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“Groceries,” and Other Secrets of Managing Donald Trump
Three things happened in the last week that have befuddled a lot of observers, but which might best be understood as the kinds of developments we’ll see increasingly as the power structure around Trump grows fragile and fluid:
- A positively giddy Trump welcomed Zohran Mamdani to the White House
- “The White House” rolled out yet another plan to sell out Ukraine to Russia
- Marjorie Taylor Greene announced she will quit in early January
All of these, in my opinion, arose out of and reflect Trump’s increasing political weakness, his separate mental and physical decline, and the fight for power that results.
Mamdani speaks of Trump voters, groceries, and building
Much of the focus on the Trump-Mamdani meeting was on what Trump did, such as his interruption before Mamdani had to answer whether he believed Trump was a fascist, rather than on what Mamdani said. But if you look closely at what Mamdani said — which was often simply a restatement of his campaign pitch — he managed to say them in such a way that Trump parroted them as his own.
Both men centered their statements on their shared love of New York City, which is real and has been underplayed.
Mamdani’s first comment did so — as did his relentlessly disciplined campaign did — in terms of affordability; Mamdani mentioned “groceries,” the awkward shorthand Trump’s handlers have had him use to address affordability.
Mr. Trump: You know, we had some interesting conversation, and some of his ideas really are the same ideas that I have. A big thing on cost. The new word is “affordability.” Another word, it’s just groceries. It’s sort of an old-fashioned word, but it’s very accurate. They are coming down. They are coming down.
Mamdani repeatedly spoke in terms of Trump’s voters (again, a line directly from his campaign).
Trump had no idea that Mamdani targeted Trump voters, and as the coalition that elected him last year abandons him in the polls, Trump took notice when Mamdani explained that.
When I spoke to New Yorkers who had voted for the president last November on Hillside Avenue and Fordham Road, I asked them why. I heard, again and again, two major reasons. One was that they want an end to forever wars — they wanted an end to the taxpayers’ dollars we had funding violations of human rights, and they wanted to address the cost-of-living crisis. And I appreciated the chance to discuss both of those things.
Mr. Trump: He said a lot of my voters actually voted for him.
Mr. Mamdani: One in 10.
Mr. Trump: And I’m OK with that.
[snip]
Reporter: First of all, for the mayor-elect: You’re both from different parts of the political perspective. You’re both populist, though, and I just wonder to what extent the president’s campaign styles — his techniques, his social media use — inspired any part of your campaign?
Mr. Mamdani: Well, I actually told the president that, you know, so much of the focus of our campaign has been on the cost-of-living crisis, and when we asked those New Yorkers who had voted for the president — when we saw an increase in his numbers in New York City, that came back to the same issue. Cost of living. Cost of living. Cost of living.
And they spoke about the cost of groceries, the cost of rent, the cost of Con Ed, the cost of child care.
Mamdani seems to have reminded Trump that Trump got a historic number of votes last year (the voters Mamdani kicked off his campaign by canvassing) by running on affordability.
Reporter: Mr. President, you said you grew up in New York City. Mr. Mamdani, does New York City love President Trump?
Mr. Mamdani: New York City loves a future that is affordable. And I can tell you that there were more New Yorkers who voted for President Trump in the most recent presidential election because of that focus on cost of living, and I’m looking forward to working together to deliver on that affordability agenda.
President Trump: Got a lot. I got a lot of votes. One more, go ahead. One or two more. Go ahead.
Mamdani’s focus on Trump voters became a way to dodge very contentious questions.
Mr. Mamdani: I appreciate all efforts toward peace, and I shared with President Trump, when I spoke to Trump voters on Hillside Avenue — including one of whom was a pharmacist that spoke about how President Trump’s father actually went to that pharmacy not too far from Jamaica Estates — that people were tired of seeing our tax dollars fund endless wars.
By the end, Trump spoke of the way he himself (thinks he) picked up Bernie voters.
Mr. Trump: We agree on a lot more than I would have thought. I think he’s — I want him to do a great job, and we’ll help him do great job. You know, he may have different views, but in many ways, you know — we were discussing, when Bernie Sanders was out of the race, I picked up a lot of his votes, and people had no idea, because he was strong on not getting ripped off in trade and lots of the things that I practiced, and been very successful on.
Tariffs, a lot of things. Bernie Sanders and I agreed on much more than people thought, and when he was put out of the race — I think quite unfairly, if you want to know the truth — many of the Bernie Sanders voters voted for me, and I felt very comfortable frankly seeing that and saying that. And you know, it just turned out to be a statistical truth.
