Category: DonaldTrump

White House plans retaliation against Vindman over impeachment testimony

Posted on by Laura Clawson

What do you know? The same day as Donald Trump’s vindictive “celebration” of his acquittal, news came out that the White House is planning to push Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman out at the National Security Council—validating the concerns of the nonpartisan officials who testified in the impeachment inquiry.

Vindman was a key witness in the impeachment inquiry. In his capacity as an NSC Ukraine expert, he was on Trump's July 25 call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, and immediately thought it was inappropriate and went to the NSC’s top lawyer to raise concerns. And his testimony was especially powerful, coming from an immigrant and a decorated Army officer, and because, as his former boss Dr. Fiona Hill said, he clearly wasn’t a politically adept diplomat. He was a guy with a moral compass trying to find his way in a corrupt environment.

Bloomberg reports that Vindman would likely be rotated to the Department of Defense, ending his time at the White House several months early, and says, “The White House intends to portray any house-cleaning as part of a downsizing of the NSC staff,” according to two sources “familiar with the matter.” There’s no word on what will happen to his brother, Yevgeny Vindman, who also works for the NSC. At Wednesday’s appalling celebration, Trump made a sneering reference to “Lt. Col. Vindman and his twin brother,” so you know that both are on his mind. 

The White House move on Vindman is particularly flagrant since The Washington Post reports that Vindman had already decided to leave his post early—but apparently Trump needed to have a “You can’t quit because I fired you” moment.

Trump finds new Senate favorite, because she’s been ‘downright nasty and mean’ for him

Posted on by Joan McCarter

The newest Republican senator, Kelly Loeffler, has quickly risen to be a favorite of impeached president Donald Trump. The Georgia Republican, who was appointed to fill out retired Sen. Johnny Isakson's term, received high praise from Trump in Thursday's acquittal/Festivus "celebration." He gave Loeffler praise that her fellow Republican Sen. Martha McSally must be seething over. Loeffler has "been so supportive and she's been downright nasty and mean about the unfairness to the president," Trump said.

It probably also didn't go over too well with Rep. Doug Collins, the Republican who glued himself to Trump through the House impeachment process and has been counting on Trump to boost his own run for the Senate in the primary for Loeffler’s seat. He got another dagger to the heart today with the report that Loeffler kicked in $5 million to her own campaign this week. There's more where that came from, too. She's got so much money, she's charging her own campaign interest on that loan. She could make as much as $120,000 back in interest! No wonder Trump is impressed: That's the kind of grift he pulls every day, except of course he's doing it to the taxpayers. She's just doing it to potential donors. Charging yourself interest on your campaign loans isn't against the law, but as Beth Rotman, director of money in politics and ethics at Common Cause, says, it's awfully tacky.

Another billionaire is screwing up the Senate. Help fight back. Please give $3 to our nominee fund to bury them and help Democrats take the Senate back.

At his rally Thursday, Trump did give some props to Collins, calling him an "unbelievable" friend. He also said he's working on a compromise between the two. "Something's going to happen that's going to be very good. I don't know; I haven't figured it out yet," he said. Of course he hasn't, because the idea occurred to him right there on the spot.

But somebody who has no applicable qualifications to speak of is going to get a plum job from Trump any day now.

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Moscow Mitch heaped with praise by Trump in ‘victory’ rally for making it all possible

Posted on by Joan McCarter

Moscow Mitch McConnell featured big in impeached-for-life president Donald Trump's unhinged White House campaign rally on Thursday. "And Mitch McConnell, I want to tell you, you did a fantastic job," Trump said. "He understood this was crooked politics. This was crooked politics." Yes, if there's one thing the destroyer of the Senate and beneficiary of Russian largesse understands, it's being crooked.

"This guy is great, and I appreciate it, Mitch," Trump said later. He's "the greatest poker player," said the guy who has no impulse control. "Somebody said, 'You know, Mitch is quiet.' I said, 'He's not quiet.' […] He doesn't want people to know him." That might be the closest thing to truth Trump said. McConnell has worked very hard at keeping the depth of his evil from public view. "And they said, 'Is Mitch smart?' And I said, 'Well, let's put it this way: For many many years […] people have been trying to take his place, and to the best of my knowledge, I've never even heard the subject come up because they've been wiped out so fast."

