Sunday Four-Play: DeSantis-bot glitches out, and ex-Trump aide says the former guy is ‘slowing down’

If you somehow missed Thursday’s big debate between Govs. Gavin Newsom and Ron DeSantis, well, don't fret. For one thing, Newsom didn’t debate DeSantis so much as curb-stomp him over and over like an increasingly shopworn series of Cabbage Patch dolls.

Secondly, DeSantis is still running for president, so he’s not going anywhere. Other than nowhere, of course. Unless third place in the Iowa caucuses is now considered some kind of milk-and-honey-festooned promised land.

Yes, DeSantis-bot glitched out several times over the course of the debate. It was like watching a deer caught in a car’s headlights ... then a car’s grille … then a car’s windshield … and finally a car’s trunk, where the Flailing Florida Man struck a dashing pose alongside the still-purpling corpse of Scott Walker. Take, for instance, this exchange, previously highlighted by Daily Kos’ Walter Einenkel:

Wow. That was something, huh? How are the smiling lessons going, Ron? Looks like you’ve finally mastered “constipated prairie chicken.” Next stop: “inflatable car wash dancer.” 

Of course, we may not have DeSantis to kick around much longer, so we better kick him now. (Figuratively, of course.) And this week he’s on the OG Sunday political show, “Meet the Press,” which promises to be a barrel of awkward, off-putting laughs.

So let’s see how that went, shall we?

Off we go!

1.

Have we mentioned how utterly screwed Republicans are on abortion? Oh, yes, we have, haven’t we? Well, they are, because they don’t have anything that approaches a consistent or coherent message. Democrats do: We need to codify Roe and ensure that private reproductive health care decisions are made by women in close consultation with their doctors. Democrats can look voters square in the eye and tell them that simple truth.

Meanwhile, Republican presidential candidates are continually asked where they stand on federal abortion bans, and it’s like asking Louie Gohmert how the CERN supercollider works. Or Legos. Or underpants, for that matter. In other words, they don’t have the slightest clue what to say.

DeSantis appeared with Kristen Welker on “Meet the Press” to discuss a campaign that’s shrinking in inverse proportion to his pupils whenever he gets asked about this stuff.

WATCH: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.) — who signed a six-week abortion ban in Florida — says he supports federal abortion rules that "would have consensus.” But DeSantis says, "Congress is not going to do any type of abortion legislation." pic.twitter.com/MhFXYMS0zL

— Meet the Press (@MeetThePress) December 3, 2023

WELKER: “You signed a six-week ban in the state of Florida, so voters want to know, people of Iowa want to know, where do you stand on this issue? Would you sign a six-week federal ban if it came to your desk? If you were president?”

DESANTIS: “But we signed a legislation to stand for a culture of life that was done by the Florida Legislature. I mean, this was them bringing the will of the people ...”

WELKER: “So is that a yes? Is that a yes?”

DESANTIS: “Well, Congress is not going to do any type of abortion legislation. They haven't done abortion legislation—the only thing that’s impacted abortion on the federal level, I think the last thing is Obamacare in 2010. So we understand that, and so part of me promoting a culture of life is to do things that are achievable and that obviously would have consensus. No taxpayer funding for abortion. We’re going to eliminate the abortion tourism policy of the Department of Defense, and we’re going to protect the rights of states to enact pro-life protections.”

“Come on, now! Congress won’t pass abortion legislation! Nothing has been done on abortion since 2010. And nothing of note has changed since then. Nope. Not a single thing. It’s moot. Next question! Wait, Dobbs? What is Dobbs? Now you’re just making baby noises. Can we get back to my talking points, please? Lavish Broadway musicals have gone woke!”

Good Lord. Honestly, he’d be better off appearing on these shows wearing an “Ask Me About My Boot Lifts” button.

BONUS!

DeSantis has a really hard time condemning Donald Trump’s use of the word “vermin” to refer to one’s political enemies. Must be tough trying to continually walk that tightrope between full-blown Nazi rhetoric and the kind of stuff Hitler just randomly thought of in his shower.

WATCH: Former President Trump has called his opponents “vermin.”@kwelkernbc: Do you condemn the use of that word? Gov. @RonDeSantis (R-Fla.): “I don’t use the term. … He's responsible for his words. He's responsible for his conduct. I'm responsible for mine.” pic.twitter.com/Trgt5UWPH6

— Meet the Press (@MeetThePress) December 3, 2023

Geez, Ron, grow a pair. Of eyes, I mean. Can’t you see how hopelessly behind you are? Newsom was right. You need to drop out, ASAP.

RELATED: Sunday Four-Play: Republicans are completely screwed on abortion, and Trump (hearts) fascism

2.

Master projectionist Donald Trump has lately been trying to claim that President Biden is actually our nation’s biggest threat to democracy—not the guy who literally tried to end America. And he’s giving extremely low-energy speeches to make his point.

Former White House Communications Director Alyssa Farah Griffin joined “State of the Union’s” expert panel to discuss this frothy nonsense, telling host Dana Bash that she’s noticed Trump is “slowing down.” Which is the worst euphemism for “turning into a Nazi Chucky doll” anyone’s ever heard.

Former Trump White House Communications Director @Alyssafarah tells @DanaBashCNN she thinks Trump “is slowing down” and that “there’s a lack of sharpness in what he’s saying.” pic.twitter.com/gJ4Uzy3mwG

— State of the Union (@CNNSOTU) December 3, 2023

TRUMP (AT RALLY): “But Joe Biden is not the defender of American democracy, Joe Biden is the destroyer of American democracy. … So if Joe Biden wants to make this race a question of which candidate will defend our democracy and protect our freedoms, I say to Crooked Joe—and he’s crooked, the most corrupt president we’ve ever had—we will win that fight and we’re going to win it very big. Very big.”

BASH: “Welcome back to ‘State of the Union.’ My panel joins me now. Alyssa, this is probably one of the least surprising things you’ve seen Donald Trump do. Right, I mean, if, if—I don’t want to call it ‘evil genius’ because, I don’t—but it’s so classic. To have something wrong with him, a negative, and he says, no, it’s the other guy.”

FARAH GRIFFIN: “And just tries to flip it on its head and you heard the audience eat it up. It’s kind of remarkable—I was watching some of the clips from Trump’s visit to Iowa, and I’m stunned, having spent a lot of time with him in 2020 and years before, he is slowing down. There is a lack of sharpness in what he is saying, and a lack of kind of clarity. There’s another clip where he basically says he’s going to overturn Obamacare but then also says that he’d fix it. Just complete inconsistencies. And for Republicans, our strongest case against Joe Biden is, you know, the age and the decline that some of us have seen. And if I’m being honest, head to head, I’m not sure which is struggling more.”

You’re not sure who’s struggling more? Trump. Trump is struggling more. Biden looks slightly bent over when he walks and occasionally elides or butchers a word or two. He doesn’t continually claim he ran against George W. Bush, brag about passing preschool-level dementia tests, and confidently assert that windmills are murdering whales.

Then again, Farah Griffin is a Republican. Who worked for Trump. Sometimes the deprogramming takes a while to fully kick in, apparently.

RELATED: Sunday Four-Play: Biden delivers results, Christie swats at Trump, and Musk tanks Twitter

3.

The fake Biden impeachment is still a hot topic over at Fox News, and veteran journamalist Maria Bartiromo is all over it. There’s no need to rehash how empty and cynical this endeavor is. You can simply read this fact check or this Daily Kos liveblog of Republicans’ September impeachment hearing. Or you could just stare into House Oversight Committee Chair Jim Comer’s eyes for 30 seconds and see for yourself that there’s nothing behind them but insensate evil and pingpong balls. 

But Republicans are determined to go ahead with the charade—so long as the people they're accusing aren’t allowed to share their stories with the same public Comer, et al., have been dishonestly working into a lather for the past two years.

James Comer tells Maria Bartiromo that moderate House Republicans are more willing to to vote for a Biden impeachment inquiry now because they went home over Thanksgiving and heard from their constituents at Walmart pic.twitter.com/gavFiabw0Y

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) December 3, 2023

BARTIROMO: “[We want to] understand why you have had to take so long to actually get a vote to impeach, get this impeachment inquiry going. Do you feel that you have the votes within the House right now to get a formal impeachment inquiry?”

COMER: “I do, and I had a reporter ask, well, what’s changed? You know, because the press has been writing we didn’t have the votes forever. And I said, well, I tell you one thing that changed. We were in Washington, D.C., for 10 weeks, and there were about 15 or 20 moderates that they really worry about what CNN says or what the Washington Post writes, and they were getting in their heads, Maria. But a great thing happened during Thanksgiving. The members went home—many of them for the first time and circulated for the first time in over 10 weeks—and they met people in Walmart and people on Main Street, and they’re like, what in the world have the Bidens done to receive millions and millions of dollars from our enemies around the world, and did they not pay taxes on it? So they heard from their constituents—yes, we want you to move forward, we want to know the truth. And we expect the Bidens to be held accountable for public corruption.”

Got that? Those vulnerable House Republicans who represent Biden-leaning districts stopped reading The Washington Post for 10 days and started listening to the constitutional scholars picking out hydrogenated pie toppings at Walmart. Case closed. Joe Biden is as good as gone. Now they can finally go through Kamala Harris’ purse to see how many Sweet ‘N Low packets she’s stolen from IHOP since the inauguration.  

RELATED: Sunday Four-Play: RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel tries to appear 'moderate' on abortion, fails miserably

4.

National Security Council Coordinator for Strategic Communications John Kirby appeared on “Meet the Press” with Kristen Welker to discuss the Israel-Hamas war and a recent New York Times report alleging that Israeli intelligence obtained the battle plan for Hamas’ October terrorist attack more than a year before it occurred.