Perhaps the most fascinating reflection came when Trump appeared to parrot Mamdani’s shift of discussions about ICE into a question about crime, whence Trump immediately addressed building.
Mr. Trump: What we did is, we discussed crime. More than ICE, per se, we discussed crime. And he doesn’t want to see crime, and I don’t want to see crime, and I have very little doubt that we’re not going to get along on that issue. And he wants to — and he said some things that were very interesting, very interesting, as to housing construction, and he wants to see houses go up. He wants to see a lot of houses created, a lot of apartments built, et cetera. You know, we actually — people would be shocked, but I want to see the same thing.
Trump repeated that progression later, and specifically said Mamdani told him things Trump had not seen in coverage.
He wants to see no crime. He wants to see housing being built. He wants to see rents coming down, all the things that I agree with. We may disagree on how we get there. The rent coming down — I think one of the things I really gleaned very, very much today, he would like to see them come down ideally by building a lot of additional housing. That’s the ultimate way. He agrees with that, and so do I.
But, if I read the newspapers, and the stories — I don’t hear that. But I heard him say it today. I think that’s a very positive step. Now, I don’t expect — I expect to be helping him, not hurting him. A big help, because I want New York City to be great.
Look, I love New York City. It’s where I come from.
None of Mamdani’s success should be that surprising. He’s a rock star in whose aura Trump would like to bathe.
Mamdani simply managed Trump the same way everyone does: by getting alone in a room with him and making him adopt your ideas as his own.
Kirill Dmitriev continues to cultivate the people alone in the room with Trump
Which brings us to the latest Ukrainian “piece” plan, a 28-point plan to force Ukraine to capitulate to Russia on threat of losing US intelligence and arms (though Cristo Grozev believes there are two bullets that Russia did not release publicly).
Phillips OBrien announced, hopefully prematurely, that this was the long-awaited denouement of Trump’s long con of pretending he cares about Ukraine.
Instead, what actually happened on November 21 was that the Trump Administration came for Ukraine—as they always intended to do. The Secretary of the Army, Dan Driscoll, a very close associate of VP JD Vance, went to Kyiv and tried to bully the Ukrainians into accepting Trump’s 28 Point Plan to neuter Ukraine. Driscoll formally presented the plan to divide Ukraine now, and end it later, and the reality of what Ukraine and Europe was facing finally sunk in. Here was how the Atlantic story on the meeting began.
Dan Driscoll kept everyone waiting. The United States secretary of the Army had been due to arrive earlier today at the U.S. ambassador’s residence in Kyiv to speak with diplomats from NATO member states. The guests were eager to hear about the 28-point peace plan Driscoll had delivered on behalf of the Trump administration to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. But what they heard when Driscoll finally got there left some of the Europeans infuriated. “I feel nauseous,” one diplomat told us afterward. “It’s like the world is shattering around us, and we are watching it in real time.”
The most depressing thing from the above story was that the diplomat was surprised at what the administration was doing; or I should say that the unnamed diplomat had fallen for the Trump Administration’s long con. The long con was that they would ever do anything meaningful to hurt Putin and help Ukraine, that somehow they were honest brokers in this war. They never were. They have always wanted Putin to get the best deal possible and they have always wanted to severely weaken Ukraine. Whatever steps the administration took to seem to help Ukraine were performative; steps that were designed to make it look like they would be tough on Putin, but in the end never were more mirage-like than anything else.
Michael Weiss catalogs all the signs that the deal was, instead, Kirill Dmitriev successfully manipulating the press.
What struck me as odd about this whole affair was that for such a multi-authored, monthlong project, no one from the American side was willing to go on the record to talk about it. Everything was on-background comment — except for Dmitriev, who was only too happy to gibber. Moreover, the State Department was silent; all journalist inquiries directed at Foggy Bottom were not even redirected to the White House, which is highly abnormal on matters of foreign policy sensitivity. Then, late Wednesday night, Rubio, under his personal account, tweeted this: “Ending a complex and deadly war such as the one in Ukraine requires an extensive exchange of serious and realistic ideas. And achieving a durable peace will require both sides to agree to difficult but necessary concessions. That is why we are and will continue to develop a list of potential ideas for ending this war based on input from both sides of this conflict.”
To anyone on nodding terms with diplomatese, this sounded like the whirr of the backpedal, Rubio’s way of trying to downplay expectations created by Dmitriev and Axios and the resulting press frenzy. An “extensive exchange of serious and realistic ideas” was not, after all, a signed, sealed, and delivered plan of action, which Politico’s Dasha Burns had described (citing a “senior White House official”) as a “fait accompli,” cobbled together without the input or consent of Brussels. “We don’t really care about the Europeans,” said that same senior White House official, even though the EU and NATO will have an outsize say in determining the future of Ukraine and Europe, from sanctions relief to security assistance.
