A House committee controlled by Democrats wants to see secret documents that it says could lead to another impeachment inquiry.

       

After President Donald Trump said during his June 20 rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, that increased testing was responsible for the surging number of infections, the condemnation of the inaccurate claim was swift. Six days later, during a Fox News town hall, Sean Hannity asked Trump about those remarks on increased testing. “Sometimes I jokingly say, or sarcastically say, if we didn’t do tests we would look great,” he replied. This seems to be a pattern. Two months earlier, the president had mused about the beneficial effects of injecting disinfectants into the body to combat COVID-19. After many health officials expressed their dismay, Trump repeatedly claimed that he was just being sarcastic.That same month, after he misspelled “Nobel Prize” in a tweet – writing it out as “Noble Prize” – he deleted the tweet before falling back on on a familiar excuse: sarcasm.What is it about sarcasm that makes it such a convenient excuse for people who are trying to distance themselves from what they’ve said?As I describe in my recent book on irony and sarcasm, most cognitive scientists and other language researchers think of sarcasm as a form of verbal irony. Both ways of speaking involve saying the opposite of what you mean. But the goals of irony and sarcasm are actually different.For example, if someone slowly intones “What beautiful weather!” on a cold and rainy day, it’s clear they’re speaking ironically about a disappointing state of affairs. In general, irony is used to provide commentary on unexpected and negative outcomes. Sarcasm, on the other hand, is most frequently used to disparage the actions of other people. If someone tells you that you’re a real genius after you forgot to meet them for an important appointment, they clearly don’t mean that you’re mentally gifted. Simply put, irony is commentary, but sarcasm is criticism.That seems straightforward enough. But in actual practice, the line between irony and sarcasm is blurry and confusing. Many people assert they are being sarcastic when they are in fact being ironic, as in commenting about the weather.The enlargement of the domain of sarcasm – at irony’s expense – is a linguistic shift that has been going on for some time. In fact, linguist Geoffrey Nunberg called attention to this phenomenon 20 years ago. So it’s hard to fault the president for conflating the two.Another element that makes sarcasm tricky to grasp has to do with saying the opposite of what is meant. The recipient of such a statement isn’t supposed to take it literally.For this reason, when we use verbal irony or sarcasm, we might employ cues to signal our nonliteral intent. We may, for example, speak in a tone of voice that’s slower, lower and louder than how we speak normally. Our pitch may swoop up or down. Ironic statements are also frequently accompanied by facial displays, such as a smirk or the rolling of the eyes.And that’s why, when being sarcastic over text or email, we’ll use emojis to relay nonliteral intent. Of course, even then, there’s no guarantee that the recipient will interpret the message correctly.President Trump does, at times, clearly make use of sarcasm. For example, at a December 2019 rally in Hershey, Pennsylvania, he said, referring to the House’s imminent decision to initiate impeachment proceedings, that the Democrats “also understand poll numbers, but I’m sure that had nothing to do with it.” He signals sarcasm by using absolute words like “sure” and “nothing” and by gesturing broadly with both hands. He also pauses to give his audience a moment to interpret his remark as the opposite of what he has said – that, in fact, “my high poll numbers have everything to do with impeachment.” The remark is sarcastic because there’s a clear target: the Democrats in Congress.But at both the Tulsa rally and his April press conference, the president’s controversial remarks didn’t have such accompanying verbal and nonverbal cues. He wasn’t being critical of anyone; he was simply asserting that testing leads to more infections, or asking what appeared to be sincere questions about the use of disinfectants to combat the virus. Chances are he literally meant what he said. As the president has repeatedly demonstrated, a claim of intended sarcasm can be used to walk back a remark that has been criticized or otherwise fallen flat. Thanks to our slippery understanding of the term, along with the way sarcasm can be easily missed, it can function like a “Get Out of Jail Free” card: The speaker can take a conversational mulligan and try to make things right.We’ve all said things that we later regretted and appealed to “just kidding” or “I was being sarcastic.” However, if we habitually reach for such excuses to absolve ourselves of linguistic sins, it becomes, like the little boy who cried wolf, less and less effective.Roger J. Kreuz is the author of:Irony and Sarcasm MIT Press provides funding as a member of The Conversation US.This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts.Read more: * What makes something ironic? * The rhetorical brilliance of Trump the demagogueRoger J. Kreuz does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

The high point of 2020 for Senate Republicans — if there is one — may have been Feb. 6.