So why, Welker wondered, didn’t U.S. intelligence have any inkling of this? Isn’t Israel supposed to share intelligence with us?

I suspect you know the likely answer—even if Welker doesn’t. We’ll see if you’ve got your thinking caps on. The big, startling reveal will come … after the jump!

NEW: The U.S. intel community was not aware of Hamas' attack plan on Israel, NSC Coordinator for Strategic Communications John Kirby says. The New York Times reported that Israel received the attack plan over a year ago. pic.twitter.com/MrYJMIZlZ6

— Meet the Press (@MeetThePress) December 3, 2023

WELKER: “John, I have to ask you about this New York Times reporting which found that Israeli officials received Hamas’ specific attack plan over a year ago. Was the United States aware of this intelligence, and if not, why not?”

KIRBY: “The intelligence community has indicated that they did not have access to this document. There’s no indications at this time that they had any access to this document beforehand.”

WELKER: “Should they have, given how closely U.S. and Israeli intelligence officials coordinate, or are supposed to coordinate?”

KIRBY: “Intelligence is a mosaic, and sometimes, you know, you can fashion things together and get a pretty good picture, other times there’s pieces of the puzzle that are missing. As I said, our own intelligence community said that they looked at this. They have no indications at this time that they had any advance warning of this document or any knowledge of it.”

WELKER: “John, very quickly, was this a failure on the part of Israeli intelligence and U.S. intelligence?”

KIRBY: “I think there’s going to be a time and a place for Israel to do that sort of forensic work. I mean, Prime Minister Netanyahu has already spoken pretty candidly about this, calling it a failure on their part. They’ll take a look at this at the right time. They need to do that. Right now, though, the focus has got to be on making sure that they can eliminate this truly genocidal threat to the Israeli people.”

Gee, why wouldn’t Israel want to share intelligence with us? What might have happened in the past several years that could have given them pause? It’s a huge fucking mystery, isn’t it? 

This one is a Video Daily Double:

Oh, you need it spelled out? Okay, then.

Foreign Policy, May 2017:

Just days before President Donald Trump’s arrival in Tel Aviv, Israeli intelligence officials were shouting at their American counterparts in meetings, furious over news that the U.S. commander in chief may have compromised a vital source of information on the Islamic State and possibly Iran, according to a U.S. defense official in military planning.

“To them, it’s horrifying,” the official, who attended the meetings, told Foreign Policy. “Their first question was: ‘What is going on? What is this?’”

[...]

[B]ehind the public display of harmony, Israeli intelligence officers are angry and alarmed over the U.S. president revealing sensitive information in a May 10 meeting in the White House with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and the Russian ambassador to the United States, Sergey Kislyak.

Well, maybe Welker doesn’t read Foreign Policy. Or NBC News. I’m pretty sure People magazine covered it, too, alongside Sergei Lavrov’s favorite braised turnip recipes.

But wait! There’s more!

That’s it for today. Hope you’re all enjoying this joyful War on Christmas season. See you next week!

Check out Aldous J. Pennyfarthing’s four-volume Trump-trashing compendium, including the finale, Goodbye, Asshat: 101 Farewell Letters to Donald Trump, at this link. Or, if you prefer a test drive, you can download the epilogue to Goodbye, Asshat for the low, low price of FREE.

Sunday Four-Play: DeSantis-bot glitches out, and ex-Trump aide says the former guy is ‘slowing down’

If you somehow missed Thursday’s big debate between Govs. Gavin Newsom and Ron DeSantis, well, don't fret. For one thing, Newsom didn’t debate DeSantis so much as curb-stomp him over and over like an increasingly shopworn series of Cabbage Patch dolls.

Secondly, DeSantis is still running for president, so he’s not going anywhere. Other than nowhere, of course. Unless third place in the Iowa caucuses is now considered some kind of milk-and-honey-festooned promised land.

Yes, DeSantis-bot glitched out several times over the course of the debate. It was like watching a deer caught in a car’s headlights ... then a car’s grille … then a car’s windshield … and finally a car’s trunk, where the Flailing Florida Man struck a dashing pose alongside the still-purpling corpse of Scott Walker. Take, for instance, this exchange, previously highlighted by Daily Kos’ Walter Einenkel:

Wow. That was something, huh? How are the smiling lessons going, Ron? Looks like you’ve finally mastered “constipated prairie chicken.” Next stop: “inflatable car wash dancer.” 

Of course, we may not have DeSantis to kick around much longer, so we better kick him now. (Figuratively, of course.) And this week he’s on the OG Sunday political show, “Meet the Press,” which promises to be a barrel of awkward, off-putting laughs.

So let’s see how that went, shall we?

Off we go!

1.

Have we mentioned how utterly screwed Republicans are on abortion? Oh, yes, we have, haven’t we? Well, they are, because they don’t have anything that approaches a consistent or coherent message. Democrats do: We need to codify Roe and ensure that private reproductive health care decisions are made by women in close consultation with their doctors. Democrats can look voters square in the eye and tell them that simple truth.

Meanwhile, Republican presidential candidates are continually asked where they stand on federal abortion bans, and it’s like asking Louie Gohmert how the CERN supercollider works. Or Legos. Or underpants, for that matter. In other words, they don’t have the slightest clue what to say.

DeSantis appeared with Kristen Welker on “Meet the Press” to discuss a campaign that’s shrinking in inverse proportion to his pupils whenever he gets asked about this stuff.

WATCH: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.) — who signed a six-week abortion ban in Florida — says he supports federal abortion rules that "would have consensus.” But DeSantis says, "Congress is not going to do any type of abortion legislation." pic.twitter.com/MhFXYMS0zL

— Meet the Press (@MeetThePress) December 3, 2023

WELKER: “You signed a six-week ban in the state of Florida, so voters want to know, people of Iowa want to know, where do you stand on this issue? Would you sign a six-week federal ban if it came to your desk? If you were president?”

DESANTIS: “But we signed a legislation to stand for a culture of life that was done by the Florida Legislature. I mean, this was them bringing the will of the people ...”

WELKER: “So is that a yes? Is that a yes?”

DESANTIS: “Well, Congress is not going to do any type of abortion legislation. They haven't done abortion legislation—the only thing that’s impacted abortion on the federal level, I think the last thing is Obamacare in 2010. So we understand that, and so part of me promoting a culture of life is to do things that are achievable and that obviously would have consensus. No taxpayer funding for abortion. We’re going to eliminate the abortion tourism policy of the Department of Defense, and we’re going to protect the rights of states to enact pro-life protections.”

“Come on, now! Congress won’t pass abortion legislation! Nothing has been done on abortion since 2010. And nothing of note has changed since then. Nope. Not a single thing. It’s moot. Next question! Wait, Dobbs? What is Dobbs? Now you’re just making baby noises. Can we get back to my talking points, please? Lavish Broadway musicals have gone woke!”

Good Lord. Honestly, he’d be better off appearing on these shows wearing an “Ask Me About My Boot Lifts” button.

BONUS!

DeSantis has a really hard time condemning Donald Trump’s use of the word “vermin” to refer to one’s political enemies. Must be tough trying to continually walk that tightrope between full-blown Nazi rhetoric and the kind of stuff Hitler just randomly thought of in his shower.

WATCH: Former President Trump has called his opponents “vermin.”@kwelkernbc: Do you condemn the use of that word? Gov. @RonDeSantis (R-Fla.): “I don’t use the term. … He's responsible for his words. He's responsible for his conduct. I'm responsible for mine.” pic.twitter.com/Trgt5UWPH6

— Meet the Press (@MeetThePress) December 3, 2023

Geez, Ron, grow a pair. Of eyes, I mean. Can’t you see how hopelessly behind you are? Newsom was right. You need to drop out, ASAP.

RELATED: Sunday Four-Play: Republicans are completely screwed on abortion, and Trump (hearts) fascism

2.

Master projectionist Donald Trump has lately been trying to claim that President Biden is actually our nation’s biggest threat to democracy—not the guy who literally tried to end America. And he’s giving extremely low-energy speeches to make his point.

Former White House Communications Director Alyssa Farah Griffin joined “State of the Union’s” expert panel to discuss this frothy nonsense, telling host Dana Bash that she’s noticed Trump is “slowing down.” Which is the worst euphemism for “turning into a Nazi Chucky doll” anyone’s ever heard.

Former Trump White House Communications Director @Alyssafarah tells @DanaBashCNN she thinks Trump “is slowing down” and that “there’s a lack of sharpness in what he’s saying.” pic.twitter.com/gJ4Uzy3mwG

— State of the Union (@CNNSOTU) December 3, 2023

TRUMP (AT RALLY): “But Joe Biden is not the defender of American democracy, Joe Biden is the destroyer of American democracy. … So if Joe Biden wants to make this race a question of which candidate will defend our democracy and protect our freedoms, I say to Crooked Joe—and he’s crooked, the most corrupt president we’ve ever had—we will win that fight and we’re going to win it very big. Very big.”

BASH: “Welcome back to ‘State of the Union.’ My panel joins me now. Alyssa, this is probably one of the least surprising things you’ve seen Donald Trump do. Right, I mean, if, if—I don’t want to call it ‘evil genius’ because, I don’t—but it’s so classic. To have something wrong with him, a negative, and he says, no, it’s the other guy.”

FARAH GRIFFIN: “And just tries to flip it on its head and you heard the audience eat it up. It’s kind of remarkable—I was watching some of the clips from Trump’s visit to Iowa, and I’m stunned, having spent a lot of time with him in 2020 and years before, he is slowing down. There is a lack of sharpness in what he is saying, and a lack of kind of clarity. There’s another clip where he basically says he’s going to overturn Obamacare but then also says that he’d fix it. Just complete inconsistencies. And for Republicans, our strongest case against Joe Biden is, you know, the age and the decline that some of us have seen. And if I’m being honest, head to head, I’m not sure which is struggling more.”