[snip]
Was Trump really acquainted with the deal in all its details? What did his “support” for Witkoff amount to? Recall that the preliminaries for the doomed Anchorage summit consisted of Witkoff misinterpreting what the Russians were offering (easy enough to do when you rely on an SVR translator) and making it seem as if they’d conceded things they hadn’t. This caused some dyspepsia in the Oval, and Trump later “jokingly” dismissed Witkoff’s ability to parlay with the Russians.
Could this be happening again? And could it be even worse now that Trump (distracted with his imploding MAGA coalition at home, a flush-worthy approval rating, a battering at the polls on Nov. 4, and bloodlust for the domestic opposition) is too busy to care about the finer points of his big, beautiful peace deal for Ukraine? “Sure, Steve, sounds great, keep going” sounded like what amounted to the Trump seal of approval here, but we don’t know because no one bothered to ask this question (or, at least, no one managed to have it answered).
[snip]
Politico now clarified that “a number of people who would have normally been informed of such a plan at the White House and State Department were also not consulted about Witkoff’s renewed push,” with one U.S. official saying there was “zero interagency coordination.” You don’t say.
Reuters (including Erin Banco revisiting her past reporting on Dmitriev’s efforts to do precisely this in Seychelles in 2017) describes some of the machinations in Miami that went into this production.
U.S. officials and lawmakers are increasingly concerned about a meeting last month in which representatives of the Trump administration met with Kirill Dmitriev, a Russian envoy who is under U.S. sanctions, to draft a plan to end the war in Ukraine, according to multiple sources familiar with the matter.
The meeting took place in Miami at the end of October and included special envoy Steve Witkoff, President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and Dmitriev, who leads the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF), one of Russia’s largest sovereign wealth funds.
The most telling development, however, are competing and quickly evolving stories from Senator Mike Rounds (who would lead opposition to such a plan in the Senate) and Marco Rubio about whether this is a US plan.
Rubio reassured Senators mobilizing opposition to this development that it wasn’t a done deal, but then backtracked to avoid losing his place in the room.
As Yaroslav Trofimoev quipped,
Foreign nations now have to deal with rival factions of the U.S. government who keep major policy initiatives secret from each other and some of which work with foreign powers as the succession battle for 2028 begins, is how one diplomat put it.
One thing that’s happening is that Marco Rubio has survived in the Trump White House as long as he has because he is very good at mirroring, usually passively so. He says, and his State Department says, what his State Department babysitters say, people like Darren Beattie and Christopher Landau. But Rubio has generally remained in the room even at key times, and particularly with Ukraine, has thus far managed to prevent the worst from happening.
Importantly, though, Dmitriev’s tremendous success at manipulating the other people in the room with Trump comes at a time when Tom Massie and Marjorie Taylor Greene — neither big backers of Ukraine — showed how to beat Trump: by bypassing Mike Johnson to force a politically difficult vote, and to do so with enough success to force the Senate’s hand.
Brian Fitzpatrick and Don Bacon, both staunch backers of Ukraine in the House, have initiated an effort to replicate that approach.
There are the numbers right now to pass sanctions against Russia: at least 218 in the House and a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate. Those numbers just happen to be similar to the same numbers as it would take to impeach Trump.
Which is to say, the very thing that made it possible for Dmitriev to recruit (ahem) the people in the room with Trump — the flux in the White House now — is also the thing that makes him more vulnerable than he was a month ago.
Exit Marjorie Taylor Greene, for now
There’s a lot about MTG’s departure I’m not much interested in: making Trump the primary actor, making Marge the victim, debating whether she’ll be friend or foe, focusing more on the timing as it relates to getting her pension than as it relates to the healthcare crisis Republicans will soon own.
MTG is far smarter than people give her credit for and she’s very adept at using the tools of right wing politics.
In recent months the good old boys in Georgia and even Trump’s top aides refused to let her run for state-wide office in Georgia, believing she could risk an increasingly purple state.
That was part of, but only part of, the background to her willingness to take a leadership position on Epstein. She does genuinely care about the issue and/or she does recognize its salience among populists.
