was at one point. Jared Kushner is another. Sessions is now where Comey is suggesting the Special Prosecutor (and others look) and Kusher is allegedly already the focus of the Special Prosecutor. As with all political scandals theres a tipping point when enough corrupt advisers bring down the executive though guilt by association if nothing else.


Winners:

2) Donald Trump. To be fair, nothing new really came out in Comey's testimony....we already knew about everything in it. So "no change" has to be considered a win. In fact had team trump managed to avoid shooting themselves in the face by admitting the tapes dont exist and therefore they cant refute Comey, this day would have arguably been a big win for trump....instead of a half win/half lose.


1) James Comey. Comey admitted he was leaking information on Trump after his firing to get a special prosecutor convinced....and it worked.


Now to understand how big a win that is, despite Republican hopes the special prosecutor will find nothing, that has never happened. Every time a special prosecutor has been called at least one, and usually multiple mid to high level members of the administration have been forced to resign, appear in court or go to prison.

So someone (at least) in the Trump administration is going to lose their job (at a minimum) thanks to James Comey. By the way, does anyone think its an accident Comey decided to direct attention towards Sessions today?

Best part is, there is likely nothing Trump can do about the leak either. Historical precedent allows law enforcement to keep their own records and as their own property. And Comey was free to show his records to whoever he wanted. Unless there was something classified in them, he's home free. And the only thing that might have been classified was the bits where he told Trump he wasnt under investigation...but that was originally revealed by Trump in Comey's termination letter. So Comey didnt leak that...Trump did (of course as president Trump can declassify that bit to release it himself...but then he cant later claim its still classified if someone else mentions it)

Special Bonus: Luckiest Person in Washington

Loretta Lynch. Comey hit Lynch pretty hard with his claim she tried to get him to alter the wording of his statements to benefit a political narrative. However, nothing will come of this.

Normally this would be red meat to the GOP who'd try to distract from the Trump scandal and tear lynch apart instead. But they cant.

Because the entire case for obstruction of justice against Trump is that he tried to get the FBI to alter its focus to benefit his political narrative...basically the same as Lynch (and slightly more serious as Lynch wanted words changed, Trump wanted the investigation changed).  So any attempt to prove how illegal or unethical what Lynch did was would also make the case against Trump as well....in other words the GOP cant push this without also assuring Trump's impeachment for the same.

Where as the public tends to be apathetic towards ex government officials...so until or unless Lynch tries to reenter public life, shes likely weathered any actual storm directed against her.  

The Trump/Russia scandal: Is it on its way to the Flynnish line?

Since even before he was inaugurated, President Donald Trump has been dogged by allegations of being a Russian stooge.  And its starting to turn into the story that never ends.
After all Russian's did try to recruit Carter Page as an agent
Paul Manafort, Trumps original campaign manager, was working for the Russians.
Trump asked Russia to hack into Hillary's emails on national TV
His sons have a long record of talking about Russian investments in Trumps properties.
Trump wont release his tax returns...so who knows if hes getting Russian payouts
Trump lies about his relationship to Russia with things we already know about.
And, oh yea, Trumps first National Security Advisory was a foreign agent for the Russian government.

But, to be fair, many of these dont really seems to matter, nor are they indicative of any wrongdoing.
Carter Page: Was not successfully recruited by all accounts. May have accidentally passed along some information but being suckered isnt a crime.

Manafort: At the time, the information was he was working for the Ukrainians (eventually revealed to be a group backed by the Russians)....and he was fired when that came out. No evidence that Im aware of suggests Team Trump knew about this ahead of time.  So in all fairness they appear to have handled this properly.

Hillarys Emails: Trump says stupid shit ALL THE TIME. No evidence as of now to suggest this was anything more than one of his regularly scheduled brain malfunctions

Russian investments in his projects: These are all true. They are also all legal and known....no real scandal here.