You’re not sure who’s struggling more? Trump. Trump is struggling more. Biden looks slightly bent over when he walks and occasionally elides or butchers a word or two. He doesn’t continually claim he ran against George W. Bush, brag about passing preschool-level dementia tests, and confidently assert that windmills are murdering whales.

Then again, Farah Griffin is a Republican. Who worked for Trump. Sometimes the deprogramming takes a while to fully kick in, apparently.

RELATED: Sunday Four-Play: Biden delivers results, Christie swats at Trump, and Musk tanks Twitter

3.

The fake Biden impeachment is still a hot topic over at Fox News, and veteran journamalist Maria Bartiromo is all over it. There’s no need to rehash how empty and cynical this endeavor is. You can simply read this fact check or this Daily Kos liveblog of Republicans’ September impeachment hearing. Or you could just stare into House Oversight Committee Chair Jim Comer’s eyes for 30 seconds and see for yourself that there’s nothing behind them but insensate evil and pingpong balls. 

But Republicans are determined to go ahead with the charade—so long as the people they're accusing aren’t allowed to share their stories with the same public Comer, et al., have been dishonestly working into a lather for the past two years.

James Comer tells Maria Bartiromo that moderate House Republicans are more willing to to vote for a Biden impeachment inquiry now because they went home over Thanksgiving and heard from their constituents at Walmart pic.twitter.com/gavFiabw0Y

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) December 3, 2023

BARTIROMO: “[We want to] understand why you have had to take so long to actually get a vote to impeach, get this impeachment inquiry going. Do you feel that you have the votes within the House right now to get a formal impeachment inquiry?”

COMER: “I do, and I had a reporter ask, well, what’s changed? You know, because the press has been writing we didn’t have the votes forever. And I said, well, I tell you one thing that changed. We were in Washington, D.C., for 10 weeks, and there were about 15 or 20 moderates that they really worry about what CNN says or what the Washington Post writes, and they were getting in their heads, Maria. But a great thing happened during Thanksgiving. The members went home—many of them for the first time and circulated for the first time in over 10 weeks—and they met people in Walmart and people on Main Street, and they’re like, what in the world have the Bidens done to receive millions and millions of dollars from our enemies around the world, and did they not pay taxes on it? So they heard from their constituents—yes, we want you to move forward, we want to know the truth. And we expect the Bidens to be held accountable for public corruption.”

Got that? Those vulnerable House Republicans who represent Biden-leaning districts stopped reading The Washington Post for 10 days and started listening to the constitutional scholars picking out hydrogenated pie toppings at Walmart. Case closed. Joe Biden is as good as gone. Now they can finally go through Kamala Harris’ purse to see how many Sweet ‘N Low packets she’s stolen from IHOP since the inauguration.  

RELATED: Sunday Four-Play: RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel tries to appear 'moderate' on abortion, fails miserably

4.

National Security Council Coordinator for Strategic Communications John Kirby appeared on “Meet the Press” with Kristen Welker to discuss the Israel-Hamas war and a recent New York Times report alleging that Israeli intelligence obtained the battle plan for Hamas’ October terrorist attack more than a year before it occurred.

So why, Welker wondered, didn’t U.S. intelligence have any inkling of this? Isn’t Israel supposed to share intelligence with us?

I suspect you know the likely answer—even if Welker doesn’t. We’ll see if you’ve got your thinking caps on. The big, startling reveal will come … after the jump!

NEW: The U.S. intel community was not aware of Hamas' attack plan on Israel, NSC Coordinator for Strategic Communications John Kirby says. The New York Times reported that Israel received the attack plan over a year ago. pic.twitter.com/MrYJMIZlZ6

— Meet the Press (@MeetThePress) December 3, 2023

WELKER: “John, I have to ask you about this New York Times reporting which found that Israeli officials received Hamas’ specific attack plan over a year ago. Was the United States aware of this intelligence, and if not, why not?”

KIRBY: “The intelligence community has indicated that they did not have access to this document. There’s no indications at this time that they had any access to this document beforehand.”

WELKER: “Should they have, given how closely U.S. and Israeli intelligence officials coordinate, or are supposed to coordinate?”

KIRBY: “Intelligence is a mosaic, and sometimes, you know, you can fashion things together and get a pretty good picture, other times there’s pieces of the puzzle that are missing. As I said, our own intelligence community said that they looked at this. They have no indications at this time that they had any advance warning of this document or any knowledge of it.”

WELKER: “John, very quickly, was this a failure on the part of Israeli intelligence and U.S. intelligence?”

KIRBY: “I think there’s going to be a time and a place for Israel to do that sort of forensic work. I mean, Prime Minister Netanyahu has already spoken pretty candidly about this, calling it a failure on their part. They’ll take a look at this at the right time. They need to do that. Right now, though, the focus has got to be on making sure that they can eliminate this truly genocidal threat to the Israeli people.”

Gee, why wouldn’t Israel want to share intelligence with us? What might have happened in the past several years that could have given them pause? It’s a huge fucking mystery, isn’t it? 

This one is a Video Daily Double:

Oh, you need it spelled out? Okay, then.

Foreign Policy, May 2017:

Just days before President Donald Trump’s arrival in Tel Aviv, Israeli intelligence officials were shouting at their American counterparts in meetings, furious over news that the U.S. commander in chief may have compromised a vital source of information on the Islamic State and possibly Iran, according to a U.S. defense official in military planning.

“To them, it’s horrifying,” the official, who attended the meetings, told Foreign Policy. “Their first question was: ‘What is going on? What is this?’”

[...]

[B]ehind the public display of harmony, Israeli intelligence officers are angry and alarmed over the U.S. president revealing sensitive information in a May 10 meeting in the White House with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and the Russian ambassador to the United States, Sergey Kislyak.

Well, maybe Welker doesn’t read Foreign Policy. Or NBC News. I’m pretty sure People magazine covered it, too, alongside Sergei Lavrov’s favorite braised turnip recipes.

But wait! There’s more!

That’s it for today. Hope you’re all enjoying this joyful War on Christmas season. See you next week!

Check out Aldous J. Pennyfarthing’s four-volume Trump-trashing compendium, including the finale, Goodbye, Asshat: 101 Farewell Letters to Donald Trump, at this link. Or, if you prefer a test drive, you can download the epilogue to Goodbye, Asshat for the low, low price of FREE.

Sunday Four-Play: Zelenskyy seems skeptical that Trump will bring peace, and Mike Johnson lies

For a guy who’s supposedly a multibillionaire, Donald Trump sure spends a lot of his time scrounging for ha’pennies with which to stuff his gross, linty, panko breading–lined pockets. That reality was on lurid display this week as his real estate empire-cum-perpetual grift machine got flayed over and over during testimony meant to establish just how yuuuge a fraud he and his company really are—and always have been.

Would a really rich guy stiff his blue collar contractors? Would he sell tacky NFTs for $99 a pop to a heaving throng of marks who are still hoping their Beanie Babies recover their value? Would he sell mail-order steaks? And would he sell out his country and, by extension, the whole of Western democracy for the chance to build a big tower in a country led by a brutal, murderous war criminal

Trick question! He’d sell out his country for a week-old Wetzel’s Pretzel, and toss in Eric in his official Team CCCP banana hammock mankini.

No, Trump has been pretending. All along. Do you think Warren Buffett lies awake at night trying to figure out how to squeeze ever-more filthy lucre from his fawning fanboys? Of course not. But Trump does—because he apparently has to. And thanks to Trump’s ever-skeevy ambitions, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s interests are now reliably represented by a small-ish, but hugely significant, segment of the Republican Party.

In fact, while House Republicans have swiftly passed an aid package for Israel, whose military is already far superior to its enemy’s, it left out badly needed aid for Ukraine (while also offering a deficit-ballooning helping hand to America’s patriotic, hardly working tax cheats). New House Speaker Mike Johnson claims Ukraine aid is still on the agenda, but it’s hard to take him completely seriously given his recent skepticism on the issue, as well as his declaration that any bill authorizing new Ukraine aid should come with “conditions.”

So why are Republicans far more eager to help the ally that clearly needs less help than they are the largely overmatched ally that’s been bravely defending itself against a much larger imperialist aggressor, and doing so on behalf of the world’s liberal democracies? Because Donald Trump made loving Vladimir Putin fashionable. And why is that? Because he’s is a greedy, soulless prick who adores dictators. 

How do you like that? I buried the lede.

And now, on to the usual nonsense.

RELATED: Sunday Four-Play: GOP still deciding which fanatical, anti-American traitor to anoint as speaker

1.

If this universe really is a simulation—and there’s a fair chance it is, frankly—I really regret buying the “Donald Trump is president” expansion pack. He’s ruined so many lives, after all.

Trump is fond of saying Russia would have never invaded Ukraine had he been president, but it seems far more likely that his lingering presence actually encouraged Pee Wee Putin’s Big Adventure—because Putin knew he had good friends in the USA to rely on if things started to go south. After all, Putin doesn’t need to defeat Ukraine and its president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy; he just needs to defeat Joe Biden. Then Trump will be able to pull the U.S. out of NATO, as he’d planned on doing all along, and end the war in 24 hours, as he’s promised. Of course, any “peace plan” would almost certainly be made on his good buddy Vlad’s terms. Putin would likely get all the territory he’s stolen from Ukraine, along with a 600-foot statue of Stalin peeing in the reflecting pool at the National Mall; Zelenskyy would get a some-expenses-paid weekend trip to Mar-a-Lago and double scoops of ice cream every night during his stay.