It's time to end McConnell's destructive stranglehold on the republic. Please give $1 to our nominee fund to help Democrats and end McConnell's career as Senate majority leader.

What's Moscow Mitch doing now, besides basking in the sickly orange glow of his Dear Leader? Advancing five more judicial nominations to make sure that even the courts won't be available to rein in the newly anointed dictator.

We need to make sure that Trump is defeated, but just as critical, we need to make sure that McConnell never again has the power to use the Senate to create another Trump.

Yovanovitch offers a warning: Our democratic institutions ‘need the American people to protect them’

Posted on by Laura Clawson

Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch has retired, and now she’s free to speak her mind. The woman who was the subject of a smear campaign by Rudy Giuliani and his buddies when she was ambassador to Ukraine, who Donald Trump fired and said would “go through some things,” and who was confronted with threatening tweets sent by Trump during her House impeachment inquiry testimony has done just that—spoken her mind—in a Washington Post op-ed. “What I’d like to share with you is an answer to a question so many have asked me,” she wrote. “What do the events of the past year mean for our country’s future?”

Yovanovitch expressed optimism about the integrity of her former colleagues in foreign service, about “the next generation of diplomats,” and about how every day she witnesses regular people “reanimating the Constitution and the values it represents.” But … there’s a but, and it very much has to do with the events that thrust Yovanovitch into the public eye and the man who fired her.

“I had always thought that our institutions would forever protect us against individual transgressors,” Yovanovitch wrote. “But it turns out that our institutions need us as much as we need them; they need the American people to protect them or they will be hollowed out over time, unable to serve and protect our country.”

Still more specifically, though still very much in the voice of a woman who has spent decades measuring every word carefully, “our public servants need responsible and ethical political leadership. This administration, through acts of omission and commission, has undermined our democratic institutions, making the public question the truth and leaving public servants without the support and example of ethical behavior that they need to do their jobs and advance U.S. interests.”

It’s amazing that Yovanovitch can be this optimistic, given what she’s been through. But her optimism comes in the form of a warning, and it seems like every day, Republicans are trampling on that optimism. Yovanovitch’s former colleagues who likewise testified in the impeachment trial are worried about their futures. A United States senator stood on the Senate floor, in front of C-SPAN’s cameras, and named the alleged whistleblower. Our democratic institutions need the American people to protect them. We need to heed that warning.

Trump’s ‘victory speech’ turns into a rambling ego trip divorced from both reality and time

Posted on by Mark Sumner

Well, that was something. What it was isn’t clear, but it was … something. For an hour and a half, Donald Trump stood in front of a hand-selected collection of his most sycophantic sycophants and wandered through time and space to talk about the “scum” at the FBI, how he refuses to believe that Nancy Pelosi prays, and how Ivanka Trump could really make some money if she was only allowed to work with foreign companies.

In the process, Trump shared some love with his favorite members of Congress, including praising Devin Nunes for his work “in dungeons” and telling Steve Scalise that being shot had improved his looks. But most of the love Trump held for himself, as he flipped between parts of his normal rally speech and … indefinable weirdness. Mostly Trump seemed out to prove that in between his plodding, slow-motion appearance at the National Prayer Breakfast and his hyper-loopy sniffle-fest at noon had come a whole, whole lot of chemicals for better living.

Throughout the hour, Trump pointed out Republicans who had been particularly useful to him—here’s Mitch McConnell! Here’s Chuck Grassley! Here’s Mark Meadows! This included going off on an extended discussion of Jim Jordan’s ears. A good case of cauliflower ear on Jordan’s part apparently reminded Trump of his time play-acting with the Wrestlemania crew. Which made Jordan one of his favorites.

At another point, in addition to talking about how amazing it was that Steve Scalise’s wife actually stayed with him at the hospital after he was shot—something that “a lot of wives” would not do, according to Trump, who has experience with a lot of wives—Trump went through a dramatic reenactment of the shooting. He also mentioned that the bullet that hit Scalise was one especially designed to cause more damage on impact. He didn’t mention that Republicans, including Scalise, have voted to keep that particular kind of bullet available to the public. 