His taxes: Given that we know Russia is invested in the Trump Organization, there are only three reasons Trump wont release his taxes: He's a Russian puppet taking direct payouts from the Russians. He's massively in debt to the Russians and is therefore a blackmail risk. He's no where near as rich as he claims and his razor thin ego cant handle it.  Now given Russia keeps trying to buy off his advisers, I think its safe to assume Trump's not directly on the Russian payroll...but either of the other two options is a possibility, and Trump being at risk for Blackmail would be a major national security problem.

Trump lies about things we already know about: As a single example Trump only admits to a single business deal in FL as his only interaction with Russia. But Russia also hosted the Miss Universe Pageant (which Trump owns). Now to be fair...no evidence of anything illegal, but it really doesnt help Trumps credibility that he lies about things a 30 second search on google will call him out on.

Now note until now, we have a couple of circumstantially suspicious things...mostly his taxes and his lies, but nothing really rising to the level of the scandal that the left is desperately trying to find to bring him down.

But, there was one last thing on that list.....General Michael Flynn. Or as I think he's going to become known as "That scandal the left was desperately looking for to bring down Donald Trump"

That's right. It could for all the news attention and headlines over the last year, that the entire Russia Scandal boils down to nothing more than Michael Flynn.

The problem for Trump is that, its starting to look like "nothing more than Michael Flynn" is enough to remove him from office (at least if the Dems take control in 2018...which is looking more likely)

Ok, moving through the progression of the story:

Back when Trump first became president it came out his National Security Adviser had had a possibly inappropriate phone call with the Russian Ambassador. Flynn for his part claimed the phone call had only covered permissible subjects. As part of the Trump administration defense of him, Vice President Mike Pence went on TV and vouched for Flynn making only the single appropriate phoncall.  Up to this point...not a big deal.

But as the story continued, over the next couple weeks it turned out that Flynn had made multiple phone calls to the Russian Ambassador, not just the one previously discovered. And oh yea, Flynn could no longer remember if it was possible the calls did cover inappropriate material after all. Which also meant that when VP Pence went on TV and said Flynn made one call and it was fine, VP Pence was lying.

Now luckily for Pence, it was not an intentional lie on his part....he was telling what he believed to be the truth. Flynn had lied to him. Which is a MAJOR problem.

A couple days after this part of the story came out, Flynn was fired by the Trump Administration for misleading the Vice President, which the entire administration claimed was news to them...even the President claimed to know nothing about it.

Now, normally this would be the end of  the story....but it wasnt.

See the day after Flynn was fired it came out that President Trump had been told weeks before hand about the calls, and that Flynn had lied to Pence. Trump just chose not to do anything about it.  Furthermore, Trump hadnt even bothered to notify Pence that he'd been lied to, Pence only discovering it by watching the story break on the evening news.

At this point, this starts to appear like a cover-up. The President intentionally not acting when some one brings forward evidence of possible wrong doing by a member of his staff.

By the way, adding to the appearance of cover up, the person who brought the president this information was Sally Yates, the acting attorney general, who Trump would fire days later for refusing to defend his ban on Muslims.

Now as a legal matter it should be noting Yates is within her rights not to defend the ban, and Trump is legally allowed to fire her for doing so, so nothing as it relates to Yates directly is outright illegal....it does however play into a larger picture of illegallity around Flynn.

Now it doesnt help, when every court thats heard the case so far, sided with Yates that Trump's rder was unconstitutional. Though again, as it relates to Yates directly, this looks no worse than Yates and Trump disagreeing, Trump legally firing her, and then having her be right. Embarrassing maybe,.. not illegal on its own.

But again, it does allow for the appearance that the ban was a convenient excuse to fire her, and that she was really fired for exposing Flynn. But again, this is speculation, not evidence of a crime. In fact if it wasn't for the Trump administrations crusade to destroy their own credibility on all things, Russia, the Bowling Green massacre, who really had the larger inaugural crowd, ect, this likely wouldn't even come up.

Anyways, Yates is fired, Flynn is not...at least until the story goes public. And even then Trump sends mixed messages, having Sean Spicer and Kellyanne Conway go out and say both that the president has full confidence in Flynn and doesnt think anything happened, and that Trump is very disturbed by the situation and is investigating. And then after Flynn leaves we are told it was voluntary and the president didnt want to fire him, the president demanded his resignation, and the president outright fired him....take your pick.