Zelenskyy appeared on “Meet the Press” with host Kristen Welker, and Welker asked him about a new NBC News report that U.S. and European officials have begun talking with Ukrainian officials about what peace negotiations between Ukraine and Russia might look like

WATCH: @NBCNews reports that U.S. and European officials have quietly begun talks around Russia-Ukraine peace negotiations, but Zelenskyy says he is not ready to begin that dialogue with Putin.@ZelenskyyUa: "We can’t trust terrorists because terrorists always come back." pic.twitter.com/aHQXqcQtxJ

— Meet the Press (@MeetThePress) November 5, 2023

WELKER: “President Zelenskyy, NBC News is reporting that U.S. and European officials have begun quietly talking to your government about what possible peace negotiations with Russia might look like to end this war. Have you personally been involved in these talks, and what’s the status of these talks?”

ZELENSKYY: “A lot of different voices around us, I’ve heard a lot of different voices and emotions and … a lot of different things, but as for me, I don’t have, for today, I don’t have any relations with Russia. And they know my position, that is the position of my country. That is the position of our people. We don’t want to make any dialogue with terrorists, and the president of the United States and Congress, bipartisan support, all of these people, they know that I’m not ready to speak with the terrorists, because their word is nothing. Nothing. We can’t trust terrorists, because terrorists always come back.”

Yeah, they do, don’t they? We’re learning that in this country, too:

This is the GOP's frontrunner for president. pic.twitter.com/rEzSUaMnp7

— Republican Accountability (@AccountableGOP) November 2, 2023

Welker also asked Zelenskyy about Trump’s boast that he could end the Ukraine war in 24 hours. At the very least, Zelenskyy seemed skeptical. Feel free to either stare at this picture until you attain satori or, if you don’t have that kind of time, watch the following clip. Either way, you’ll get the gist.

WATCH: Fmr. Pres. Trump — the GOP front-runner — has said he could end the war in Ukraine in 24 hours. Ukrainian President @ZelenskyyUa responds: “If he can come here, I will need 24 minutes … to explain … that he can’t manage this war. He can’t bring peace because of Putin.” pic.twitter.com/iykBUuH6hw

— Meet the Press (@MeetThePress) November 5, 2023

I won’t transcribe the entire clip, but Zelenskyy’s big takeaway is this: “If [Trump] is not ready to give [us] our independence, he can’t manage it.”

RELATED: Sunday Four-Play: The elephant in the room plops down on 'Meet the Press'

2.

Republicans want to pass aid to Israel in the wake of Hamas’ terrorist attack, but they also want to make sure wealthy tax cheats can go on cheatin’. What to do? Oh, here’s an idea! Take $14 billion away from IRS enforcement, then pretend that saves the country money, even though it will actually blow another $12.5 billion hole in our budget. But hey, that deal looks pretty sweet to people who don’t pay attention—which includes most voters, unfortunately. After all, it’s easy to scare Americans by shouting “IRS!” Though somehow this video isn’t quite enough to make them shit fluorescent green armadillos till the heat death of the universe:

This is the GOP's frontrunner for president. pic.twitter.com/rEzSUaMnp7

— Republican Accountability (@AccountableGOP) November 2, 2023

Deputy National Security Adviser Jon Finer joined George Stephanopoulos on ABC’s “This Week” to discuss Republicans’ decision to play silly political games during a fraught moment in our nation’s—and the world’s—history.

After House GOP passes emergency aid package for Israel tied to cuts in IRS enforcement, White House deputy national security adviser Jon Finer tells @GStephanopoulos the move is “without precedent in recent history.” https://t.co/Qnz5e41SgQ pic.twitter.com/KwnEAHtjA5

— This Week (@ThisWeekABC) November 5, 2023

STEPHANOPOULOS: “Finally, the president’s request for aid to Israel and Ukraine and Taiwan and others appears to be the victim of a stalemate right now. House Republicans have passed aid to Israel tied to cuts in IRS enforcement. We have the Republican Leader Steve Scalise on the program next. What’s the president’s message to House Republicans?”

FINER: “I think the message is pretty clear, that it is not good for the United States, good for the region, or good for Israel to tie emergency assistance to Israel to what we consider to be essentially a partisan request for a way to offset that spending. … That is basically without precedent in recent history, and we don’t support it, and are urging the members of our party and the members of Congress from any party not to support it either.”

Well, maybe this particular outrage is unprecedented, but remember, Republicans have long since decided that taking hostages and threatening the economy while a Democrat’s in the White House are acceptable governing tactics. So yeah, shocking but not surprising. Like most everything the GOP does these days.

3.

Ah, Mike Johnson. The new House speaker who’s basically just Mike Pence if you gave him a Howdy Doody wig and steeped him in beef broth for 20 minutes. Johnson appeared on “Fox News Sunday” with Shannon Bream and said some stuff. Spoiler alert: It was mostly lies and deflections. In other words, business as usual.

Wow. Mike Johnson on Fox News Sunday doesn't rule out voting against access to contraception but then says "I really don't remember any of those measures" when asked about his past votes against reproductive health care pic.twitter.com/4pDl3BGGD3

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) November 5, 2023

BREAM: “I want to talk about some social issues. You’ve got a lot of critics who say that you’re wildly out of step with the American people. Let’s talk abortion first. One of the groups opposing you [Emily’s list] says this: ‘He wants a total abortion ban with no exceptions. He supported bans that would not only criminalize abortion but ban IVF treatments and common forms of birth control,’ and that you voted against access to contraception. Where are you on these issues? Is that an accurate assessment of where you are, because that’s not in step with the American people.”

JOHNSON: “No, Shannon, look, I’m pro-life. I’ve said very clearly I’m a Bible-believing Christian. I believe in the sanctity of every single human life. So I come to Congress with deep, personally held convictions. But guess what, so do my 434 other colleagues in the House. Everyone comes to Congress with their deeply held convictions. But the process here is that you make law by consensus, and I have not brought forward any measure to address any of those issues. Right now our priorities are funding the government, handling these massive national security priorities that we have and crises around the globe, and taking care of changing and reforming how Congress works. That’s what we’re going to do. Listen, prior to the modern time—until recently, actually—almost all of our nation’s leaders openly acknowledged that they were also Bible-believing Christians. This is not something that should cause great unrest, okay? It’s just that Washington right now, what you’re seeing, Washington and the … press corps are engaging with a leader who openly acknowledges faith and the foundational principles of our country. I think this a healthy discussion, but it doesn’t affect how we run Congress.”

BREAM: “To be clear, though, have you voted against fertility treatments and access to contraception? Would you?”

JOHNSON: “I don’t think so. I’m not sure what they’re talking about. I really don’t remember any of those measures. I am personally pro-life.”

BREAM: “But do you oppose [crosstalk] IVF?”

JOHNSON: “No, no, of course not. No, that’s something that’s blessed a lot of families who have problems with fertility. Of course that’s a great thing. I would support that. But again, these are not issues that are on the front of the agenda, and we can come with our convictions and we can govern in an accountable, transparent manner for the American people, and that’s what we’re going to do.”

Okay, while my admittedly limited Googling has failed to turn up much on Johnson’s voting record regarding fertility treatments, he does have a pretty well-established record on birth control. Uhh ... he doesn’t like it. 

An Oct. 30 Rolling Stone article titled “House Speaker Mike Johnson’s Long Crusade Against Birth Control” laid out some of the gruesome details:

Johnson is known for being among the most anti-abortion lawmakers in Congress, and for railing against the use of “abortion as a form of birth control” before he was in office. But his statements and actions suggest he does not see much difference between abortion as a form of birth control and birth control as a form of birth control.

As a lawyer, Johnson worked on multiple cases representing plaintiffs who refused to dispense, counsel, or provide emergency contraception, which they considered to be abortion-inducing drugs. And as a congressman, Johnson has repeatedly voted against efforts to expand, fund, or protect access to birth control and other family planning services — including for members of the military.

While a certain, largely female segment of the Republican party has undertaken efforts to expand access to birth control in the wake of Dobbs, Johnson has not joined those efforts.

And—oh, lookee here—he joined 194 of his Republican House colleagues in voting against the Right to Contraception Act

So let’s take another look at his answer, shall we?

BREAM: “To be clear, though, have you voted against fertility treatments and access to contraception? Would you?”

JOHNSON: “I don’t think so. I’m not sure what they’re talking about. I really don’t remember any of those measures. I am personally pro-life.”

Wait, so that was just a … lie? But Bible-believing Christians never lie! Because lies make Baby Jesus cry

Ah, but don't worry about any of that. Johnson is focused on other priorities. And as we all know, people who’ve been on the job for less than two weeks never get around to doing anything else. The new bill requiring chastity belts for women living within a 500-mile radius of Jason Momoa will be taken up in late March at the earliest. So don’t worry your pretty little heads, ladies! Johnson won't get around to banning contraception until he’s finished screwing up a bunch of other stuff first.

RELATED: Sunday Four-Play: Mike Johnson is a skilled (as in sociopathic) liar, and the GOP still loves Putin

4.

Wait, are Republicans still talking about impeaching President Biden? After that oily ferret orgy of a hearing they held in September? A hearing that was so bad, House Oversight Chair James Comer recently said they don’t want to hold any more hearings

Comer appeared on “Sunday Morning Futures” with Maria Bartiromo and tried to pretend that impeaching Biden is still a hot topic of conversation anywhere outside the musty pingpong room inside Marjorie Taylor Greene's head. 