The Senate had acquitted President Donald Trump in his impeachment trial the day before, and he held an hour-long “victory celebration” in the East Room of the White House.

With Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Mike Lee (R-Utah) among the dozens of GOP lawmakers in attendance, Trump made sure everyone knew how he felt about the Russia investigation, Special Counsel Robert Mueller, his impeachment, and all the accusations against him. “It was all bullshit,” Trump said. “It was hell.”

Senate Republicans now know what he’s talking about.

In the almost five months since that day, the coronavirus pandemic has killed nearly 130,000 Americans and decimated the U.S. economy. Despite Congress’ approval of trillions of dollars in spending to combat the downturn, unemployment levels have soared to their highest levels since the Great Depression. Trump has slumped badly in the polls due in no small part to his erratic response to the crisis, which now seems to be getting worse after looking like it was improving.

The death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police officers sparked a national outpouring of anger over racism and police brutality, with protestors taking to the streets in numbers not seen since the Vietnam War. Trump has responded to these events with an harsh reaction that many Republicans disavowed, ordering the violent clearing of Lafayette Park of peaceful demonstrators so he could take a photo op with a Bible. Trump has also tweeted and later deleted a video with a supporter cheering “White power!” and repeatedly used a racist term to describe Covid-19, more troubling behavior that left Republicans scrambling for cover.

On top of that, a new scandal has emerged over alleged Russian bounties paid to the Taliban to kill U.S. soldiers. The New York Times and Associated Press reported that Trump was aware of the allegations for months but took no action, forcing Republicans to respond to yet another Trump-related uproar.

“The optimist in me would say the odds of us getting a break in the future are greater because we’ve had such a run of bad luck,” joked Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), who served in the House GOP leadership when Republicans there lost the majority in 2006. “I think it may very well work out that way.”

This seemingly unending barrage of bad news has made what was already going to be a tough cycle for Senate Republicans even more difficult. They’re in real danger of losing their six-year-old majority to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and the Democrats, who have gotten their favored candidates lined up in key races, including Arizona, Colorado, North Carolina, Iowa, Maine and Kentucky. If something doesn’t change for Senate Republicans soon, they could be facing real problems in November, according to political handicappers.

Even when Senate Republicans finally get some good news, such as preparing to pass the annual defense authorization bill as they prepare to leave town for the July 4 holiday, Trump threatened to veto the legislation because he’s upset it would allow the renaming of military bases that honor Confederate generals. McConnell and GOP leaders had already backed the proposal, but Trump — focusing on his own reelection strategy first­— wants nothing to do with it.

“You gotta play the hand you’re dealt. But yeah, we’ve been getting some bad cards lately,” said Senate Majority Whip John Thune (R-S.D.) “You’ve gotta keep playing and hopefully your luck changes at some point.”

“I’m still very confident we can win a lot of these races this fall,” Thune added. “But timing and circumstances and the political environment have a lot to do with that. We’ll see what it looks like then.”

“With all due respect, it seems like the Democrats and the mainstream media are determined to do everything they can to defeat the president, and occasionally he undermines himself by some of the things he does and says,” said GOP Sen. John Cornyn, who is up for reelection in a suddenly competitive Texas.

“So it’s been a rocky couple of weeks, but that means we got nowhere to go but up.”

To be fair, Trump isn’t the cause of all Senate Republicans’ problems, although the president — as is his desire — is always the center of attention. All roads lead to Trump, and he hovers over every Senate race.

Sen. Susan Collins’ (R-Maine) vote for Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court nomination in Oct. 2018 was a hugely controversial action, as Collins, one of the most vulnerable Republicans facing reelection, was well aware at the time. She also voted to acquit Trump during his impeachment trial earlier this year, another move that infuriated Democrats. Her reelection was always going to be tough, and Sara Gideon — speaker of the Maine House of Representatives — is a formidable opponent.

Sen. Cory Gardner (R-Colo.) has been a loyal vote for Trump and Senate GOP leadership throughout his term, ensuring that he will face one of the toughest races this election cycle. Former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper (D), after initially saying he "wasn't cut out to be a senator” and briefly ran for president, decided to jump into the Senate race after all. Hickenlooper handily won his primary on Tuesday night, setting up a high-profile contest this fall in a key race.

