3.25.18: Cambridge Analytica's Dirty Tentacles Reach into The Fox and Friends Administration

As Mr. Todd outlined at the top of the program, President Trump is certainly fighting on many fronts - China and trade, North Korea, the Iran nuclear deal, the Mueller investigation, and last but not least Ms. Stormy Daniels. Mr. Trump's management style of 'crisis, chaos and confrontation' is now baked into the descriptive vernacular of his administration. Though it may not be quite complete, the president's new-look, Trumpian cabinet has taken shape this week with fmr. CNBC personality Larry Kudlow as economic advisor and FOX's John Bolton as national security advisor. To boot, you can throw in FOX's Joe diGenova who thinks Trump was framed by the FBI to the his legal team.

Hugh Hewitt was feeling very good about it, the others on the panel including the moderator looked queasy.

When you have a president that doesn't read his daily briefing, but never misses cable news political punditry every morning, this is what you're going to get, a cabinet and staff full of hyperbolic hard-charging types, as Robert Costa described them. However, the president is the only one who doesn't seem to know that you cannot run the government of the most powerful nation in the world like a soap opera. In fact, it's inexplicable some of the thought islands this president is on such as: tariffs are good - no one agrees; Russia didn't meddle, they certainly did; there were good people on both sides. It's like the Superman comic book character Bizarro who is the mirror image, exact opposite antagonist to Superman. His thoughts and inclinations are all backward.

With regard to John Bolton's appointment in particular, Heather McGhee described an old white guy who avoided ever going to war so doesn't know the human impact of it while cavalierly calling for bombing and troops and regime change. Unintentionally, she was also describing Mr. Hewitt in a sense as well, which must explain why he's happy with the choices.

Corey Lewandowski was also praising the president's decisions, saying that the president was putting America first by installing people on that fully behind the president's positions. If you're thinking that those two notions run counter to one another, take consolation that you have a good read on things. In response to the president congratulating Vladimir Putin on his election 'win' and the subsequent leak on the conversation briefing adamantly advising the opposite, Mr. Lewandowski blamed it on a leak from the deep state. Give us a break... It came from an aide to the president as Mr. Todd pointed out, which is NOT the deep state.

A new rule for "Meet The Press" should be that any one who blames the 'deep state' for anything should not be allowed to appear on the program. What's the point? The person instantly discredits him or herself thus simply becoming a waste of good air time henceforth. You can't take the person seriously.

You can get other individuals on the program to confirm that the president will go without a chief of staff if General Kelly is dismissed from his post or that Rex Tillerson was fired because he basically disagreed with the president on every foreign policy crisis. But as soon as you get into the 'deep state,' forget it.

John Bolton on the other hand is for cancelling the Iran deal as is new Secretary of State nominee Mike Pompeo, which will further isolate the United States from its allies and rivals alike. The other countries that signed on, which include China, Russia, England, France and Germany will not follow suit. Mr. Lewandowski also said that H.R. McMaster wanted more troops in Afghanistan, which the president disagreed with, only to replace the fmr. NSA with a person who wants to put lots of troops in other places. Playing the long game is not what Trump does, obviously.

For all that, Senator Mark Warner (D-VA) said we're more vulnerable as a country, because he didn't call out or condemn Mr. Putin for his actions. One of the core questions we all hope that Mr. Mueller's investigation will answer is why doesn't the president ever say anything in opposition to  or negative about Mr. Putin?

More poignantly, Senator Warner stated that he thought Facebook has been less than forthcoming about what it knew about what Cambridge Analytica was doing with ill-gotten Facebook data, and for how long they knew.

Mark Zuckerberg is open to the idea of testifying in front of Congress? As Mr. Warner emphatically stated, it's his company so he has to take responsibility for it, and answer for it in front of Congress. As he described it, there was a broad weaponization of information through social media, most prominently through Facebook. The argument that Facebook and Twitter are in a sense media companies is well founded, certainly media aggregators.