Comer tells Maria Bartiromo he thinks Biden should be impeached but is leaving it up to Mike Johnson pic.twitter.com/g2MI0PNiwh

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) November 5, 2023

BARTIROMO: “Based on what you know today, Congressman, should Joe Biden be impeached?”

COMER: “I think he should, but that’s going to be left up to the speaker. You know, people ask me why I haven’t put someone in jail yet. All I can do is investigate. The House of Representatives can determine whether or not to impeach, but at the end of the day we’re going to need an attorney general who does the right thing and prosecutes people according to the law and doesn’t have a two-tier system of justice.”

Actually, we probably need more than two tiers in our justice system—if only to accommodate Trump’s dozens of felony charges. But hey, if Comer can find a grand jury to indict Biden based on the fact that he loaned money to his brother and his brother—gasp!—paid it back, he’s welcome to test out his theory that Trump is the most unjustly persecuted individual in the history of whiny little snowflake toddlers.

If nothing else, it should be interesting.

But wait! There’s more!

That’s all for now! Hope you remembered to turn your clocks back and aren’t reading this one hour in the future. But if you are, please let the rest of us know if civilization survived.

Check out Aldous J. Pennyfarthing’s four-volume Trump-trashing compendium, including the finale, Goodbye, Asshat: 101 Farewell Letters to Donald Trump, at this link. Or, if you prefer a test drive, you can download the epilogue to Goodbye, Asshat for the low, low price of FREE.

Sunday Four-Play: Mike Johnson is a skilled (as in sociopathic) liar, and the GOP still loves Putin

Remember “The Dating Game”? It was one of those shows that folks of a certain age would watch when we stayed home from school pretending to be bleeding from our eyeballs with hemorrhagic fever. Even as a kid it seemed odd to me that 1) anyone would go on a beach trip vacation alone with a stranger they’d just met, 2) they’d select their date, sight unseen, based on generic softball questions like “What’s your idea of a fun first date?” and 3) the woman would often look utterly stricken when she finally met her chosen suitor face to face, even though only one of the contestants ever turned out to be a serial killer. (That we know of, anyway.)

I couldn’t help but think of that show after Republicans chose Rep. Mike Johnson to lead the House for however long we have left until the rapture, when God finally calls Randy Quaid and his Igloo cooler full of squirrel heads home. The ordeal felt a bit like an episode of “The Dating Game” where Steve Scalise, Jim Jordan, and Johnson were the three eager bachelors and Republicans somehow decided Johnson was their least creepy option.

I can almost picture a beaming Johnson declaring how super hard-core he’s going to love America as soon as he gets it alone: “For our first date, I’d like to fly you to Idaho, force you into a covenant marriage, and stare at you for the rest of your natural life with the baleful mien of a Christmas elf who doesn’t like to make toys but does have an oddly specific penchant for unlicensed taxidermy.”

In other words, Republicans chose this guy with precious little forethought or vetting, and it sorta feels like it could backfire. Maybe a little, maybe a lot. But we already know he’s all-in on forced birth, The Big Liecriminalizing gay sex, and handing Ukraine over to Vladimir Putin, so naturally he’ll be an ideal brand ambassador for the GOP heading into the 2024 election cycle. 

This week on the Sunday shows, Johnson’s name came up more than it ever has before. In addition, Maria Bartiromo of “Sunday Morning Futures” scored an exclusive interview with the man himself. I fully expected her to ask about Johnson’s plan for governing and whether it’s easier for a Christian dominionist weirdo and real-life “Handmaid’s Tale” character to keep a show on Fox News or be elected speaker of the House with the unanimous support of his party, but Johnson was too busy lying to get into too much detail on any of that.

He did have some important stuff to say, though. Mostly lies, but what else is new?

So let’s dive in, shall we?

1.

Normally if I were cueing up a Tim Kaine clip I’d warn you well in advance so you had time to order smelling salts and a home defibrillator on Amazon, but in this case he’s exactly what we need. He’s the man for the hour. And the one after that. And the next one, too. Aaaaand … oh, shit, he’s still going. Oh, no, did he just start in on the macroeconomic implications of corporate sorghum subsidies? Again? We could be here a while. Hope you brought a book.

So you didn’t want industrious, conscientious, and serious leaders like Tim Kaine, eh, America? Well, look what you got instead. Kaine may be as exciting as plain oatmeal, but at least he’s good for you. You went with the Chocolate Frosted Sugar Bombs, and they turned out to be actual bombs. 

Kaine joined “The Saturday/Sunday Show with Jonathan Capehart” to discuss the yang to his yin, new House Speaker Mike Johnson—who’s also pretty boring, but in that lawful evil way Republicans have always loved. 

"You outlined the positions [Rep. Mike Johnson] had, from election denial to climate science denial to anti-LGBTQ and anti-women's reproductive rights. This is who the Republican Party is now." @SenTimKaine discusses with @CapehartJ the extremism of Speaker Johnson #SundayShow pic.twitter.com/YUqiz7swTj

— The Saturday/Sunday Show with Jonathan Capehart (@weekendcapehart) October 29, 2023

CAPEHART: “Before we get into the nitty-gritty, just generally your view of Speaker Mike Johnson, what he represents?”

KAINE: “Well, Jonathan, he is the most powerful Republican in America. He is the face of today’s GOP. He’s second in line to the president, and you outlined the positions he had, from election denial to climate science denial to anti-LGBTQ, anti-women’s reproductive rights. This is who the Republican Party is now, and remember, he received the vote of every member of the Republican caucus to be speaker. So that is obviously a very different vision than Virginians have, a very different vision than Senate Democrats or Republicans have, and so it sets up some challenging times ahead. But all that said, it’s better to have a speaker than not have a speaker, because we have important work to do for the American public.”

It is better to have a speaker than not to have a speaker. That is true. And it was better for the Titanic to have a captain, if only to tell the string quartet where to set up. But Kaine makes some great points, and even more importantly, he offers a living, breathing contrast to today’s GOP, which is exciting in the same way that buying Tylenol in October 1982 was exciting

If you want sober, steady, and policy-focused, you’d do well to elect more Democrats like Kaine. If you want to have a child every 10 months and, seconds after giving birth, be forced to shout, “Thank you, Jesus, may I have another?!” then Mike Johnson is definitely your guy.

Moving on.

RELATED: Sunday Four-Play: McCarthy still blames Dems for GOP clown show, and Cheney might run for president?

2.

As Kaine said, it is important to have a speaker. Who else is going to try to impeach Joe Biden for no reason? New Speaker Mike Johnson, newly hatched from the Republican-pol pod farm miles below Koch Industries, appeared on “Sunday Morning Futures” with Maria Bartiromo to further gaslight a weary nation that’s had just about enough of this nonsense already.

Bartiromo asked the question that’s at the top of every American’s mind: Are you going to keep the Biden impeachment charade going through the 2024 election?

"We're the rule of law team," says one of the congressmen who led the effort to install Trump in power pic.twitter.com/wzwIVcCOhn

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) October 29, 2023

BARTIROMO: “What about the investigations into the potential Biden family influence peddling, potential bribery? Are you going to allocate the financial resources and human capital needed to do an in-depth investigation? And will an impeachment inquiry turn into an official impeachment?”

JOHNSON: “We’ll see, Maria. I worked on the committees of jurisdiction, and Judiciary is one of those. I think our chairmen have done an exceptional job, you’ve spoken to all of them. Jamie Comer and Jim Jordan and Jason Smith, on Oversight and Judiciary and Ways and Means. They’ve continued those investigations. Even while we were going through the tumult of the speaker’s race, they were still working methodically through that. I’m encouraging that. I think we have a constitutional responsibility to follow this truth where it leads. We’re the rule-of-law team. We don’t use this for political partisan games like the Democrats have done and did against Donald Trump twice. We are going to follow the law and follow the Constitution, and you and I have a suspicion of where that may lead, but we’re going to let the evidence speak for itself, and I look forward to rolling that out over the coming days and weeks and letting the American people see exactly why we’re taking the next steps and where it’s headed.”

Okay, no one has time to fully parse all the lies and barmy nonsense Johnson packed into that short clip. Suffice to say, Republicans have no evidence against Biden. In fact, their one big hearing on the subject was so effing embarrassing, House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer recently told reporters, “I don’t know that I wanna hold any more hearings, to be honest with you.” Which is a weird thing to say if, as Johnson claims, they just want to let “the American people see exactly why we’re talking those next steps and where it is headed.”

But flipping reality on its head is kind of the GOP’s brand now. Donald Trump may have extorted a foreign power in order to dig up dirt on Biden, and yes, he tried to illegally overturn the results of a free and fair election and was all-in when his feral mob decided it wanted to hang Mike Pence (he should have known Pence would hang himself eventually), but President Biden loaned some money to his brother. And his brother paid it back! 

Rule-of-Law Party to the rescue!

Sadly, just based on the few clips we’ve seen, it’s clear that Johnson is the kind of liar who can lie straight to your face without flinching. And if I never watched anything on Sunday mornings besides Fox News and Alvin Styczynski’s Polka Palooza, I’d be pretty convinced by him, too. But I watch all the polka shows, and sample more than just one Sunday show, too. So I’m not fooled by him for a second, no matter how many outrageous fibs he tells for Jesus. 

RELATED: Sunday Four-Play: GOP still deciding which fanatical, anti-American traitor to anoint as speaker

3.

Top Trump gadfly Chris Christie is back. He appeared on CNN’s “State of the Union” with Jake Tapper to help us ascertain the obvious: Murderous autocrat and war criminal Vladimir Putin’s best friend in America is Donald Trump. And if Trump returns to power, Putin will get pretty much everything he wants (including a U.S. withdrawal from NATO, though Christie didn't specifically mention that part), and Ukraine will be left twisting in a very foul wind.