And Sen. Martha McSally (R-Ariz.) has aligned herself closely with Trump in her race against Democrat Mark Kelly, husband of former Rep. Gabby Giffords. As Trump has slid in Arizona, so has McSally, who also lost a Senate race in 2018. In recent weeks, McSally has been trying to argue that her vote to repeal the Affordable Care Act doesn’t mean that she would allow health insurers to reject coverage for patients with pre-existing conditions, despite the fact that a GOP lawsuit to overturn Obamacare would do just that. McSally is trailing Kelly badly in all the recent polls.

"I feel good in the sense that we are on the offense, we've got a strong map," said Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada, chairwoman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. "But it really starts with our candidates and our incumbents. They're strong ... they're outraising their Senate Republican opponent. That tells you a lot. That tells you that they're working hard in their states."

Other GOP wounds have been self-inflicted. Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R-Ga.) got caught up in — and was later cleared — over allegations of insider trading relating to stock transactions she and her husband made as the Covid-19 disaster got worse. Loeffler faces a challenge from GOP Rep. Doug Collins and other candidates on Election Day. If no one wins a majority at that time — which seems likely — there will be a runoff between the top two candidates in January. This seat is likely to stay in GOP hands.

McConnell, who is facing Democrat Amy McGrath in what will be a very expensive race, downplayed the spate of negative news for Republicans.

“My view is that it’s pretty much the way it’s been all along,” McConnell said on Wednesday. “We had a lot of exposure this cycle. We knew that from the beginning. We knew we were gonna have a lot of hard races, and we do have a lot of hard races.”

McConnell added: “I don’t think the landscape is any different from what it would’ve been a year ago.”

But when asked about Trump causing problems from Senate Republicans, McConnell didn’t answer.

As for the GOP incumbents themselves, they continue to express optimism about their own races and the overall state of the Republican majority.

"I feel good about our race,” said North Carolina Republican Thom Tillis of his own tight battle against Democrat Cal Cunningham, a former state senator who is leading slightly in the most recent polls. Cunningham ran unsuccessfully for the Senate in 2010. “I think we've got a good base of support in North Carolina. North Carolina is always a so-called ‘firewall state.’ Probably 88, 90 percent of the people have made up their mind, and what we got to do is just communicate the truth, we win."

As for Blunt, he waved away any comparison to the GOP wipeout in 2006, when Democrats seized majorities in the House and Senate.

“I thought one of the key problems in 2006 was there was both some denying some of the problems we had and an unwillingness to share the information behind the problem we were facing,” Blunt said. “And I don’t sense that right now.”

Dozens of Democrats have backed a resolution calling for Congress to consider impeaching William P. Barr, President Trump's attorney general.

Rep. Steve Cohen of Tennessee, a senior member of the House Judiciary Committee, introduced the resolution Tuesday with the support of 35 co-sponsors.

Announcing the resolution on the House floor, ...