Now, this could be just a horrible set of miscommunication's, or its evidence of a cover up of a cover up,...basically they had to fire Flynn when the story went public, but never intended too so didnt have a single story to go with and everyone had to spitball it.

Fast forward a couple more weeks to the end of March, Flynn's gone....but the story still isnt over, as news breaks that when servicing as the national security adviser, was taking payments from Turkey to advance their interests.....which is literally the LAST thing you want out of your national security adviser. Trumps White House claimed no prior knowledge of these payments.

Making matters worse, it came out a few hours later that during the campaign Flynns lawyer had contacted the Trump Team to ask them if Flynn needed to register as a foreign agent due to his work for the Turkish, to which the Trump campaign told them basically they didnt care either way.  And there goes the no prior knowledge excuse......more problematically, legally there was only one correct answer. Yes Flynn needs to register.

So yea, NOW we have an actual legal problem, as it appears the Trump campaign was perfectly fine breaking the law if it made things easier. And while this news didnt come out until the end of march, chronologically, this conversation about Turkey happened before the election....meaning it happened before every thing weve covered.

So basically we now know Trumps team (at least) had evidence Flynn had a major issue BEFORE they even won the election, let along before they won, before Flynn called the Russians, before Flynn lied to the VP, before Trump was told about it by Sally Yates and did nothing, and before they were eventually forced to fire Flynn, and before they lied both about not having prior knowledge of the Flynn/Russia talks or the Flynn/Turkey connection.

Ironic side not by the way, the day the Flynn/Turkey story broke, VP Pence was being interviewed and was asked about this. It was the first he'd heard of it. So apparently not much has changed in the Trump Administration as far as not telling the VP anything

At this point we seem to have very strong evidence of a scandal and a cover up. (though we still cant totally rule out Trump's team being comprised of the least competent people in human history)

Now to be fair to the Trump team....we havnt linked him to Russia. In fact we just linked him to Turkey. Well except for the part where the Turkish organization that Flynn was working for is cofounded and funded by a Russian. AWKWARD. Oh and we also discovered Flynn was paid for an appearance by the Russian government....even though his own military chain of command forbid him from taking the payment...he just lied to them about it.

So all of this led to Flynn making an offer for immunity in exchange for testimony...usually a play that only works if you have a bigger fish above you to hand over to be fried....in this case only Trump would qualify.....though the immunity deal was rejected. (meaning to be fair it could have been nothing more than a ploy of desperation on flynns part....though he likely thought he had something on Trump....just other people disagreed or already had it)

So at this point, Team Trump went on the defensive, claiming basically that everything that happened with Flynn was Obama's fault because when Flynn was vetted Obama was President and his people should have totally caught all this shit.

Now on its face there were just a few problems
1) Security Clearance isnt granted by either the outgoing or incoming administrations, its a non partisan group that does it....so the same people that did it for Obama do it for Trump
2) the final clearance was never granted
3) While final clearance is up to the bipartisan group, it is the transition team that is supposed to handle initial vetting.
4) The Obama administration fired Flynn for being bad at running an intelligence agency...the thing Trump was hiring him for.

But things got even worse when stories broke more or less simultaneously that the Trump Transition team had warned Flynn not to make the phone call to the Russian Ambassador in the first place, and that President Obama had personally advised Trump against hiring Flynn.

In other words, Trump WAS TOLD directly not to hire Flynn....shooting holes in the "Obama should have warned me" excuse and his campaign team knew enough about Flynn to warn Flynn not to make the calls....meaning there is no way Trump didnt at least know a little a bit about this when Sally Yates told him about it, in one of what it turned out was 3 different meetings with members of the White House to warn them to fire the guy.

What I'm getting at is, if we just look at the available facts, it seems Trump had multiple warnings that Michael Flynn should not be anywhere near classified information/anything important and chose not only to ignore them but to publicly deny any wrong doings....wrong doings that he knew had actually happened. That by the way, is the definition of a cover up.