The part of MTG’s statement that generated the most attention (which appears in ¶¶33 and 34 of her statement) — her prediction Republicans will lose the House and have to stave off a Trump impeachment…
I have too much self respect and dignity, love my family way too much, and do not want my sweet district to have to endure a hurtful and hateful primary against me by the President we all fought for, only to fight and win my election while Republicans will likely lose the midterms. And in turn, be expected to defend the President against impeachment after he hatefully dumped tens of millions of dollars against me and tried to destroy me.
It’s all so absurd and completely unserious. I refuse to be a ‘battered wife’ hoping it all goes away and gets better.
… Comes long after (¶¶4-12) a series of paragraphs that could be spoken by a racist Zohran Mamdani, and with all the charisma and political acumen he has.
No matter which way the political pendulum swings, Republican or Democrat, nothing ever gets better for the common American man or woman.
The debt goes higher.
Corporate and global interests remain Washington’s sweethearts.
American jobs continue to be replaced whether it’s by illegal labor or legal labor by visas or just shipped overseas.
Small businesses continue to be swallowed by big corporations.
Americans’ hard earned tax dollars always fund foreign wars, foreign aid, and foreign interests.
The spending power of the dollar continues to decline.
The average American family can no longer survive on a single bread winner’s income as both parents must work in order to simply survive.
And today, many in my children’s generation feel hopeless for their future and don’t think they will ever realize the American dream, which breaks my heart.
MTG is taking her significant campaign cash and selling high, and promising to be there to buy low after whatever upcoming catastrophe happens.
When the common American people finally realize and understand that the Political Industrial Complex of both parties is ripping this country apart, that not one elected leader like me is able to stop Washington’s machine from gradually destroying our country, and instead the reality is that they, common Americans, The People, possess the real power over Washington, then I’ll be here by their side to rebuild it.
Until then I’m going back to the people I love, to live life to the fullest as I always have, and look forward to a new path ahead.
She rode Trump’s coattails until she decided the coattails weren’t worth the effort anymore.
Speaker Mike Johnson Demands Better Treatment for Israel’s Prime Minister Than Given the President of the United States
Ahead of Bibi Netanyahu’s address to Congress, much of the attention has focused on those — starting with Vice President Harris — who will not attend. Speaker Emerita Pelosi is one of a growing number of Democrats who will instead meet with the families of those still held hostage by Hamas.
Right wingers are trying to make a big stink out of Democrats’ decision not to attend an address by a guy accused of war crimes who openly sides with Republicans (I’ve altered this cover slightly).
What has gone unmentioned, however, is that Speaker Mike Johnson sent out a letter ordering members and their guests to maintain decorum.
In the interests of all involved, we will enforce a zero-tolerance policy for disturbances in the building.
All Members should kindly inform their guests that any disruption of the proceedings of the House is a violation of the rules and may subject the offenders to prosecution. If any disturbance does occur, the Sergeant at Arms and Capitol Police will remove the offending visitor(s) from the gallery and subject them to arrest.
As Members, it is incumbent upon us all to likewise model respect and proper decorum as representatives of the American people and our institution, and as ambassadors of the United States on the world stage.
This is, of course, greater reverence than Republicans have offered of late to Democratic Presidents, most recently when Marjorie Taylor Greene interrupted President Biden’s State of the Union.
It’s not Israel that has been left behind, Speaker Mike.
Trash Talk: Won’t Somebody Think of the Children Edition
[NB: check the byline, thanks. /~Rayne]
Bonus second Trash Talk today, a day with perfect football weather here in Michigan — temperatures in the upper 60s to low 70s , partly cloudy, light wind out of the southwest. The scent of freshly mown grass mingled with smoke from tailgaters’ grills, heightening anticipation for today’s games. Depending on where you live, games may already have wrapped or are underway as they are in East Lansing, Michigan.
~ ~ ~
Anticipation doesn’t fully describe what Michigan State University fans and students are likely feeling today. You may already have heard about a new scandal centered on MSU’s football coach, Mel Tucker, who has been accused of sexual harassing behavior by activist Brenda Tracy.
The entire situation reeks because MSU was caught flat footed in its response to the situation in spite of the university’s past history dealing with scandal related to sexual abuse. You’ll recall the prosecution of former osteopathic physician Larry Nassar based on charges he sexually abused dozens of girls and women gymnasts during his practice affiliated with USA Gymnastics and his career with MSU. It took nearly a decade from the first complaints by athletes before Nassar was convicted and jailed.
Here’s a timeline of events related to the allegations about to Mel Tucker:
April 28, 2022 — During a phone call between Tracy and Tucker, Tracy alleged Tucker made sexual comments about her and engaged in nonconsensual masturbation.
December 2022 — Tracy filed a Title IX complaint with MSU.