It was during this time talking about a shooting that happened on a softball field that Trump’s pinballing thought process took him back to his youth. Remembering a former Yankees second baseman, Trump asked the room if they remembered Bobby Richardson. It’s not likely that many did, because Richardson retired from baseball in 1966.

On the other hand, Richardson is only 84. Chuck Grassley is 86. He probably thinks of Richardson as an upstart.

Between sniffles, Trump found time to criticize everyone who ever suggested that selling out the White House was a bad thing. But strangely enough, most of these attacks seemed to be fixed on James Comey. Had he not fired the former FBI director, said Trump, it was likely “I would not be here today.” Which is … interesting. Trump paused to make fun of Robert Mueller, Christopher Steele, and of course Lisa Page—it would not be a Trump speech without his fixation on Lisa Page. 

But at a speech that was supposed to be about his acquittal after impeachment, Trump seemed to forget to mention anything about that impeachment, except that Adam Schiff and Nancy Pelosi are “vicious.” Oh, and that Mitt Romney only voted against him on one count, so he got “almost 53” votes. 

Earlier in the day, Trump was promising a speech full of retribution. But whatever substance brings him from ploddy to sniffy apparently left him unable to stop stroking his ego—and Ivanka—long enough to get his vengeance full-venging. Instead he settled for throwing out a lot of “sleaze” and “slime” and “dirty cop” references, without telling us just what kind of thumbscrews he’s ordering in bulk.

It wasn’t a news event. It wasn’t a speech. It’s was just a thing.

Oh, and twice Donald Trump insisted that the plural of “apprentice” is “apprenti.” Apparently he believes that he spent several seasons on The Apprentus.  

Diplomats who risked their careers to tell the truth about Trump face life in a post-cover-up world

Posted on by Laura Clawson

One after another, career foreign service professionals came forward to testify about what they saw of Donald Trump’s pressure campaign against Ukraine. They did so, they repeatedly stressed, not out of partisan motives but out of concern for national security. And they’re getting hung out to dry. In interviews with CNN, many of them expressed concern about their careers going forward, after Senate Republicans vote to acquit Trump, and about the damage done to U.S. foreign policy.

“All the carnage for something that doesn't mean very much,” said one. “Our domestic political battles have just trampled over what our national interests are.”

Some, CNN reports, are especially angry with former national security adviser John Bolton, who protected his own future in Republican circles by refusing to testify right up until Senate Republicans could block him from even being asked. Bolton was “trying to have it both ways,” said one of the officials who did testify. “Great. So our lives are ruined, our names dragged through the mud, but [Bolton] gets to wash his hands of it,” said another.

Looming over them is the concern that Trump, with his ever-growing enemies list, will retaliate against anyone who testified. “It would be bad politics for Trump to be seen as going after mid-level folks. And it would take effort,” said one. But “If he is reelected, he will feel emboldened, and this is where he could go after what he deemed the 'Deep State.’”

Republicans give Pelosi just what she wanted with outrage over ripped up State of the Union

Posted on by Laura Clawson

Republicans really, really want Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s ripping up of Donald Trump’s State of the Union address to be A Very Big Thing. They desperately need to frame her act of incivility as equal to or worse than all of Trump’s trespasses against democracy and decency, especially in the wake of Sen. Mitt Romney denying them their narrative of a purely partisan impeachment. (And yeah, they want to retaliate against him, too.)

Rep. Matt Gaetz is leading the asshat charge by filing an ethics complaint against Pelosi with, get this, the claim that “Nobody is above the law.” Gaetz is calling for a criminal referral, claiming that Pelosi violated a statute dealing with “Concealment, removal, or mutilation of documents,” as if every single physical copy of a document is sacred. This temper tantrum about Pelosi tearing up a document is especially special given that—as Dana Houle pointed out on Twitter—Trump is known tear up papers after he finishes with them, in violation of the Presidential Records Act.

Gaetz isn’t the only Republican in high dudgeon about Pelosi, of course. Rep. Kay Granger is touting a privileged resolution expressing disapproval for Pelosi’s “breach of decorum.” House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy tried his hand at a viral video ripping up the impeachment articles and saying “acquitted for life.” 

But Mike Pence had the creepiest take, telling Fox News that “I just have a strong feeling that she's going to be the last Speaker of the House to sit in that chair for a long time.” Which could just mean he understands that Democrats are going to keep the House and Pelosi will remain speaker, but it sounds more like he’s joining Trump in having some extremely unconstitutional things in mind.