Now I admit we dont know why Trump would do this....it seems completely illogical, unless he had some kind of insane confidence in Flynns not getting caught or his own ability to control the media. One things for sure, Flynn clearly impressed Trump enough for Trump to go to bat for him.

Now, I was about to publish this with a very different ending than what your about to see....lots of speculation about what comes next, will this rise to the level of cover up ect....but it turns out the news actually beat me too it.    So everything from here down refers to things that have happened just in the last 4 hours or so.

Ok, so the one thing Mike Flynn has had going for him is that, supposedly the FBI investigated his conversations into the Russian Ambassador and his failures to disclose the Turkish/Russian payments and found nothing wrong.  Of course the person who told us this was FBI director James Comey....who was just fired tonight by the president for making repeated factually incorrect statements about on going investigations.

Now we had no direct proof he was lying about Flynn not done anything wrong....though innocent people dont usually ask for or qualify for immunity deals, so Flynn trying to make one suggests he's guilty of something.

But then, at 924PM this evening, CNN broke the story that a grand jury had not only been called but was handing out subpoenas in relationship to Mike Flynn and Russia. That is a thing that does not happen unless they have at least plausible evidence that something very wrong happened.

In otherwords, we can now say Flynn definitely looks guilty of something. We dont know what yet. He took payments from Turkey that he didnt disclose, he took payments from Russia directly that he wasnt legally allowed to take and we know he had possibly illegal calls with the Russian ambassador. So it could be any of those. It could also be something new.

The big problem for Trump is this: all evidence suggests they knew about at least 2 of the existing possibilities (the turkish payments and the calls) and ignored and/or helped cover them up. So it seems very very likely the path to the end of this investigation will pass right though the center of the White House...and its anyones guess who might be left standing by the end.

So yes, when the history books are written, the entire "Trump is a Russian stooge" theory liberals have been pressing for nearly a year could boil down to just Michael Flynn. But just Michael Flynn seems poised to take down the White House.

Oh and not only that...but now that a federal prosecutor seems likely to be involved, it may not take Democrats taking control of the legislators to remove Trump if it comes out he committed some crimes while trying to cover this up. Even the congressional republicans would feel pressure to remove him quickly in that case.  

Donald Trump, in his own words, the best words (AKA his AP interview).

So last week Donald Trump had an interview with the AP about being president.

Now I dont want to say it went bad or anything, but 100% of the survivors of the Titanic, Hindenburg, Chernobyl, Great Fire of London, Mount St. Helens and Pomei who were asked about it say they've never seen anything like it.

Which of course means, I totally had to read it......so buckle up folks as we go for a ride through the mind the President of the United States:

The first highlight:

"TRUMP: Yeah, it's funny: One of the best chemistries I had was with (German Chancellor Angela) Merkel.

(Crosstalk) AP: Really?

TRUMP: Chancellor Merkel.

TRUMP: And I guess somebody shouted out, "Shake her hand, shake her hand," you know. But I never heard it. But I had already shaken her hand four times. You know, because we were together for a long time.

AP: Did you expect you would have good chemistry with her?

TRUMP: No. Because, um, I'm at odds on, you know, the NATO payments and I'm at odds on immigration. We had unbelievable chemistry. And people have given me credit for having great chemistry with all of the leaders, including el-Sissi. ...

TRUMP: So it was a great thing to see that happen."

Ok, so on its face this doesnt seem that bad.....maybe Trump and Merkel really do get along well, and hes right about all the reasons they shouldnt.  But then there is the bit about shaking her hand.

Now you may remember Trump took some heat for not shaking Merkel's hand during their meeting. While I'm the first to admit this is a stupid ass story, look at his explanation.

To be fair, the first part sounds perfectly reasonable....someone said "shake her hand" and Merkel heard it and he didnt....no big deal. But this is Trump so he had to get just a bit crazy with it:

"But I had already shaken her hand four times. You know, because we were together for a long time."

Now if I was the AP, I would have had the following questions:

1) So what is the limit on number of times you will shake someones hand? Is it a per visit or life time limit?

I mean you stopped shaking Hillary's hand during the debates, so I'm assuming its a lifetime limit?