July 25, 2022 — Rebecca Leitman Veidlinger, an outside investigator hired by MSU, completed the Title IX investigation into Tracy’s allegations.
September 10, 2023 — USA Today published a story disclosing Tracy’s allegations against Tucker, revealing Tracy’s identity. Though Tucker acknowledged to the investigatore he masturbated while on the phone with Tracy, he claimed they were engaged in consensual phone sex, denying misconduct.
September 10, 2023 — MSU suspended Tucker without pay and asked former associate head coach/co-defensive coordinator Harlon Barnett to assume the role of Acting Head Coach in addition to his role as Secondary Coach.
September 13, 2023 — Michigan State University Trustee Dianne Byrum demanded MSU conduct an investigation in the leak of Tracy’s identity which appeared in USA Today’s report. “I am disturbed and outraged by recent reports indicating the name of a claimant in a sexual harassment investigation was intentionally released in an apparent effort to retaliate against her. We should unequivocally condemn attempts to silence or retaliate against victims,” Byrum said.
September 14, 2023 — MSU announced the return of retired former head coach Mark Dantonio to assist Barnett. Dantonio will take on the role of associate head coach.
A hearing has been scheduled for the first week of October, the outcome of which may decide Tucker’s continuing employment with MSU.
Reporting about the allegations has been far from neutral. This report by USA Today — Mel Tucker made millions while he delayed the Michigan State sexual harassment case — published on September 14 assumed Tucker was deliberately delaying the hearing when he refused to accept the August 22-23 dates.
Never mind that August is the busiest month for an NCAA coach. MSU Spartans players attend a preseason camp beginning August 3. Dorm move-in dates are August 22-24. First classes are August 28. The team had 15 practices scheduled between the end of camp and the season opener on September 1.
But sure, Tucker was delaying the hearing. Never mind that USA Today then hammered on Tucker’s wages which surely reflects the intense pressure Tucker’s been under to improve on the Spartans’ past lackluster performance.
The inability to find workable dates in September was a more legitimate problem, but September with a new team is also just as sensitive for NCAA football coaches. The October date makes a lot more sense (and is hardly the kind of extension a certain former president demands for criminal charges).
The intense public scrutiny about this case also wouldn’t have emerged had not USA Today decided to publish its September 10 and 14 pieces. The public would have heard after the October hearing that Tucker was fired if it was determined he violated Title IX, or perhaps the public would never have heard anything if it was determined his behavior had no affect on education under Title IX.
Detroit Free Press shared an interview conducted by FOX 2 Detroit with Tucker’s employment attorney, Deborah Gordon. She’s one of the best employment attorneys in the state and also recommended for representation in Title IX cases. Her explanation of what Tracy and Tucker can expect from the hearing is worth a listen. And yet the Free Press also takes a position by not pushing back against Gordon’s claim to FOX 2 that Tucker was a “high profile guy” who Tracy wanted to “go after. And she did it.”
Of course Tucker’s attorney would say this. What kind of attorney wouldn’t do that for their client?
MSU Spartans play No. 8 ranked Washington Huskies at home in Lansing today – kickoff was at 5:06 p.m. ET.
Expect players, their families, friends, and fans to be quizzed about the scandal because the media needs clickbait.
Can’t imagine what current students and their families as well as prospective students and families are discussing at home about this situation, because nobody in the media is thinking about them at all, nor teaching them about the concept of assuming innocence until one is proven guilty.
~ ~ ~
Disgust as a “conservative” emotion — ?
We kicked around some disgusting GOP behavior in comments last evening beginning with South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem’s skanky on-again-off-again-can’t-stop affair with GOP consultant and alleged sexual harasser Corey Lewandowski. I mentioned studies I’ve run across which found “conservatives” respond more negatively and more intensely to prompts which are often labeled disgusting. See the study linked below for a list of research, some of which underpinned the article in The Atlantic also linked below.
Elad-Strenger J, Proch J, Kessler T. Is Disgust a “Conservative” Emotion? Pers Soc Psychol Bull. 2020 Jun;46(6):896-912. doi: 10.1177/0146167219880191. Epub 2019 Oct 16. PMID: 31619133.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31619133/McAuliffe, Kathleen. “Liberals and Conservatives React in Wildly Different Ways to Repulsive Pictures.” The Atlantic, Atlantic Media Company, 7 Dec. 2022, www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/03/the-yuck-factor/580465/.
The fundamental problem with this is that many so-called conservatives regularly engage in disgusting behavior and yet this doesn’t shape their voting.