Pence aside, you wonder if these Republicans realize how much they’re playing into Pelosi’s hands. She surely did not rip up that paper live on national television without knowing exactly the response it would draw—which means she was inviting their ethics complaints and resolutions of disapproval, shifting attention from Trump to her reaction to Trump. So Gaetz and Granger and all their buddies should feel free to bring it. It couldn’t be clearer that Pelosi welcomes their outrage.

Trump drops in at National Prayer Breakfast to attack people for praying … and threaten the nation

Posted on by Mark Sumner

Thursday morning brought the National Prayer Breakfast—an nonpartisan event usually dedicated to supporting the role of faith in public office. But Donald Trump, drenched in what appears to be a stupefying level of anger, used that moment to attack people for looking to their faith. And for praying.

Trump didn’t just step behind the podium to declare that “I don’t like people who use their faith as justification for doing what they know is wrong” in an attack on Mitt Romney, and adding in a “nor do I like people who say ‘I pray for you’ when they know that’s not so” as a blow at Nancy Pelosi. He appended to his morning hate session a threat directed at the whole nation. “So many people have been hurt,” said Trump. “And we can’t let that go on. And I’ll be discussing that a little bit later, at the White House.”

 

Thursday, Feb 6, 2020 · 3:16:58 PM +00:00 · Mark Sumner

If it wasn’t clear enough that Trump was issuing threats to political opponents at the National Prayer Breakfast, here is his Press Secretary, in her native habit at Fox News, to make it crystal clear.

Stephanie Grisham previews Trump's post-impeachment trial speech: "I think he's gonna also talk about how just horribly he was treated and that maybe people should pay for that." � pic.twitter.com/DL6LWD4KdY

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) February 6, 2020

Trump also declared that both he and the nation had been “put through a terrible ordeal” by “very dishonest and corrupt people.” Throughout the event, he spoke at a speed that is best described as glacial … and not the speedy kind of glacial. But it seemed like this drop by drop delivery wasn’t generated by the drawer full of drugs that brought sniffy, slurry Trump to the State of the Union. The better adjective here is probably seething. It almost seems as if between not getting the clean bill he expected from the end of the impeachment trial, plus hearing the gentle sound of tearing paper, it all might have broken Trump.

Trump has already made an announcement he’ll be speaking at noon, and since the White House is currently staffed by barely more than Stephen Miller and Mick Mulvaney, it’s unlikely that any “better angels” have been whispering in his ear.

Suspension of Congress? State of emergency? Firing squads at dawn? All of the above seem way, way too thinkable when watching clips of Trump’s performance. 

Trump’s statements were definitely of the nonscripted, wandering all over the place variety. At one moment he seemed thankful that "Joining us for this cherished tradition are a lot of friends in the audience.” Then a moment later, that tone flipped again, “That's all I get to meet anymore. That, and the enemies, and the allies. And we have 'em all. We have allies, we have enemies. Sometimes the allies are enemies but we just don't know it."

Both Pelosi and Romney were present for these attacks. In fact, Pelosi had already offered up a prayer in opening the event. The statements from Trump were hugely out of character with the words coming from anyone else present. The level of anger and contrast with the previous tone of the morning’s events was deeply disturbing.

Trump drags Pelosi: "Nor do I like people who say, 'I pray for you,' when they know that that's not so." pic.twitter.com/4QnG8ADBdQ

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) February 6, 2020

Trump will emerge at noon to see his shadow, forecast one more year of fascism

Posted on by Mark Sumner

At noon on Thursday, Donald Trump will sally forth to gloat. Or whine. To gloatwhine about his less than perfect acquittal in the Senate. Robbed of his ability to declare total victory by Sen. Mitt Romney unexpectedly casting a safety line back to the world where Republicans existed as something more than Trump’s eager footstool, the vote in the Senate has not gotten the 10,000 or so tweets it surely deserves. Tweets about “exoneration” and Rep. Adam Schiff’s collar size.

Still, Trump will not be denied his opportunity to stand before the nation and complain about a bipartisan vote of “guilty.” So he comes forth at noon to check his shadow, complain that the do-nothings done something, and talk about the real national tragedy—how eight sheets of number two copy paper meet an untimely death at the hands of Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi.