Actually lets hope not. After all, I found at least 4 different pictures of you shaking hands with Jared Kushner, your son in law. And assuming you followed tradition, you shook his hand at the wedding too, when you gave away your daughter. Which would mean, he appears to be over the handshake limit.......is it possible one of those times you just didnt recognize him?

2) How long is the interval between hand shakes? See I understand you probably shook Chancellor Merkel's hand in private when you first met, but when were the other 3 times?

Did you randomly stop the conversation to grab her hand and shake it again? you know maybe ever hour, on the hour? Given you were together for a long time and all...was it every time you entered a room together? and if so, did she know she was approaching your hand shake limit?

Like I said, he'd have been fine just going with the "I didnt hear it" excuse...its actually believable and probably true,

Moving on to highlight #2



"AP: Do you feel like you've been able to apply that kind of a relationship to your dealings with Congress as well?

TRUMP: I have great relationships with Congress. I think we're doing very well and I think we have a great foundation for future things. We're going to be applying, I shouldn't tell you this, but we're going to be announcing, probably on Wednesday, tax reform. And it's — we've worked on it long and hard. And you've got to understand, I've only been here now 93 days, 92 days. President Obama took 17 months to do Obamacare. I've been here 92 days but I've only been working on the health care, you know I had to get like a little bit of grounding right? Health care started after 30 day(s), so I've been working on health care for 60 days. ...You know, we're very close. And it's a great plan, you know, we have to get it approved."

So Donald Trump's claim is "Look how great the healthcare plan we were forced to pull because it cant pass the GOP controlled house is"?  Or does he just want credit for it failure.....two failures actually because despite being "very very close" the House just pulled a second vote on it cause no one likes it.

"AP: Is it this deal that's between the Tuesday Group and the Freedom Caucus, is that the deal you're looking at?

TRUMP: So the Republican Party has various groups, all great people. They're great people. But some are moderate, some are very conservative. The Democrats don't seem to have that nearly as much. You know the Democrats have, they don't have that. The Republicans do have that. And I think it's fine. But you know there's a pretty vast area in there. And I have a great relationship with all of them. Now, we have government not closing. I think we'll be in great shape on that. It's going very well. Obviously, that takes precedent.

AP: That takes precedent over health care? For next week?

TRUMP: Yeah, sure. Next week. Because the hundred days is just an artificial barrier. The press keeps talking about the hundred days. But we've done a lot. You have a list of things. I don't have to read it."

So, what exactly is "that?"  I get the Dem's dont have "that" and the Republicans do have "that" but I still dont know what "that" is. I assume "that" is something we want from context...but really what is "that"? Just saying it reminds me a bit of this (guy on the left is the AP, the one on the right is Trump)

Next up:

"AP: You did put out though, as a candidate, you put out a 100-day plan. Do you feel like you should be held accountable to that plan?


TRUMP: Somebody, yeah, somebody put out the concept of a hundred-day plan. But yeah. Well, I'm mostly there on most items. Go over the items, and I'll talk to you ...

(Crosstalk.)

TRUMP: But things change. There has to be flexibility. Let me give you an example. President Xi, we have a, like, a really great relationship. For me to call him a currency manipulator and then say, "By the way, I'd like you to solve the North Korean problem," doesn't work. So you have to have a certain flexibility, Number One. Number Two, from the time I took office till now, you know, it's a very exact thing. It's not like generalities. Do you want a Coke or anything?"

Translation: Yea, someone put out a plan.....maybe it was me....maybe it wasnt. Have you asked anyone else if the 100 day plan belongs to them? like is my name on the thing? (NOTE: this is not the only or even most detailed plan Trump laid out....I just didnt think anyone wanted to see a 24 minute speech)

Oh...well...shit. Ok look things change you say. I said a bunch of things about stuff I didnt understand....and now I kinda get it. You cant expect me to hold to stupid shit I said previously...I mean.....ok shit....you want a coke? or just anything to change the subject.