Take the obnoxious example of Lauren Boebert who acted like a particularly nasty spoiled brat recently. TPM has an overview and a video documenting Boebert’s latest public wretchedness:
There’s Videotape! Annals of Feral Lauren Boebert …
Why do GOP voters in Boebert’s district put up with her? This isn’t the first shitty behavior on her part. Even her business which has poisoned consumers giving them bloody diarrhea hasn’t been enough to stop them from voting for her. “Conservatives” in her district didn’t care. They voted her back in for a second term in 2022.
Ditto for Marjorie Taylor Greene and her sorry love life — okay, sex life, because her experiences don’t sound like they’re based on deep affection (It’s the DailyMail, brace yourselves for the photos of her extramarital partners). Just sex and a general disrespect for the traditional Christian institution of marriage with its demand to have and hold a partner while forsaking all others.
Why aren’t “conservatives” in her district disgusted by her readiness to swap sweat, voting her nastiness back into office?
You can surely think of many other examples of disgusting behavior by right-wing candidates and officeholders, like former GOP Senate candidate and spouse abuser Eric Greitens.
Or the mack daddy of marital disrespect, Newt Gingrich, who’s treated animals better than his ex-wives.
And of course The Donald whose proclivities have been hidden by catch-and-kill operations, although not always successfully.
We all know by now that hypocrisy makes not a lick of difference to so-called conservatives. They’re happy bashing on Hunter Biden for his drug addiction, trashing Joe Biden for continuing to love and support his son in spite of Hunter’s challenges.
Why do conservatives’ brains react differently, then to images of disgust, while failing to act constructively on disgusting behavior?
How does the left more effective appeal to conservatives’ disgust when it’s also obvious their disgust can be generated deliberately, as Chris Rufo demonstrated with his attacks on critical race theory?
How do we address this disparity between research results and real life in a way that makes a difference to our nation’s children? Because they’re being taught sexual infidelity and abuse is okay if you’re a Republican, disrespect for vows, oaths, partners is also okay, and other sordid behavior like vaping in shared public space disregarding others’ health is just fine if you’re a Republican.
The Smell of Flop Sweat and Circus Peanuts
[NB: check the byline, thanks. /~Rayne]
Buckle up, cupcakes. You know it’s about to go down when the ringmaster summons the clowns.
Like this sad doofus.
[Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R, GA-14) sharing stolen photos* attributed to Hunter Biden during a GOP-led House Oversight Committee hearing July 19, 2023.]
How entirely predictable this goat rodeo was on Wednesday, though. You could set your watch by the triggers.
~ ~ ~
First, the truth is slowly beginning to seep into the public’s consciousness that lifelong scofflaw Donald J. Trump is in deep shit which is about to meet the oscillator.
As Marcy shared in a post on Tuesday, Trump had a tantrum in his personal social media platform. He acted out after Special Counsel Jack Smith sent him a target letter with a deadline Thursday — today — to appear in front of a grand jury.
Lashing out against law enforcement is far from constructive — unless it serves another purpose like whipping up the base for grifting.
Up to now the angry hyperbole flung at Special Counsel and other investigations hasn’t helped Trump much in public opinion, according to a Politico/Ipsos poll published July 6, a month after Trump was indicted related to possession of classified documents and presidential records.
While right-leaning outlets posted headlines like “Nearly a quarter of Republicans say classified docs charges make them more likely to support Trump: poll” in The Hill, Ipsos’ published its results under a headline which read, “Most Americans think Trump should head to trial before the 2024 election.”
This is not a pretty picture for Trump one month after his indictment, before even more evidence emerges about the case.
Trump will continue to respond the same way until these numbers improve because he’s running out of options.
~ ~ ~
Second, in his tantrum online, Trump called upon the House GOP and whined for their support, demanding “REPUBLICANS IN CONGRESS MUST MAKE THIS THEIR # 1 ISSUE!!!”
Why the GOP-led House and not some other political group? Because members of the House are protected by the Constitution’s Speech or Debate clause, Article I, Section 6, Clause 1:
“The Senators and Representatives…shall in all Cases, except Treason, Felony, and Breach of the Peace, be privileged from Arrest during their attendance at the Session of their Respective Houses, and in going to and from the same; and for any Speech or Debate in either House, they shall not be questioned in any other Place.”
Clowns like Big Marj and Jim “Ignore the OSU sex abuse” Jordan (R, OH-04) can blab in front of cameras and microphones, say the most obnoxious crap on behalf of their mob boss, and never be held to account so long as they do it while ostensibly representing their constituents.