The intelligence finding that Russia was most likely paying a bounty for the lives of U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan has evoked a strange silence from President Donald Trump and his top national security officials.He insists he never saw the intelligence, though it was part of the President's Daily Brief just days before a peace deal was signed with the Taliban in February.The White House says it was not even appropriate for him to be briefed because the president only sees "verified" intelligence -- prompting derision from officials who have spent years working on the daily brief and say it is most valuable when filled with dissenting interpretations and alternative explanations.But it does not require a high-level clearance for the government's most classified information to see that the list of Russian aggressions in recent weeks rivals some of the worst days of the Cold War.There have been new cyberattacks on Americans working from home to exploit vulnerabilities in their corporate systems and continued concern about new playbooks for Russian actors seeking to influence the November election. Off the coast of Alaska, Russian jets have been testing U.S. air defenses, sending U.S. warplanes scrambling to intercept them.It is all part of what Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., the majority leader, said Monday was "the latest in a series of escalations from Putin's regime."Yet missing from all this is a strategy for pushing back -- old-fashioned deterrence, to pluck a phrase from the depths of the Cold War -- that could be employed from Afghanistan to Ukraine, from the deserts of Libya to the vulnerable voter registration rolls in battleground states.Officially, in Trump's national security strategy, Russia is described as a "revisionist power" whose efforts to peel away NATO allies and push the United States out of the Middle East have to be countered. But the paper strategy differs significantly from the reality.There are at least two Russia strategies in this divided administration. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, usually so attuned to Trump, speaks for the hawkish wing: He came to the State Department podium a few weeks ago to declare that Crimea, annexed by Russia six years ago, will never be recognized as Russian territory.Then there is the president, who "repeatedly objected to criticizing Russia and pressed us not to be so critical of Russia publicly," his former national security adviser, John Bolton, notes in his recent memoir. A parade of other former national security aides have emerged, bruised, with similar reports.Yet the nature of intelligence -- always incomplete and not always definitive -- gives Trump an opening to dismiss anything that challenges his worldview."By definition, intelligence means looking at pieces of a puzzle," said Glenn S. Gerstell, who retired this year as general counsel of the National Security Agency, before the Russian bounty issue was front and center. "It's not unusual to have inconsistencies. And the President's Daily Brief, not infrequently, would say that there is no unanimity in the intelligence community, and would explain the dissenting views or the lack of corroboration."That absence of clarity has not slowed Trump when it comes to placing new sanctions on China and Iran, who pose very different kinds of challenges to U.S. power.Yet the president made no apparent effort to sort through evidence on Russia, even before his most recent call with President Vladimir Putin, when he invited the Russian leader to a Group of 7 meeting planned for September in Washington. Russia has been banned from the group since the Crimea invasion, and Trump was essentially restoring it to the G-8 over the objection of many of America's closest allies.The White House will not say whether he would have acted differently had he been aware of the Russian bounty for American lives."If you're going to be on the phone with Vladimir Putin, this is something you ought to know," said Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, who managed the impeachment trial against Trump. "This is something you ought to know if you're inviting Russia back into the G-8."It is just the latest example of how, in Trump's "America First" approach, he rarely talks about Russia strategy other than to say it would be good to be friends. He relies on his gut and talks about his "good relationship" with Putin, echoing a line he often uses about Kim Jong Un, the North Korean dictator.So it is little surprise that after 3 1/2 years, there is often hesitation to bring Trump damning intelligence about Russia.And in this case, there was another element: concern inside the White House about any intelligence findings that might interfere with the administration's announcement of a peace deal with the Taliban.After months of broken-off negotiations, Trump was intent on announcing the accord in February, as a prelude to declaring that he was getting Americans out of Afghanistan. As one senior official described it, the evidence about Russia could have threatened that deal because it suggested that after 18 years of war, Trump was letting Russia chase the last U.S. troops out of the country.The warning to Trump appeared in the president's briefing book -- which Bolton said almost always went unread -- in late February. On Feb. 28, the president issued a statement that a signing ceremony for the Afghan deal was imminent."When I ran for office," Trump said in the statement, "I promised the American people I would begin to bring our troops home and see to end this war. We are making substantial progress on that promise."He dispatched Pompeo to witness the signing with the Taliban. And as Trump noted in a tweet over the weekend, there have been no major attacks on U.S. troops since. (Instead, the attacks have focused on Afghan troops and civilians.)Russia's complicity in the bounty plot came into sharper focus Tuesday as The New York Times reported that U.S. officials intercepted electronic data showing large financial transfers from a bank account controlled by Russia's military intelligence agency to a Taliban-linked account, according to officials familiar with the intelligence.The United States has accused Russia of providing general support to the Taliban before. But the newly revealed information about financial transfers bolstered other evidence of the plot, including detainee interrogations, and helped reduce an earlier disagreement among intelligence analysts and agencies over the reliability of the detainees.Lawmakers on Tuesday emerged from closed briefings on the matter to challenge why Trump and his advisers failed to recognize the seriousness of the intelligence assessment."I'm concerned they didn't pursue it as aggressively or comprehensively as they should have," said Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash., who heads the House Armed Services Committee. "Clearly there was evidence that Russia was paying the bounties."The oddity, of course, is that despite Trump's deference to the Russians, relations between Moscow and Washington under the Trump administration have nose-dived.That was clear in the stiff sentence handed down recently in Moscow against Paul Whelan, a former U.S. Marine, after his conviction on espionage charges in what the U.S. ambassador to Russia, John Sullivan, called a "mockery of justice."Even Russian state television now regularly mocks Trump as a buffoon, very different from its gushing tone during the 2016 presidential election.This article originally appeared in The New York Times.(C) 2020 The New York Times Company