This is the week in which the tides have permanently turned on the Trump Administration and they're facing a head wind into rough seas the rest of the way. When trusted conservative voices en mass, exemplified on today's program, start calling out the administration, using the word 'lies,' then you know you have problems. And here is the American populace standing on the beach watching the mother of all riptides.
As always, if you're reading this column, we don't have to go into the particulars of the Donald Trump Jr. meeting with Russian 'operatives' - you know it happened and you know now that he lied about the participants in the meeting. With that said, it's inexplicable, and not Trump-like, that Donald Trump Jr. would release the email chain, even if The New York Times was going to publish the exchange.
In today's interview, Chuck Todd asked Senator Mark Warner (D-VA) of the Senate Intelligence Committee about the difference between collusion and collaboration, to which Sen. Warner demurred and didn't want to go into nuanced definitions.
But speaking of those conservative voices, if you want an argument for collusion, refer to Mr. Krauthammer: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/bungled-collusion-is-still-collusion/2017/07/13/68c7f72a-67f3-11e7-8eb5-cbccc2e7bfbf_story.html?utm_term=.9baf0fe1e13d
For Collaboration, see McClatchy DC Bureau: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/national/article160803619.html
In the second example, the McClatchey story notes that there is an investigation in the Trump campaign digital operation lead by the president's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and whether he had a hand in guiding a sophisticated Russian cyber campaign to target key congressional district with misinformation.
Danielle Pletka of the conservative American Enterprise Institute said that she doesn't know if there was collusion or cooperation, but that she does know that the Trump Administration are liars. Al Cardenas, fmr. chair of the American Conservatives Union, explained that the meeting couldn't have happened in a void, from the Russia perspective. "The don't freelance," he said. A meeting like that had a structure and an approval process, he went on.
Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) really wanted no part of answering questions about Russia, though he has a seat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, except to say that he thought it was incorrect to personalize [read: point directly at the Trump Administration] the target of the Senate committee's investigation; it's about Russia. As health care votes loom in the Senate, the deflections away from the president are rhetorically subtle. On the part of the president's legal team, not so much. Jay Sekulow made it clear, as he likes to say, that he doesn't represent Donald Trump Jr. or the Trump Campaign, only the president, Donald Trump. And you have to give him credit in as much as he does his job well, at least representing him during interviews, in walling off the president from all the revelations about Russian interactions with advisors and family members.
But what keeps coming to mind is how all throughout the campaign, Mr. Trump and his surrogates touted how close his family is about everything so it makes one wonder if the president did know about this meeting. Surely, someone in the FBI or in Mr. Mueller's office is looking into whether that is the case. In a way, Mr. Sekulow's job has been made easier now that Donald Trump Jr. is embroiled in a deep mess because it diminishes public scrutiny in the potential of the president's direct involvement. In other words, Junior is taking some of the heat for his father, and from that more familial perspective, you get why he did it.
All of this leads to the overarching theme of today's show, which was that there is a serious void in leadership of the United States, to an unacceptable level. Today's great panel stayed on this theme for our benefit. Tom Brokaw repeatedly mentioned the serious situation the U.S. with North Korea and how the administration is putting it off. He said that the Chinese leadership doesn't even know who to talk to on our side of the aisle about it.
Mr. Cardenas explained that the last five to six votes are the toughest and that the president hasn't given any speeches on healthcare in states and districts where senators are on the fence with regard to support for the legislation. He hasn't championed the legislation at all, in part because he's so preoccupied with the Russian investigation.
Presidential historian Doris Kearns Goodwin also observed that President Trump said that he would be very upset if they (meaning the Senate) didn't pass a health care bill, but she noted that the 'they' includes the president. That it's actually a 'we,' but clearly the Mr. Trump doesn't understand that.
And it's that leadership role that's costing us all time, and the tide is rising.
Panel: Danielle Pletka, American Enterprise Institute; Doris Kearns Goodwin, presidential historian; Al Cardenas, fmr. chair of the American Conservatives Union; Tom Brokaw, NBC News
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