Except, being Trump, he couldnt take his own escape hatch....and wound up face down in a word salad

"TRUMP: And the media, some of them get it, in all fairness. But you know some of them either don't get it, in which case they're very stupid people, or they just don't want to say it. You know because of a couple of them said, "He didn't call them a currency manipulator." Well, for two reasons. Number One, he's not, since my time. You know, very specific formula. You would think it's like generalities, it's not. They have — they've actually — their currency's gone up. So it's a very, very specific formula. And I said, "How badly have they been," ... they said, "Since you got to office they have not manipulated their currency." That's Number One, but much more important, they are working with us on North Korea. Now maybe that'll work out or maybe it won't. Can you imagine? "

So media gets it....except when they dont. Also China stopped manipulating their currency the day I came into office....they told me so, and they wouldnt lie. And even if they did it doesnt matter cause they are helping us with North Korea...except they might not be...but can you imagine if they were?

Also what the fuck happened to Number 2? just saying, we know what reason Number 1 was...but where did Number 2 go?

We will never find out, because they moved on to the next subject (or back on to the point more accurately)

AP: So in terms of the 100-day plan that you did put out during the campaign, do you feel, though, that people should hold you accountable to this in terms of judging success?

TRUMP: No, because much of the foundation's been laid. Things came up. I'll give you an example. I didn't put Supreme Court judge on the 100 (day) plan, and I got a Supreme Court judge.

Wait....Trump didnt put getting a Supreme Court Judge on the 100 day plan? I'm pretty sure this is breaking news to literally everyone, Trump supporters and detractors....cause you know we all thought that was one of the major goals of his campaign.

I guess its shame Trump never posted his 100 day plan to a website or anything, so we cant check that or anything....oh wait.
 

"AP: I think it's on there.

TRUMP: I don't know. ...

AP: "Begin the process of selecting." You actually exceeded on this one. This says, "Begin the process of selecting a replacement."

It seem's unlike President Trump, the AP actually read his 100 day plan......thats gotta be awkward.

But hey thats what happens when you elect a trained teleprompter monkey as President....he says whatever is on the screen, but it doesnt mean he understands it. 

"TRUMP: That's the biggest thing I've done.

AP: Do you consider that your biggest success?

TRUMP: Well, I — first of all I think he's a great man. I think he will be a great, great justice of the Supreme Court. I have always heard that the selection and the affirmation of a Supreme Court judge is the biggest thing a president can do. Don't forget, he could be there for 40 years. ... He's a young man. I've always heard that that's the biggest thing. Now, I would say that defense is the biggest thing. You know, to be honest, there are a number of things. But I've always heard that the highest calling is the nomination of a Supreme Court justice. I've done one in my first 70 days."

So....appointing a supreme court judge is the biggest thing you can do? except it not....its defense? Which oddly enough is a thing you didn't do (your defense budget was tossed out during the negotiations to keep the government open). Though credit to Trump for catching this 3 seconds after it left his mouth so he can claim that the thing he actually did really is the most important thing...never mind that thing he just said was more important that he failed at......

Moving on

"AP: Can I ask you, over your first 100 days — you're not quite there yet — how do you feel like the office has changed you?

TRUMP: Well the one thing I would say — and I say this to people — I never realized how big it was. Everything's so (unintelligible) like, you know the orders are so massive. I was talking to — "

There you have it folks, confirmation from the horse's ass that he didnt read the job requirements before applying.

"AP: You mean the responsibility of it, or do you mean —

TRUMP: Number One, there's great responsibility. When it came time to, as an example, send out the 59 missiles, the Tomahawks in Syria. I'm saying to myself, "You know, this is more than just like, 79 (sic) missiles."

So was it 59 or 79 Missiles? Maybe this is why those orders are so big, cause you have to keep changing them..."Send 59 missiles....er I mean 79 missiles" "Send the Carl Vinson South and East to North Korea.....err wait I meant North and West"

Or do you think missiles operate like Airlines? where they have to overbook them, just in case some of those missles dont make the launch tubes?

"This is death that's involved," because people could have been killed."
Yes.....this is generally how missiles work (ask any 3rd grader if you dont believe me)....and its kinda terrifying you didnt know this until AFTER you took the job to be in charge of them. 