And hopefully Mr. Mueller's team can unravel all the tentacles that Cambridge Analytica has and the role it's played. Now we find out that Steve Bannon was a founding partner of the firm while being the president of a media company and having roles as campaign chairman and presidential advisor. And where Mr. Bannon was (not now), the Mercers were always standing two feet behind. The entire thing looks dirty. As Robert Costa explained, since the election the Trump Administration has been trying to distance itself from the data firm after singing it praises during the campaign.

 ***

Lastly, in response to Mr. Todd's query about what would have more impact 6 months from now, the Stormy Daniels story or the March For Our Lives, call for gun control, the time frame seems a bit disproportionately (not purposely) to the short-term. Stormy Daniels, which has potential for explosiveness and very public legal battles, isn't going away anytime soon. It's the kind of 'entertainment' that Mr. Trump does in fact like, but only when it doesn't involve him. Basically, a mess.

More significantly, in more than 800 cities around the U.S. and the world, people lead by students came out in the hundreds of thousands in a March For Our Lives to say, "Enough with gun violence," and this is not going away for generations. You have to realize that the students that lead this march have grown up in a world where mass shootings are part of life and only getting worse. They're tired of it, enough is enough, they will not shut up about it, and they will vote on it.

Their passion now will turn into action later, and gun-control votes for years to come.

During the voter round table segment, a woman who supports the Second Amendment explained the 'shall not be infringed' clause of it, which is understandable, but she failed to mention the 'well regulated' part, which is not the case at all.

The round table featured one independent voter, an African American Army veteran who was featured little, but the three things he said were the three that made the most sense:

     -Gun violence has become an national emergency now that white kids are getting killed.
     -Adults are not good advocates for children right now.
     -Like cigarettes, there should be a big tax on the a gun purchase.



Panel: Heather McGhee, President of DEMOS; Kasie Hunt, NBC News; Robert Costa, The Washington Post; Hugh Hewitt, Salem Radio Network

3.18.18: The Fog of Irony Is Thick But The Mueller Probe Isn't Going Anywhere

Despite the fact that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was fired, something wasn't really even touched on, it's the Friday firing of Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe, two days before his retirement and pension collection, that had everyone's attention today.

If you're trying to decide whether it's worse to be fired through Twitter or have your firing celebrated on Twitter by the president, the latter is clearly the choice. The irony that a person whose catch phrase on television was, "You're fired," can not seem to do it for real, face to face. I'm sure that isn't lost on anyone. But knowing he couldn't be the one to fire Mr. McCabe, the president celebrated it on Twitter. He said, "It is a great day for Democracy," of all things, which is ironic in and of itself because it's really a sad day when the President of the United States demeans the office by being so small minded and petty so publicly.

The president felt the firing presented another good opportunity to lash out at the Mueller probe, essentially saying it is a politically partisan witch hunt. Nothing new there. However, it also emboldened Mr. Trump's lawyer, John Dowd, to issue a statement to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, demanding that he shut down the Russia investigation.

With that said...
You have to agree with The National Review's Jonah Goldberg when he explained the irony of this distasteful firing (McCabe's) being an actual preventative measure in saving the Mueller probe because it saves Attorney General Jeff Sessions' job, which blocks Mr. Rosenstein from direct attack, which in turn keeps Special Counsel Muller in place.

And Press Secretary Sarah Sanders called Mr. McCabe a bad actor?

The irony is so thick you can practically smell it. Unfortunately, it smells like a fart, powerful enough to humble.

Speaking of humble, Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) certainly seemed to be one public official humbled in the last month or so by the events in his state - the Parkland shooting of course, but also the passed legislation that ensued, and now this week's bridge collapse. For Democrats who get their underwear in a twist about the potential firing of Mr. Mueller, Senators like Marco Rubio and Lindsey Graham are in strong support of the special counsel, and as he said today, he supports the probe and in any direction it leads. Frankly, Mr. Rubio has had it with Trump; you can see it in his face. This attests to today's journalist-full panel accounts that Republicans in private are nervous and say they dislike the president's actions and statements. However, in public they're are stuck in supporting him because his popularity among the Republican base is greater than congressional Republicans.  For Mr. Rubio though, it's getting more difficult to hide his feelings.