Going into the vote on Wednesday, Trump was confident that all the Republicans would grovel on cue. In fact, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell was shaping his beak into an “is that lettuce?” grin over the idea that Democrats facing difficult elections in red states might also pile in. They fully expected to exit the day with both a bipartisan vote to acquit, and a nice claim that the vote to remove Trump was “completely partisan.”

But as the day wore on, those Senate Democrats in the tightest of tight spots, like Alabama’s Doug Jones and West Virginia’s Joe Manchin, made it known that they would be voting to impeach. Neither they, nor Arizona’s Kyrsten Sinema, were even going to toss Trump a crumb by splitting their votes. All three joined every other Democrat to vote Trump guilty as charged, and unworthy to remain in office, on both articles of impeachment.

That was good, but Romney’s speech announcing that he would cast his vote against Trump was even better. It not only completely rewrote the narrative, it was a sharp rebuke of the fawning attitude adopted by every other Republican senator. It’s extraordinarily telling that for the whole course of the impeachment trial, only a handful of Republicans were ever even considered to be willing to vote for something as obvious as calling witnesses. “Serious” Republicans, including those who had been in the Senate for decades and cast votes against Bill Clinton while expressing their deep offense at his action, were never even considered as possible votes against Trump. Of course they would bow. All Republicans bow.

What Romney said in his speech—as surprising for its genuine uplifting and moving quality, as much as for the news of that single vote—flipped the script in Washington. It wrecked Trump’s plans for celebrations and caused infinitely more paper to be shredded on Capitol Hill than Pelosi did during Trump’s House chamber rally. It took a full day of pouting and screaming for Trump to settle down, and for Stephen Miller to pencil in “and Mitt Romney” to every insipid attack. 

Still, don’t expect Trump to be contrite, and certainly not restrained. As Wednesday night’s bizarre attack on New York residents demonstrated, there is no slight he will overlook, no act of vengeance too petty. Don’t be at all surprised if Trump devotes 90% of his speech to ideas that “Nancy Pelosi should be impeached.” After all, it’s certain that 100% will be about how he is perfect, Democrats are unworthy, and real Americans wear red hats.

Given that, Romney aside, the clear message of the Senate vote was that Republicans will support Trump in any action that he takes against political opponents, no matter how vile, dangerous, or illegal … it’s likely that he’ll take this opportunity to announce something even more vile, more blatant, and more divisive than before. 

Moscow Mitch completes his cover-up, but not without some hitches and real jeopardy ahead

Posted on by Joan McCarter

Moscow Mitch McConnell has a poker face. It’s lipless and chinless, but it’s still a poker face. But he has a tell he can't control when he gets angry: His face gets red. His face was very red on the Senate floor Wednesday afternoon after Republican Sen. Mitt Romney delivered an honest-to-God inspiring and moving speech explaining why he would vote to convict impeached president Donald Trump on the first article of impeachment.

That vote, and the impassioned, honest, and eloquent speech that grounded it, will haunt every Republican in the Senate for the remainder of their careers. "Were I to ignore the evidence what has been presented and disregard what I believe my oath and the Constitution demands of me for the sake of a partisan end, it would, I fear, expose my character to history's rebuke and the censure of my own conscience," Romney said. That's a soundbite that can be used in every campaign against each of the Senate Leader’s vulnerable Republicans, for the rest of the year—and by Moscow Mitch’s own challenger. That speech and vote from Romney blast a big hole in McConnell's most important message: The Republican-controlled Senate is safe.

It's time to end McConnell's destructive stranglehold on the republic. Please give $1 to our nominee fund to help Democrats and end McConnell's career as majority leader.

When McConnell trotted out that message after the vote today, it rang hollow. "Every one of our people in tough races is in better shape today than they were before the impeachment trial started," he said, knowing that it was absolutely not true. He also knows that this will not be the end of revelations about Trump's illegal and impeachable behavior. He knows that this will only embolden Trump to do more outrageous and dangerous things. And he certainly knows that the American people’s anger will land on the Republicans who protected Trump.

Especially the majority leader who orchestrated the entire sham of a trial.

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