"This is risk that's involved, because if the missile goes off and goes in a city or goes in a civilian area — you know, the boats were hundreds of miles away — and if this missile goes off and lands in the middle of a town or a hamlet .... every decision is much harder than you'd normally make.(unintelligible) ... This is involving death and life and so many things. ... So it's far more responsibility. (unintelligible) ..."

Now you choked on a piece of word salad here, so maybe I'm not quite understanding you, but it sounds like you also just learned that missiles can occasionally miss....and also (and more troubling) that they arnt just pushed off the sides of the ship......like seriously man, maybe we need to appoint Barron your "special military adviser"...I mean he's 11...he plays video games. He understands these concepts and I'm sure hed love to explain how all this works to you. 

"..The financial cost of everything is so massive, every agency. This is thousands of times bigger, the United States, than the biggest company in the world. The second-largest company in the world is the Defense Department. The third-largest company in the world is Social Security. The fourth-largest — you know, you go down the list.

AP: Right."

I love the AP reply here. "Yes Mr. Trump you have correctly stated how big the government is, as taught to every 5th graders in US civics"

 

TRUMP. It's massive. And every agency is, like, bigger than any company. So you know, I really just see the bigness of it all, but also the responsibility. And the human responsibility. You know, the human life that's involved in some of the decisions.
"So Donnie what did you learn in kindergarten today?"
"I learned the government is big mommy.....and important." 

Moving on to the next highlight

"AP: You've talked a little bit about the way that you've brought some business skills into the office. Is there anything from your business background that just doesn't translate into the presidency, that just simply is not applicable to this job?

TRUMP: Well in business, you don't necessarily need heart, whereas here, almost everything affects people. So if you're talking about health care — you have health care in business but you're trying to just negotiate a good price on health care, et cetera, et cetera. You're providing health. This is (unintelligible). Here, everything, pretty much everything you do in government, involves heart, whereas in business, most things don't involve heart.

AP: What's that switch been like for you?

TRUMP: In fact, in business you're actually better off without it."

Actually....credit where its due here. Donald Trump is 1000% right. The entire point of a business is to make money, they are supposed to be completely and utterly amoral. They are not supposed to give a damn about anything except what they need to do to make money, and should only make concessions to decency/moral all thing things Trump called "heart" if it helps profits.

Now of course this is is also the reason why Donald Trump is a horrible president, and why he backs down on literally every single thing he says and position he takes......hes running the place like a business...where you say what you need to say in the moment to make a buck, even if its counter to what you told the last guy to make a buck.

Which incidentally explains the next highlight

AP: Obviously, that's going to come in a week where you're going to be running up against the deadline for keeping the government open. If you get a bill on your desk that does not include funding for the wall, will you sign it?

TRUMP: I don't know yet. People want the border wall. My base definitely wants the border wall, my base really wants it — you've been to many of the rallies. OK, the thing they want more than anything is the wall. My base, which is a big base; I think my base is 45 percent. You know, it's funny. The Democrats, they have a big advantage in the electoral college. Big, big, big advantage. I've always said the popular vote would be a lot easier than the electoral college. The electoral college — but it's a whole different campaign (unintelligible). The electoral college is very difficult for a Republican to win, and I will tell you, the people want to see it. They want to see the wall, they want to see security. Now, it just came out that they're 73 percent down. ... That's a tremendous achievement. ... Look at this, in 100 days, that down to the lowest in 17 years and it's going lower. Now, people aren't coming because they know they're not going to get through, and there isn't crime. You know the migration up to the border is horrible for women, you know that? (Unintelligible.) Now, much of that's stopped because they can't get through.
[...]

AP: But, just trying to nail you down on it one more time, will you sign a spending bill if it doesn't have —

TRUMP: I don't want to comment. I just don't know yet. I mean, I have to see what's going on. I really do. But the wall's a very important thing to — not only my base, but to the people. And even if it wasn't, I mean I'll do things that aren't necessarily popular. ... The wall is very important to stopping drugs.

So basically Trump thinks the wall is fantastic, and its what his base wants, look how great its going to be. But of course hes not going to commit to funding it, what are you crazy? that might hurt his bottom line (IE approval ratings/reelection chances) somewhere else. Thats how business works....I lied to them, now I might lie to you...or them again. Whatever helps the bottom line.