The probe is not going away; not as more stories keep coming like the one discussed today, in which it was revealed that Cambridge Analytica, doing work for the Trump Campaign, had somehow obtained the Facebook profiles of 50 million people. Did this organization somehow help Russian operatives spread fake news? That's the question Mr. Mueller and his team are investigating.

Facebook's role in all this lead to The Cook Political Report's Amy Walter asking whether the technology has gotten away from Facebook that they can no longer control the platform they created? Or are they just unwilling to spend the money to stop it from happening? You'd have to go with the latter again since Facebook has been trying to accommodate Chinese sensors for years so they're willing to spend the cash there to penetrate the market.

The other big news this week was that the Republican-controlled House Intelligence Committee wrapping up its Russia investigation because it said it found no evidence of collusion. In studio with Chuck Todd, making his first Sunday show appearance ever, was member of said committee Congressman Mike Conaway (R-TX). However, Mr. Conaway has a little explaining to do about his explaining because what he said today didn't make any sense at all. At one point in his interview he said the committee wasn't focused on Russian collusion but later said they found no evidence of it. Chuck Todd's point that if it wasn't a focus and you weren't looking into it, how could you find any? But then Mr. Conaway did say they investigated collusion. However, he explained that in terms of Vladimir Putin's intention to help Mr. Trump, he didn't see it.

At the 3:30 mark of the video, the discussion of the investigation begins...



Mr. Conaway didn't agree with Chuck Todd's assessment that the committee went 'off the rails' and said that oversight is constant. He also said that if there was something that surfaced that caused the committee to reconsider reopening, it's possible. However, that's unlikely because as long as Devin Nunes (R-CA) is the chair of the committee, it is in fact off the rails and will not reopen. They didn't even do a full investigation of the Russian meddling so how would they if something else came up? They didn't even interview George Papadopoulos, a key figure in it all.

There will be a time when congressional Republicans have their reckoning for being complicit and in many cases supportive of the president's constant attacks on our institutions, further deteriorating them by the day. Republicans in the Senate who think more long term, it seems, understand this more than their party brethren do in the House, and you can see Senate Republicans slowly souring. But it may not matter because as Poltico's Eliana Johnson pointed out, the Republicans have no legislative agenda for this year, which won't bode well come November.


Panel: Eliana Johnson, Politico; Amy Walter, The Cook Political Report; Jose Diaz-Balart; NBC; Jonah Goldberg, The National Review

A few more things...
Chuck Todd threw out something today that didn't really get any follow-up discussion, but it was a great nugget. He said that Trump Organization lawyers have joined Michael Cohen in trying to push the Stormy Daniels' case back into private arbitration, which means it's official that Mr. Trump was involved in some way with Ms. Daniels. Awesome.

Jose Diaz-Balart was right with the whole notion of 'emotional spasms on Twitter' for sure, and I agree that Comey, Trump, Brennan et al should all stay off of Twitter, but this one from former CIA Director John Brennan is something... because wouldn't he have such insight? 

 

3.11.18: A Typical Week of The Trump Presidency Testing Our National Sanity

At the top of the program, Chuck Todd said that people are running out of ways to describe a week in the Trump presidency, alas Mr. Todd settled on 'crazy.' However, it's seems ever more clear that President Trump aspires to call a week such as this as 'typical,' because with this administration that's what a week like this has become. This 'typical' is also testing our national sanity on a weekly basis.

Each week there are so many things swirling that you inevitably hear someone in the TV media say, "That happened last week? It seems like a year ago." So next week, we'll be able to say that last year it was fmr. campaign aide Sam Nunberg, Tariffs, Gary Cohen, Stormy Daniels and the PA campaign rally. All this still does leave a columnist with the dilemma of where to start.