They’ll keep doing this until voters get fed up with this trash juggling which does nothing to address the country’s real needs.
Really, what does a bunch of stolen nude images of Hunter Biden have to do with tax law enforcement — laws which have already resulted in Hunter Biden being charged with a guilty plea expected in court this next week. This isn’t even a question you’ll note.
These images had jack-doodley-squat to do with the investigation by IRS personnel who should have been looking for documentation of unreported income or fraudulent write-offs and not nudes of a white male in his late 40s engaged in consensual sex with adults.
Because the erstwhile IRS investigators have also not been held to account for their shoddy work which amounts to little more than digging through a digital underwear drawer, they’ll be used over and over again like goats in this clown-riddled rodeo.
~ ~ ~
Third, the influence operation(s) which resulted in disinformation relying on stolen digital nude photos is being picked asunder and exposed for what it is. This site’s readers who’ve been following Marcy’s painstaking effort digging through documentation know well the narrative created by Trump, the GOP, and other entities is falling apart.
One major tell: the attack on this website after Marcy published her most recent post examining media outlets’ role in the influence operation suggests the details she’s shared have hit a nerve.
Not only has the ringmaster summoned the clowns to change the subject as loudly and obnoxiously as possible, but an attempt was made to shut down and silence an open source investigation.
Can’t imagine why that would be necessary given how entertaining the truth has been.
~ ~ ~
Lastly, there’s another narrative both the ringmaster and a certain clown needed to drown out in a big fat hurry.
So utterly predictable which clown would be in the center arena of the big top Wednesday.
When the next federal indictment of Trump is announced, which flop-sweaty clown do you think will appear first? Place your bets.
Consider this an open thread. Bring everything not on topic in other threads to this one.
_____
* Image blurred by me because nobody needed to see that; a citizen’s bodily autonomy and personal privacy deserved protection and shouldn’t have been treated like revenge porn without their consent no matter if they failed to pay some of their federal income taxes or carried a handgun while addicted to illegal substances.
Marjorie Taylor Greene Admits Kevin McCarthy Should Have Considered National Security before Harming It
CNN reports that in a GOP leadership meeting, concerns were (anonymously) expressed about the way that Kevin McCarthy gave exclusive access to sensitive security footage from the Capitol to a self-described fan of Vladimir Putin, Tucker Carlson.
[S]ome lawmakers in the closed-door leadership meeting asked whether sensitive security protocols or certain evacuation routes would be exposed by taking that step.
Others questioned how long the footage is going to be dragged out in the press, with some lawmakers concerned about the optics of appearing to try to downplay a deadly insurrection in the US Capitol.
“Let’s just rip the Band-aid off and get this over with,” one GOP lawmaker told CNN.
Sources said McCarthy assured his leadership team that he wants to move swiftly, but said they need to be deliberate about how they handle it to ensure the release does not endanger their security.
Remarkably, it was Marjorie Taylor Greene who had to voice, on the record, the potential danger of showing where the secure back hallways of the Capitol were.
[Marge] told CNN she played a role in McCarthy’s decision to turn the footage over to Carlson, but she wouldn’t go into further detail.
Greene, who was not in the Monday night meeting, said she’s spoken with McCarthy, and that the speaker’s office is coordinating a process for how to release the footage more widely, beyond Fox News, while also ensuring it doesn’t violate any security concerns.
“We can’t give away our national security,” Greene said, “Everyone in Congress agrees. And I think the American people agree. We don’t want Russia or China or any of these other countries being able to study all the entries and exits of our capital. That’s foolish.”
Greene told CNN that Carlson’s team was also given certain parameters for what they could and couldn’t air. “Yes … of course (there were parameters) they’re being extremely careful and responsible.”
Except no one cited in this article — not Marge, not Elise Stefanik (who showed less understanding about the security concerns than Marge), and not CNN itself — raised the problem here.
Kevin McCarthy has already shared this sensitive video with someone that — as a Gang of Eight member — he must know was in discussions about setting up a back channel with Putin, purportedly a long-term effort to set up an interview. Tucker’s own FOIA suggests that effort extended for at least thirty months, as of July 2021. Tucker continues to proudly root for Putin.
The problem is not, just, in Tucker airing surveillance footage that compromises the security of the Capitol. It’s not just that Russian spies might watch Tucker Carlson and decide how to attack the Capitol.
The problem is also that Tucker will either give it to Putin, or store it insecurely and make it available to Russian hackers, a means of obtaining sensitive records that Russia has used in the past.
One of the first things Kevin McCarthy did as Speaker was to give exclusive access to security information to someone openly rooting for Putin, someone who has launched hostile operations against US democracy in recent years.
