Look, just come out and say it; “Vladimir, hook me up. I’m desperate and need your help.” https://t.co/WFzf37guBh— Rick Wilson (@TheRickWilson) July 1, 2020
That's Trump's story and he's stickin' to it! So, it turns out, are Senate Republicans.
After all the ways they’ve debased themselves, what’s a little treason thrown into the mix?— Rick Wilson (@TheRickWilson) July 1, 2020
Senate Republicans defend Trump’s response on Russian bounties https://t.co/biulQlmNwM
Quelle surprise.
First, is that the best they've got?
"Trump’s relationship w/the nation’s military community has been frequently strained. But just 4 months before the Nov election, reports that he either ignored, or was unaware of, a Russian plot to kill US troops could intensify the tension" @speoples https://t.co/oBYLT636MR— Michael Tackett (@tackettdc) July 1, 2020
I mean, the ads write themselves:
Why haven’t you condemned Your buddy Putin putting bounties on our soldiers in Afghanistan? Hillary was right! #PutinPuppet pic.twitter.com/792wyB6vaa— Republicans for Joe Biden (@RepsForBiden) July 1, 2020
When your defense is such a precarious technicality:
It's striking that no one is defending @realDonaldTrump at this point. Not his @PressSec , his cabinet or Republicans on the Hill. They are all making excuses for him, but that's not defending him. Saying he was out of the loop is no defense.— Joe Lockhart (@joelockhart) July 1, 2020
People see what's going on.
— Rick Wilson (@TheRickWilson) July 1, 2020
It doesn't take a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.
— Julia Davis (@JuliaDavisNews) July 1, 2020
Former U.S Navy Seal Dr. Dan Barkhuff wants to know if @realDonaldTrump is a coward who can't stand up to Putin or if he's complicit.— The Lincoln Project (@ProjectLincoln) June 30, 2020
Well, Donald, which is it? pic.twitter.com/rZUsgSpDv2
Then there are the now infamous phone calls, the ones where he called Merkel "stupid."
These sources told Bernstein that Trump was often “delusional” in his dealings with foreign leaders, and did not become more “skillful or competent” as time went on. He refuses to listen to experts or really to anyone, except those, like his daughter Ivanka and her husband Jared Kushner, who fawn over him, telling him how terrific he is. These high-level White House aides came to believe at some point that “the President himself posed a danger to the national security of the United States.”
Well, yes.
These are major leaks of highly guarded conversations, obviously by people who were close to Trump, and we rightly wonder why in the world they didn’t speak out before. But consider the fact that we’ve had all those other shocking insider accounts of this administration and it has made no difference. Republican officials have been unmoved by all of them. In fact, major figures in the party have enabled him every step of the way, and it’s not as if they didn’t know what was on John Kelly’s or Rex Tillerson’s minds when they left the White House. And as long as a circle of political loyalists protected Trump, he obviously wasn’t going to change and wasn’t going to go anywhere.
So, no — it probably wouldn’t have mattered if these people had stepped up and told the truth earlier. But maybe it will matter now. Trump is proving himself incapable of handling the gravest crisis of his presidency and his polling numbers are dismal. If these people who come forward now can deliver the coup de grâce, perhaps it was all for the best.
Digby thinks this will finally turn Republicans against Trump. Except the leaks about the Russian bounties also came from "people who were close to Trump," and we may "rightly wonder why in the world they didn't speak out before," but the fact that they are speaking out now speaks to how big the iceberg is, and this story, like the phone calls story, is only what we're finally seeing above water. But will it "matter now"? I can guarantee the response to the phone call story is in line with Marlowe's observation in "The Jew of Malta:" "Thou hast committed fornication/but that was in another country and/besides, the wench is dead." Insulting foreign leaders and being completely stupid on the phone with them is not news, as even Digby acknowledges:
It’s not that Trump is substantially different when he speaks to foreign leaders than he is during his press avails or campaign rallies. It’s that he isn’t.Again: quelle surprise.
Is this going to make Republicans turn on Trump? Joe Scarbrough thinks the GOP, from Pence down, has broken with Trump because they now support wearing masks. To him it's a sure sign they're going to drive Trump out of down and leave him stranded in the middle of nowhere. Except there's no sign of that happening, either. At best they are struggling to eat their cake and have it, too; and they'll be very slow in finding out it doesn't work that way. We are four months away from November. Positions have solidified among most voters. Trump is further underwater than he's been since the end of 2017. The economy is not going to improve. The pandemic is not going away. The death count is only going to rise.
Trump is headed for a reckoning, and since the GOP brought him to this dance over decades of "government isn't the solution, it's the problem!" and "We need a businessman in the White House!", they are headed for that reckoning, too. And it's far, far too late to jump off the ship. It's going down, and they can't swim far enough away now to avoid being sucked down with it.
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