Yes, Christie is still telling the truth about Donald Trump, which is a big reason why he’s stuck at roughly 3% in the polls. You can’t be a truth-teller and expect to win anything as a Republican.

Chris Christie on Trump calling for Israeli aid to be separated from Ukraine aid: "He wants to separate them to continue to coddle Putin." pic.twitter.com/g2qOjNCrbX

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) October 29, 2023

TAPPER: “Let’s turn to the war in Israel. President Biden has proposed a $105 billion foreign aid package, which includes support to both Israel and Ukraine and some other priorities. Donald Trump said yesterday that Ukraine aid and Israel aid should be separate, it should be decoupled. What do you think?”

CHRISTIE: “Well, this is Donald Trump’s, you know, bad worldview. Look, he wants to do it and separate them because he wants to continue to coddle Putin, as he’s done from the minute he became president of the United States and going forward from there. This aid is connected because these attacks are connected. There’s no doubt that Russia, China and Iran, and North Korea are all working together to try to disrupt the world and create violence. We need to support Israel and support them strongly, and we need to support our friends in Ukraine as well. Remember, Jake, we made a promise to them in 1992 when they removed nuclear missiles and returned them to Russia that we would protect them if Russia attacked. We need to keep our promises.”

Wait, did anyone else notice what I noticed? Christie just admitted that Trump has been coddling Putin from the moment he became president. Is that why Christie risked his life to help Trump prepare for the debates against Biden? So Trump could continue coddling Putin for another four years? 

Republicans. I tell ya, man. Even when they’re telling the truth they’re up to their eyeballs in horseshit.

4.

Of course, Donald Trump isn’t the only Republican who wants to coddle Putin. Enabling mass murderers is all the rage in the GOP these days. While they’re eager to send aid to Israel, which was attacked by a terrorist group with a small fraction of Israel’s resources, Ukraine was invaded by the No. 2 military in the world (by beet consumption, anyway), and it’s doing a great job curtailing Putin’s imperial ambitions. In other words, Ukraine is shedding its citizens’ blood for the sake of Europe’s and the world’s democracies, not just for its own interests. If you want to promote democracy and contain brutal autocracy, this is the fight you should be paying attention to.

But as the recent speaker battle proved, these jabronis take their orders from Donald Trump now, and Trump still wants to build a big tower in Moscow. Perhaps to live in, but that remains to be seen.

Sen. J.D. Vance joined host Margaret Brennan on “Face the Nation” to throw our brave and loyal ally Ukraine under the busski. 

"There's a difference between what should happen, and what can happen" -- JD Vance on his opposition to US aid to Ukraine pic.twitter.com/RZ0ByUFxJv

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) October 29, 2023

BRENNAN: “We just heard the new House Speaker, you have some similarities with him in terms of separating out Israel aid from Ukraine aid. He did say, though, ‘We can’t allow Putin to prevail in Ukraine because I don’t believe it would stop there. We’re not going to abandon them.’ What part of that statement is objectionable to you?”

VANCE: “Well, nothing is objectionable in the sense that if I could wave a magic wand and throw Putin out of Ukraine, I would, but what we have to accept is there’s a difference between what should happen and what can happen. America has limited capacity. Just in the Israeli conflict, for example, there are 300,000 artillery shells the Israelis would love to have access to. They don’t have access to them. Why? Because we sent them to Ukraine. We have a rising threat of China in East Asia. There are weapons the Taiwanese need that we can’t send because we sent them to Ukraine. We have to focus. That’s all I’m saying.”

Uh-huh. You know, when a guy who still supports Donald Trump claims “we have to focus,” it’s almost too much for a single human brain to process. I may have to hook into the Borg hive mind for a few while I try to make sense of it. We have to focus, so let’s make this googly-eyed Adderall golem president again. That sure would help!

Also, we can’t keep sending money to Ukraine. They might win, and where will we be then? So let’s get the Los Alamos National Laboratory started on that magic wand! We’ve got the bad guys on the run now!

These people. Sheesh.

RELATED: Sunday Four-Play: Matt Gaetz tries to 'splain himself, and Blinken responds to GOP lies about Hamas

But wait! There’s more!

That’s all for this week! Have a happy Halloween! It’s a frightening world out there these days, so maybe take some time to unwind with a few of those “Saw” movies and maybe an “Exorcist” or two.

Check out Aldous J. Pennyfarthing’s four-volume Trump-trashing compendium, including the finale, Goodbye, Asshat: 101 Farewell Letters to Donald Trump, at this link. Or, if you prefer a test drive, you can download the epilogue to Goodbye, Asshat for the low, low price of FREE.

Sunday Four-Play: Matt Gaetz vows to shiv Kevin McCarthy, and AOC says she may help

Wait, so Congress actually managed to pass a continuing resolution to keep the government open for another 45 days? And here two of the Sunday shows had already booked Matt Gaetz. This should be fun.

Will Gaetz 1) complain that this is brutally unfair to hardworking American taxpayers like Donald Trump and his next-door neighbor Vladimir, erm, Peterson, 2) introduce the world to his next wife, whose ultrasound photo he recently favorited on OkCupid, 3) slurp Jonathan Karl up like a hunk of Fazoli’s linguine while pugnaciously humming “Flight of the Valkyries,” or 4) promise to take another go at ruining the lives of millions of Americans who depend on government paychecks?

Or maybe he’ll be grilled about the Republicans’ fake impeachment of President Biden. In case you missed it, they held a hearing on Thursday that proved Joe Biden unconditionally loves his son. Republicans also called a witness who admitted there was no basis for impeachment. In other words, it was the shittiest shitshow you’ll ever see, even if you survive past the heat death of the universe. But hey, this is a resilient bunch. They can restart their impeachment crusade at another time. Maybe they’ll launch seven separate impeachment weeks before they eventually get bored and forget any of this ever happened.

Also, Kristen Welker is taking some time away from the 24/7 grind of undermining Western democracy. She’ll have to both-sides Donald Trump’s backyard orphans vs. puppies fight club some other time. “Meet the Press” has been preempted by NBC’s Ryder Cup coverage.

RELATED: Sunday Four-Play: The elephant in the room plops down on 'Meet the Press'

And as the House Judiciary GOP knows, if you can’t make up impeachable crimes, at the very least you can blame Joe Biden for our nation’s increasingly concerning golf gap

Joe Biden's America. https://t.co/hceMGeqgoq

— House Judiciary GOP 🇺🇸 (@JudiciaryGOP) September 29, 2023

Finally, will any of the shows mention that Donald Trump gave a speech on Friday that made Ozzy Osborne biting the head off a bat look like Demosthenes' Third Philippic?

Oh, yeah. It was bonkers, yo. Here’s just one excerpt of the team coverage from “The Weekly What in the Ever-Living Fuck Is This Now, Gladys?”

“All the currently dry canals will be brimming and used to irrigate everything, including your own homes and bathrooms and everything,” Trump promised drought-beleaguered Californians as trillions of Filet-O-Fish particles from past lunches circled his head in a state of superposition waiting to be observed and become a sandwich. “You’re going to be happy, and I’m going to get it done fast.”

When asked for clarification, a Trump campaign spokesperson said the former president’s comprehensive 10-point plan for irrigating your bathroom will be released in two weeks.

And now on to the (un)usual nonsense.

1.

Speak of the devil! No, really. Please speak of the devil. Summoning Satan to feast on my steaming viscera as I claw my gobsmacked face off with my newly gargoylish Howard Hughes hands for the rest of eternity might be preferable to transcribing this clip.

Gaetz broke news on the Sunday shows this week, announcing that he plans to punish House Speaker Kevin McCarthy for working with Democrats to ensure that 1.5 million hardworking Americans don’t immediately lose their paychecks for no reason

ABC News:

Hard-line Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz plans a vote this week to try and remove Speaker Kevin McCarthy from his role as punishment for McCarthy orchestrating a bipartisan stopgap government funding bill to stave off a shutdown, Gaetz said Sunday.

Removing McCarthy would essentially halt all legislative business in the House until a replacement is picked. It remains unclear if Gaetz currently has more than a handful of votes for such a dramatic move. McCarthy has dismissed the risk of a vacate motion.

"Bring it," he has said.

On Sunday, Gaetz responded, "Kevin McCarthy's going to get his wish."

Here’s Matt talking with Jonathan Karl of ABC’s “This Week” about his plans to shut down the House because Kevin didn’t agree to shut down the government:

“I am relentless and I will continue pursue this objective,” GOP Rep. Matt Gaetz tells @JonKarl of his push to vacate Kevin McCarthy as House Speaker. https://t.co/KInxWHwCkT pic.twitter.com/NOWDqfFwvA

— This Week (@ThisWeekABC) October 1, 2023

KARL: “So you’re not accomplishing anything here.”

GAETZ: “That’s not true.”

KARL: “Well, you don’t have the votes to remove him.”

GAETZ: “Well, I—by the way, I don’t know until we have him, and by the way, I might not have him the first time, but I might have him before the 15th ballot. That’s the number of ballots Kevin McCarthy needed.”

KARL: “So are you going to do this every day like you suggested? Are you going to go through this process of voting over and over and over again?”

GAETZ: “I am relentless, and I will continue to pursue this objective. And if all the American people see is that it is a uniparty that governs them and that it is always the Biden-McCarthy-Jeffries government that makes dispositive decisions on spending, then I am seeding the fields of future primary contests to get better Republicans in Washington who will actually tackle these deficits and debts.”

