TRUMP JUST BEING TRUMP ‘ALMOST OUGHT TO BE ILLEGAL’
“At least Tony Soprano had some personal charm.” That’s a reader comment on The New York Times story about Donald Trump’s mob boss-like interview with “Fox & Friends” that aired on Thursday morning and Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ response to it.
In the jaw-dropping (sad!) interview, which was recorded on Wednesday, Trump gave himself an A+ for his work as president (big surprise); berated his former attorney and “fixer” Michael Cohen for “flipping,” something that “almost ought to be illegal;” praised his former campaign chairman Paul Manafort, who was convicted by a jury this week for tax and bank fraud, for refusing to rat; and tore after (for the thousandth time) his hand-picked attorney general, Jeff Sessions, for recusing himself on the Russia investigation.
So much material here, so little time.
But first let’s take the Sessions attack and response. Trump reasons that Sessions should have told him up front that he was going to recuse himself. “What kind of man is this?” Trump asked petulantly during the interview.
The flaw with Trump’s reasoning is that Sessions didn’t know he was going to need to recuse himself when he took the job. Of course, Trump can’t remember that because he has far too many of his own scandals and lies for his little A+ brain to keep up with.
Sessions failed to disclose his meeting with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak during the campaign in his Senate confirmation hearing. Then he didn’t recall what the meeting was about before a Senate committee investigating Russian interference in our election.
Failing to recall seems to be a highly contagious disease in the Trump administration.
Sessions’ response, in a rare statement, was this: “While I am attorney general, the actions of the Department of Justice will not be improperly influenced by political considerations.”
Who would have thought it? Did Sessions grow a spine? It’s hard to have sympathy for Sessions, whose attitudes toward people of color were questioned long before he advocated separating immigrant children from their parents who crossed our Southern border for any reason, including asylum. But he finds his backbone against the bullying Trump?
We think it more likely that Sessions is hearing chatter from his former Senate colleagues about the walls closing in on Trump. We see this as a hopeful sign.
Similarly, we see the “flipping” comments from Trump as yet another thing to make Sessions’ former colleagues cringe.
It tells us all we need to know about the moral character of Trump.
In Trump’s world, where “truth isn’t truth,” and crimes are “not even crimes,” John Dean was the villain and Richard Nixon was the victim.
Even Tony Soprano knew better.
John Dean and Michael Cohen, under pressure, told what they knew. Paul Manafort, so far, has not. In criticizing those who told the truth while professing “respect” for those who don’t “break” and keep the truth a secret, Trump offers very persuasive evidence that he has much more to hide.
Trump just being Trump “almost ought to be illegal.” By his own words and actions, Trump has destroyed the legitimacy of his own presidency.
Finally, some Republicans are taking their heads out of the sand. The New York Times on Thursday also reported that senior party leaders have begun urging their most imperiled incumbents to speak out about the wrongdoing surrounding Trump.
Rep. Tom Cole, a former House Republican campaign chairman, warned: “Where there’s smoke, and there’s a lot of smoke, there may well be fire. … Anybody who says this is not disturbing is not being honest. So my advice to any candidate would be keep your powder dry and don’t rush to attack or defend anybody because you just don’t know enough to have a reaction that you can still defend three months from now.”
Democratic leaders, too, are pondering whether their avoidance of the “I” word continues to be wise. Maybe while they’re at it, they should make more of the idea that Republicans are very close to being complicit in the destruction of our democracy.
With immunity granted to David Pecker, the National Enquirer publisher who worked with Cohen to “catch and kill” the story of the former Playboy playmate’s alleged affair with Trump just after the airing of Trump’s open mic tape about groping women and just before the election, it would seem apparent that the tide is turning against our president who conducts himself more like The Don.
Dare we think about seeing Jeff Sessions smile as a crowd chants, ‘Lock him up’?
That might be a stretch. But we can certainly make it more likely if we “flip” the House and the Senate.