And next hightlight

"TRUMP: They had a quote from me that NATO's obsolete. But they didn't say why it was obsolete. I was on Wolf Blitzer, very fair interview, the first time I was ever asked about NATO, because I wasn't in government. People don't go around asking about NATO if I'm building a building in Manhattan, right? So they asked me, Wolf ... asked me about NATO, and I said two things. NATO's obsolete — not knowing much about NATO, now I know a lot about NATO — NATO is obsolete, and I said, "And the reason it's obsolete is because of the fact they don't focus on terrorism." You know, back when they did NATO there was no such thing as terrorism."

So this is what Trump's 3 or 4th time hiding behind the "Hey you cant hold me accountable for the things I said in the campaign because I'm a fucking idiot who didnt know what I was talking about and am incapable of hiring people who can teach me" excuse?

And really...I dont see much improvement here, as Donald Trump doesnt think Terrorism is older than 70 years or so (when NATO was first founded).

Next up this highlight:

"AP: Should Americans who are serving in the military expect that you are going to increase troop numbers in the Middle East to fight ISIS?

TRUMP: No, not much.

AP: In terms of the strategy, though, that you have accepted, it sounds like, from the generals —

TRUMP: Well, they've also accepted my strategy.

AP: Does that involve more troops on the ground, it sounds like?

TRUMP: Not many.

AP: So a small increase?

TRUMP: It could be an increase, then an increase. But not many more. I want to do the job, but not many more. ... This is an important story. I've done a lot. I've done more than any other president in the first 100 days and I think the first 100 days is an artificial barrier. And I'm scheduled ... the foundations have been set to do some great things. With foreign countries. Look at, look at President Xi. I mean ..."

So what do "President Xi" and the "first 100 days" have to do with troop numbers in the middle east?

Not a god damn thing.....problem is, like a good trained parrot, Trump memorized his script...and hes incapable of devating from it. So when pressed on an issue he has no choice but to reset to the scripted lines he's been trained to repeat.  Well its either that or a word salad....

Speaking of, next and final highlight

TRUMP: I think (I) can to an extent. But there's a, there's a basic hard-line core that you can't break though, OK, that you can't break through. There's a hard-line group you can't break through, you can't. It's sad. You can't. Look, I met with Congressman Cummings and I really liked him, a lot. Elijah Cummings (of Maryland). I really liked him a lot. And during the conversation because we have a very strong mutual feeling on drug prices. He came to see me, at my invitation, because I saw him talking about, he came to see me about drug prices because drug prices are ridiculous. And I am going to get them way, way, way down and he liked that. He said you will be the greatest president. He said you will be, in front of five, six people, he said you will be the greatest president in the history of this country.

AP: He disputed that slightly.

TRUMP: That's what he said. I mean, what can I tell you?

AP: Yeah.

TRUMP: There's six people sitting here. What did he, what, what do you mean by slightly?

AP: He said, he said that he felt like you could be a great president if and then —

TRUMP: Well he said, you'll be the greatest president in the history of, but you know what, I'll take that also, but that you could be. But he said, will be the greatest president but I would also accept the other. In other words, if you do your job, but I accept that. Then I watched him interviewed and it was like he never even was here. It's incredible. I watched him interviewed a week later and it's like he was never in my office. And you can even say that.

So, even knowing what Trump was talking about....and what Cummings actually said (which is if Trump abandoned all his policies he had the potential to be a great president)...and I still cant make sense of anything Trump said in that last paragraph. "You could be" what exactly? what is "the other" youd "accept" and "if you do your job"what happens exactly? though I guess Im glad you accept the thing not stated. Also what can you "even say that"?

I dont think there is a complete sentence or thought ANYWHERE in that bit. 

And well thats symbolic of this entire interview isnt it.....at the end of the day we now have a lunatic with "all the best words" incoherently babbling them out running the country....and if you dont believe that, you wernt paying attention when he told you in this interview more than once, thats exactly what hes doing.