First of all, Matt Gaetz is pretty much the last person I want to hear say “seeding the fields.” Coming from him it just sounds gross. I can’t put my finger on it—it just does. It’s not the phrase itself necessarily. It’s his association with it. It might sound marginally less gross coming from a farmer, of course—even if that farmer was Ed Gein

Secondly, accomplishing nothing is kind of the whole point of Republicans, isn’t it? Matt is determined to hold the line on deficits when a Democrat is in the White House so he can choke the life out of the economy and return Dear Leader to his gilded throne. If he has to create unprecedented chaos to do so, that’s just gravy. 

RELATED: Sunday Four-Play: Auntie Maxine Waters scorches GOP, and Matt Gaetz makes a startling admission

2.

Speak of this other devil! House Speaker Kevin McCarthy appeared on “Face the Nation” with host Margaret Brennan to respond to Gaetz’s perduring and performative Trump-humping. Brennan asked Evil Opie what he thought of Gaetz’s shoving-nerds-into-gym-lockers style of governing, and McCarthy did his best to project a sense of calm.

McCarthy: Gaetz is more interested in securing TV interviews than doing something. He wanted to push us into a shutdown… only because he wants to take this motion. Bring it on, let's get over with it pic.twitter.com/XtCxh2PKrO

— Acyn (@Acyn) October 1, 2023

BRENNAN: “There is a lot to get to with you. I want to start, though, on the news this morning from Congressman Matt Gaetz who says he is going to seek a motion to vacate. He’s going to try to oust you as speaker of the House.”

MCCARTHY: “That’s nothing new, he’s tried to do that from the moment I ran for office.”

BRENNAN: “Well, this time he says he’s going to keep going. May not get there before the 15th ballot, but it took 15 for Kevin McCarthy. He says he’s coming for you. Can you survive?”

MCCARTHY: “Yes, I’ll survive. This is personal with Matt. Matt voted against the most conservative ability to protect our border, secure our border. He’s more interested in securing TV interviews than doing something. He wanted to push us into a shutdown, even threatening his own district with all the military people there who would not be paid, only because he wants to take this motion. So be it, bring it on, let’s get over with it [sic], and let’s start governing. If he’s upset because he tried to push us in a shutdown and I made sure government didn’t shut down, then let’s have that fight.”

Oh, boy! This should be fun. I’m sure y’all remember January’s protracted House speaker vote. It was like watching two greased hippos trying to screw on an elevator. Well, now we get to watch two hippos trying to screw on an elevator in reverse

BONUS CLIP!

McCarthy is still trying to blame Democrats for this 100% Republican-manufactured crisis.

McCARTHY: I wasn't sure it was gonna pass. You know why? Because the Democrats tried to do everything they can not to let it pass. BRENNAN: Democrats were the ones who voted for this! pic.twitter.com/kCLKW9WSJK

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) October 1, 2023

BRENNAN: “Were you confident we wouldn’t shut down?”

MCCARTHY: “I was confident I could get something on the floor to make sure the option that we would not ...”

BRENNAN: “But you weren’t sure it was going to pass.”

MCCARTHY: “Well, I wasn’t sure it was going to pass. You want to know why? Because the Democrats tried to do everything they can not to let it pass.”

BRENNAN: “Democrats were the ones who voted for this in a larger number than Republicans to keep the continuing resolution alive.”

MCCARTHY: “Did you watch the floor yesterday?”

BRENNAN: “Oh, yes, 90 Republicans voted against it.”

And … scene.

Thanks, Speaker McCarthy, and good luck. You’ll need it because …

3.

Gee willikers, Aunt Bee! Looks like Kevin isn’t going to get much help from Democrats! At least without having to give them something in return.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez joined Jake Tapper on CNN’s “State of the Union” and said she absolutely would vote to vacate the speaker’s chair. Because, you know, McCarthy really, really sucks.

AOC on CNN says she'd "absolutely" vote to oust McCarthy as speaker pic.twitter.com/Cl2ECx99jt

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) October 1, 2023

TAPPER: “So you just heard Congressman Matt Gaetz say he’s going to move to oust McCarthy as speaker this week. If a motion to vacate the chair comes to the floor, how would you vote?”

OCASIO-CORTEZ: “Well, my vote beginning this term for speaker of the House was for Hakeem Jeffries. And I do not intend on voting for a Republican speaker of the House, but I believe that it’s up to the Republican conference to determine their own leadership and deal with their own problems. But it’s not up to Democrats to save Republicans—from themselves, especially.”

TAPPER: “Do you think that there will be any Democrats that might vote to save McCarthy?”

OCASIO-CORTEZ: “I mean, I certainly don’t think that we would expect to see that unless there’s a real conversation between Republican and Democratic caucuses and Republican and Democratic leadership about what that would mean, but I don’t think we’d give up votes for free.”

TAPPER: “But would you vote to vacate? Would you vote to get rid of McCarthy as speaker?”

OCASIO-CORTEZ: “Would I cast that vote? Absolutely. I think Kevin McCarthy is a very weak speaker. He clearly has lost control of his caucus. He has brought the United States and millions of Americans to the brink waiting until the final hour to keep the government open, and even then only issuing a 45-day extension, so we’re going to be right back in this place in November. And, you know, I think that our main priority has to be the American people and we’re going to keep our governance in a cohesive and strong place, but unless Kevin McCarthy asks for a vote, again, I don’t think we give something away for free.”

McCarthy should have learned this universal maxim long ago: If you try to please everyone, you end up pleasing no one. And now everyone hates him. And he might lose his job. And likely go down as one of the worst and weakest House leaders in U.S. history. 

But hey, at least he got to be speaker! Much like Anne Boleyn got to be queen and Eva Braun eventually managed to wrangle a marriage proposal out of Hitler

RELATED: Sunday Four-Play: It's Chuck Todd's last day! And we're ridin' with Biden

4.

GOP Rep. Nancy Mace appeared on “Sunday Morning Futures” with Maria Bartiromo, whose show is roughly the journalistic equivalent of drinking from a firehose of curdled Yoo-hoo.

But even Fox News journalists are starting to wonder WTF Republicans are trying to accomplish with their Biden impeachment push, and so Bartiromo must have felt empowered to ask a legitimate question for once.

Of course, no matter how many different ways Republicans try to answer the question at the heart of their efforts—i.e., what did President Biden actually do that’s even remotely impeachable?—they still whiff every time.

BARTIROMO: Have you been able to identify specific policy decisions Joe Biden made that he was paid for? NANCY MACE: I have not had the ability to research that pic.twitter.com/HXnXNrGyNp

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) October 1, 2023

BARTIROMO: “Have you been able to identify specific policy decisions that Joe Biden made that he was paid for?”

MACE: “I have not had the ability to research that. I’ve been looking more at the LLCs, the bank records, all of the lies that Joe Biden has told, and what evidence we have so far in meetings, dinners, appointments, White House records, etc., phone messages, text messages, emails, etc., connecting the dots with Joe Biden.”

Oh, look! More nothing! Wait, this is the same nothing we’ve already reported on. Let’s find a fresh angle on this old pile of nothing and reintroduce it as a new pile of nothing! But don't rush us! It took us more than two years to dig up all this nothing, and nothing doesn’t grow on trees. You’ll just have to be patient. Like Job, that nice man from the Bible who did nothing wrong but was relentlessly harassed by Satan anyway.

For some reason that Bible story seems relevant right now. Much like the one where Jesus cast a legion of demons out of Donald Trump and into a nearby herd of pigs. Or maybe it was the other way around. I forget. It’s been a while since I darkened the door of a church, to be completely honest with you.

But wait! There’s more!

That’s all for now. Have a great, productive, and shutdown-free week!

Check out Aldous J. Pennyfarthing’s four-volume Trump-trashing compendium, including the finale, Goodbye, Asshat: 101 Farewell Letters to Donald Trump, at this link. Or, if you prefer a test drive, you can download the epilogue to Goodbye, Asshat for the low, low price of FREE

Sunday Four-Play: Trump’s lawyers try to spin their incorrigible client’s latest indictment

Well, it’s indictment week. Again. And that must mean it’s time for Sunday Four-Play—a new-ish feature in which we shine a spotlight on some of the Sunday show hijinks.

In last week’s installment, we talked about Donald Trump’s latest indictment. This week, we’ll be talking about Donald Trump’s latest indictment. Next week: An exclusive four-part interview with the first Kardashian to show up at my door with an ounce of OG Kush and a Hefty bag full of crullers. Unless Donald Trump is indicted again—but that’s just common sense.

So before this is all over, will we see more Trump indictment weeks or Trump infrastructure weeks? In other words, is Trump more dangerously criminal or dangerously incompetent? You make the call.

The hits keep coming, and Trump’s not doing himself any favors by continuing to post on social media with all the forbearance and dignity of a howler monkey with his balls caught in a saltwater taffy machine. He really needs to call his old cybersecurity adviser Rudy Giuliani and ask him how to get locked out of his own phone

But remember. They’re not coming after Trump, they’re coming after you. He’s just in the way. Like one of those impenetrable southern border wall sections you can cut through in six minutes with a pair of Play-Doh Fun Factory scissors and a Bic lighter. 

So let’s take a quick peep at all the witchy witch hunts and election interference and whatnot, shall we?

1.

John Lauro is one of the folks Donald Trump hired to represent him after Barry Zuckerkorn refused to take his calls. He’s already—somewhat hilariously—acknowledged Trump’s guilt in one of the charges brought against him. And he did it on national TV, because Trump isn’t trying to hide anything! Even those things that could land him in prison, with limited conjugal visits from whoever’s spanking him with Forbes magazine these days. 

Lauro appeared on “Meet the Press” with host Chuck Todd, who is leaving the show in September. (Not strictly relevant, I know; it just makes me happy.)