And McCarthy is only now considering the security implications of having done so.
Kevin McCarthy Makes Sensitive Security Footage Available to the Insurrectionists’ Propagandist
Yesterday, Mike Allen revealed that Kevin McCarthy had made all the security footage from January 6 available to Tucker Carlson.
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has given Fox News’ Tucker Carlson exclusive access to 41,000 hours of Capitol surveillance footage from the Jan. 6 riot, McCarthy sources tell me.
- Carlson TV producers were on Capitol Hill last week to begin digging through the trove, which includes multiple camera angles from all over Capitol grounds. Excerpts will begin airing in the coming weeks.
Why it matters: Carlson has repeatedly questioned official accounts of 1/6, downplaying the insurrection as “vandalism.”
That he did this is not a surprise. As Allen himself writes, McCarthy has been working on this since early February. And the extremists who used McCarthy’s Speakership to demand concessions have been calling for this almost from the start.
Of particular note, Marjorie Taylor Greene, who spent part of the day yesterday calling for the red states (which may no longer include Georgia) to secede, again, like the last time white supremacists grew impatient with living in an aspiring democracy, spent much of the rest of her day taking credit for the release, tying it directly to her support for McCarthy as Speaker.
Let me repeat that: The person who took credit for this release was, just two hours earlier, calling for Civil War.
And McCarthy provided access to this video to the biggest propagandist for those who attacked the Capitol. Starting almost immediately after some of his viewers attacked the the Capitol, Tucker has been running insanely stupid conspiracy theories, claiming the attack was launched by the Deep State rather than his own viewers and allies. Tucker eventually packaged the propaganda into such a slick propaganda film, it led conservative journalists to leave.
This time around, Tucker might opt for instructing his viewers how to succeed with the next attack rather than lying about the last one.
Depending on the terms via which McCarthy made this footage available, it could also be shared with foreign adversaries. Tucker has long been chummy with Viktor Orbán, and he himself revealed he had been picked up on intercepts seeking a back channel with Russia.
The outcome of this release is hard to measure at this point.
While defendants already have access to any video to their case, when stuff gets released via an alternate channel like this, they often use it to launch new legal challenges and claims of discovery violations. At the very least, this will create new delays and headaches for already overburdened prosecutors.
The security implications, however, are more serious. I did a post in December 2021 showing how video from just one camera over the course of the day — in this case, from the Tunnel through which Joe Biden would walk to be inaugurated weeks later — would reveal where key security cameras were and how to disable them.
It’s likely that the Capitol police has replaced some of these cameras in the interim because the process of prosecuting all those who attacked the Capitol has already compromised their effectiveness.
The other thing making all the video available at once will do is identify where there aren’t (or weren’t) security cameras.
One of those places is McCarthy’s own office.
It’s bad enough that McCarthy made the unilateral decision to release these. It’s bad enough that he decided to release these to someone who, the Dominion lawsuit just revealed, was willing to undermine the democratically elected government of the country for partisan gain.
But McCarthy released them exclusively to Tucker Carlson, meaning they won’t be used to crowdsource more identifications, but will instead be used solely for the purpose of propaganda.
We have yet to get a full accounting for all the commitments McCarthy made to be elected Speaker. But this decision makes clear that he was willing to sell out the country to get the position.
Update: WaPo has a really helpful story on what this means.
The decision by McCarthy to provide the video to Carlson raised serious questions about whether the release of the footage would force U.S. Capitol Police to change the location of security cameras and why the speaker would give the material to a Fox News host who has peddled conspiracy theories about the attack and not share it with other news organizations.
McCarthy, who made numerous concessions to the far-right flank in his GOP conference to win enough votes to become speaker, has said that Republicans would investigate the work of the bipartisan Jan. 6 committee. McCarthy also vowed that Republicans would launch their own inquiry into “why the Capitol complex was not secure” on the day.
[snip]
People familiar with the video footage say that the committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection had access to a special dedicated terminal installed in the committee office that had password- protected access to the volume of footage. The committee asked for permission from U.S. Capitol police before they used any of the footage in public hearings, these people said, as they did not want to publicly disclose the location of security cameras in the building.
The committee cut and minimized use of the footage accordingly, these people added.
“We used the material that we thought was most important in demonstrating findings, and we were extremely cautious in what we chose to use,” said a former committee staffer who expressed concerns about the security risks posed by Carlson’s access to the entire trove of surveillance footage. The individual spoke on the condition of anonymity to talk freely about the internal work of the panel.