Judging from Lauro’s response, it’s fair to question whether he has any control over his client at all. The more Trump talks, the quaggier his legal quagmire gets. We should consider sending him an Adderall gift basket to hasten his trip to the exercise languidly-sitting-in-a-puddle-of-one’s-own-McRib-filth yard. 

WATCH: Fmr. Pres. Trump attacked Special Counsel Jack Smith, saying he's "deranged."@chucktodd: "Do innocent people attack prosectors?" Trump lawyer John Lauro: "My role is not to address anything about prosectors." pic.twitter.com/FhmotHNvi2

— Meet the Press (@MeetThePress) August 6, 2023

TRUMP (CLIP): “Deranged Jack Smith, he’s a deranged human being. You take a look at that face you say, ‘That guy is a sick man, there’s something wrong with him.’”

TODD: “Do you believe he’s deranged?”

LAURO: “President Biden in April of 2022 said he wanted President Trump prosecuted, and he wanted him out of the race. He repeated that in November of 2022. As a result, President Biden has put in motion a political prosecution in the middle of an election season, and obviously everything is open to politics. I’m not involved in politics, I’m just representing a client. I’m ensuring that justice is done in this case. President Trump is entitled to his day in court, and he’ll get it.”

TODD: “Do innocent people attack prosecutors?”

LAURO: “This is a political campaign right now. This prosecution was instituted by President Biden, and in the middle of that campaign, people are going to speak out. My role is not to address anything about prosecutors, but I will say this: There has been a history in the Justice Department of rogue prosecutions. They went after Arthur Andersen, a major accounting firm. Destroyed the company, and the DOJ lost 9-0. They went after the former governor of Virginia in a prosecution—a Republican governor who was convicted unfairly. Reversed 9-0. And now the Justice Department, the Biden Justice Department, is going after a former president for acts that he carried out in fulfillment of his oath and president of the United States.”

You know, when Lauro claimed President Biden said he wanted Trump prosecuted and out of the race, I thought to myself, “Hmm, that doesn’t sound anything like Biden. It sure sounds like something Trump would say, though.”

Well, I was right. And since this claim is at the heart of the Trump team’s public defense of their client—i.e., that this is nothing but a political prosecution launched by Trump’s political opponent—it’s important to take this head-on.

First of all, Trump is the one who continually tried to weaponize the DOJ. He wanted the department to prosecute Hillary Clinton and former FBI director James Comey, whom he corruptly fired in an attempt to stop an investigation. He also tried to use the department to overturn the 2020 election. And he continually attacked former Attorney General Jeff Sessions after Sessions recused himself in the Russian investigation—because he wanted “his” DOJ to act as his personal Roy Cohn. Oh, and he recently said he would seek to prosecute President Biden if he’s reelected

But Biden? He understands the White House’s traditional hands-off posture toward the DOJ in a way that Trump never did. And he’s continually resisted overstepping his authority. 

So what is Lauro talking about here?

Well, in April 2022, according to media reports, Biden privately mentioned to his inner circle that he thought Trump was a threat to democracy and should be prosecuted, but he never mentioned this personal preference to Attorney General Merrick Garland.

And in November of last year, responding to a reporter’s question about how to reassure world leaders that the poo-flinging Putin puppet would never resume his tirade, Biden said, “Well, we just have to demonstrate that he will not take power by—if we—if he does run. I’m making sure he, under legitimate efforts of our Constitution, does not become the next president again.” 

In other words, he’s going to campaign against him.

But hey, why let facts and context get in the way of a fun narrative!?

2.

Oh, hey, Lauro was on “Face the Nation,” too! And “ABC This Week”! Not to mention “Fox News Sunday”! He may have appeared in hologram form on at least one of them. 

Here he was with CBS’ Major Garrett talking about the Trump team’s desire for a change of venue:

Trump lawyer John Lauro on CBS: "We would like a diverse venue, a diverse jury ... I think West Virginia will be an excellent venue to try this case. Close to DC and a much more diverse--" pic.twitter.com/ib6S2Mdd7l

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) August 6, 2023

GARRETT: “You’re still going to pursue a change of venue?”

LAURO: “Absolutely. We would like a diverse venue, a diverse jury ...”

GARRETT: “Do you have any expectation that will be granted?”

LAURO: “… that reflects the characteristics of the American people. It’s up to the judge. I think West Virginia would be an excellent venue to try this case.”

Yes, the famously diverse state of West Virginia, whose residents represent every color of the rainbow, from alabaster to ecru. Its population is 92.8% white and 3.7% Black. Maybe we could make the jury even more diverse by drawing its members exclusively from meth-fueled brawls in Charleston Cracker Barrel parking lots.

Hey, here’s a tip: If you don’t want to be tried in Washington, D.C., don’t commit crimes in Washington, D.C. It works every time!

3.

Alina Habba, another Trump attorney and apologist, appeared on Fox’s “Sunday Morning Futures” with Maria Bartiromo. And this happened:

Habba: I think that realistically you have to remember that a lot of these cases deal with classified documents which mean that all the lawyers now have to apply for special clearance, right? You can’t just take a classified document and review it. You have to have scifs. pic.twitter.com/HDzaQzRgJS

— Acyn (@Acyn) August 6, 2023

BARTIROMO: “Let me ask you this, because typically when you have a case as complicated as the one we’re talking about, there is deposition, there is discovery—a whole discovery process where Trump’s lawyers will have to get access to the other side’s information, and vice versa. How long do you expect that process to take, because Jack Smith says he wants a speedy trial. We’re about a year away from an election. Obviously we’re just two weeks away from the first GOP primary debate, two months away from the Iowa Caucuses. Are you expecting to have a trial before election 2024?”

HABBA: “I think that that’s their goal. I think that realistically you have to remember that a lot of these cases deal with classified documents and classified records, which mean that all the lawyers now have to apply for special clearance, right? So it’s not a normal situation. You can’t just take a classified document and review it. You have to have SCIFs. You have to have certain procedures put in place. So while I appreciate Jack Smith trying to bleed us all dry and trying to have a speedy trial, perhaps he should have taken a case that didn’t involve classified documents that he now possesses, that we have to now repossess and review for discovery. It’s a poorly planned attack, frankly, because that’s what it is, it’s political lawfare, and he didn’t think it through. So I think these are going to take a lot longer. I think that once the judges get a [unintelligible] for how many years they’ve had this discovery—look at [Fulton County, Georgia, District Attorney] Fani [Willis], two years. But she’s bringing this case now. Why? Because of election interference. They want to keep him tied up in trials, keep his lawyers tied up so that we’re distracted and not focused. It’s not going to work. He is a machine and he knows what he’s doing in a campaign. You know, he’s done this rodeo before.”

[Emphasis added]

Wait, Trump is a machine? Someone alert Mike Lindell!

Mike Lindell's speech announcing a class action lawsuit against all machines set over the Terminator 2 intro. pic.twitter.com/RUTylylbVv

— Matthew Highton (@MattHighton) March 6, 2022

But never mind Pillow Man. Here’s the real takeaway: “You can’t just take a classified document and review it. You have to have SCIFs. You have to have certain procedures put in place.”

Say, Alina. Go back to the transcript and read that part over again. Then ask yourself if it was appropriate for Trump to (allegedly!) wave classified battle plans around in front of a gaggle of randos. This is an easy one. We’ll progress to the alphabet song in next week’s lesson—and colors and shapes, if there’s still time. 

4.

Rep. Jamie Raskin, the lead manager for Trump’s second impeachment, appeared on “Meet the Press” after Lauro spewed his pabulum all over Chuck Todd’s neatly pressed suit. 

It went a little something like this:

WATCH: Rep. Raskin (D-Md.) says Trump's lawyer claiming a "technical violation of the Constitution is not a violation of criminal law" is "deranged." "There are people who are in jail for several years for counterfeiting one vote. ... He tried to steal the entire election." pic.twitter.com/mdCsksjkY4

— Meet the Press (@MeetThePress) August 6, 2023

TODD: “Let me first start with a couple of things we heard from Mr. Lauro. You spent 25 years as a constitutional law professor, so I kind of want to get Professor Raskin’s take on this. Let me play one quick clip of something he said to me about the Constitution.”

LAURO (CLIP): “A technical violation of the Constitution is not a violation of criminal law. That’s just plain wrong.”

TODD: “Now, he added the word ‘criminal law’ there, but it was my understanding if you violated the Constitution, you’ve violated the law.”

RASKIN: “Well, first of all, a technical violation of the Constitution is a violation of the Constitution. The Constitution in six different places opposes insurrection. It makes that a grievous constitutional offense. So our Constitution is designed to stop people from trying to overthrow elections and trying to overthrow the government. But in any event, there’s a whole apparatus of criminal law which is in place to enforce this constitutional principle. That’s what Donald Trump is charged with violating. He conspired to defraud the American people out of our right to an honest election by substituting the real legal process we have under federal and state law with counterfeit electors. I mean, there are people who are in jail for several years for counterfeiting one vote, if they try to vote illegally once. He tried to steal the entire election, and his lawyer’s up there saying, oh, that’s just a matter of him expressing his First Amendment rights. That’s deranged. That is a deranged argument.”

Yes. Yes, it is. But with a client like this, a deranged argument is probably the best you can do, now isn’t it?

But wait! There’s more!

Some additional Sunday clips to help ease you into your week:

That’s all for now, friends. See you next week!

Check out Aldous J. Pennyfarthing’s four-volume Trump-trashing compendium, including the finale, Goodbye, Asshat: 101 Farewell Letters to Donald Trump, at this link. Or, if you prefer a test drive, you can download the epilogue to Goodbye, Asshat for the low, low price of FREE.