What stuck with Mr. Todd was the president's campaign stop in Pennsylvania on Friday night, particularly the president's continued attacks on the media, but when you're show is called "Meet The Press" it's understandable that such attacks would get up into your craw and stay there. Not to mention that little bitty about the press in the First Amendment in the Constitution and its freedom. And that's why it's totally justified for Mr. Todd to lay into the Treasury Secretary, Steve Mnuchin, about it because the president is supposed to uphold and defend the Constitution, something neither this secretary nor the president understand. Mr. Mnuchin dismisses vulgarity on the part of the president at a campaign rally as something of no consequence, indicative of a shill whose moral compass only points to money.

The campaign rally intended to support state legislator Rick Saccone's congressional candidacy instantly became a campaign for the president. Mr. Trump wouldn't have it any other way. Despite his appearance, Mr. Saccone's campaign is flagging and many political prognosticators are predicting that his opponent Connor Lamb is going to win in a conservative district in the Pittsburgh suburbs where the last Republican ran unopposed and Mr. Trump won by 20 points.

Mr. Trump's bombast and unpredictability keep growing as the undercurrent of these special congressional races show support for the president dwindling rapidly, which may fully manifest itself this November.

His appearance nor steel tariffs are going to turn this around in Pennsylvania or the country. In a conservative upper middle class district like PA18, it's more troublesome that the president's chief economic advisor Gary Cohn resigned over tariffs than it is keeping steel tariffs low. Never mind that he didn't resign over Charlottesville, which he should have, his exit is another sign of informed analysis and stability leaving the White House.

Or so it seems...

There may be a method to this madness if you'll indulge me for a few moments. Domestically, Mr. Trump attacks the press and anyone else (Republican, Democrat, celebrity or non) who vocally speaks out against him. Internationally, he's implementing steel tariffs that disproportionately hurt our traditionally allies setting off potential trade wars with Europe, while saying this week that he'll meet with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un in May. If you look at all these steps in totality, Mr. Trump is realigning the United States to be more reflective of countries that we've stood opposed to in philosophy for the past 70 plus years. Russia's not a threat, Steel and Aluminum tariffs hurting our allies is good, Xi and Duterte are great guys and I'll meet with Kim Jong Un...

As The Washington Post's Eugene Robinson said about the Stormy Daniels story (which we'll get to in a minute), these things are a big deal as to what they're showing us about conservative Republicans. The Republican Party has never supported positions mentioned above, but now with a few exceptions are so neutered that they have nothing to say. On tariffs, House Speaker Paul Ryan and other leaders vocally opposed them but were too impotent to do anything. The President signed the tariffs into law on Thursday.

The evangelicals as Mr. Robinson explained have been left supporting a man they're giving 'mulligans' to on multiple affairs, the latest with a porn star. And let's not pretend that it's alleged. Tony Perkins and the Family Research Council clan have shown themselves to be more hypocritical than other group doing back flips to support this president, and they're becoming more and more irrelevant in doing so.

The panel debated whether the Stormy Daniels affair is of significant importance. Yahoo News's Matt Bai didn't think it a big deal while Andrea Mitchell spoke about the imperative of truthfulness and transparency in the presidency.  The conversation reference The New York Times Michelle Goldberg's column that explained the Stormy Daniels story was not a sex scandal as much as it was a campaign finance scandal. Yes, but ultimately, this story will not damage the president politically. The big rub is that it will further damage the president's marriage and most probably his number one legal sycophant, personal attorney Michael Cohen will be disbarred. Maybe it will be confirmed that the president did in fact have the affair, something we already knew because Press Secretary Sarah Sanders admitted it this week from the podium.

Former campaign aide Sam Nunberg? As for him, we all know someone like him who will make a big deal of himself saying he won't do this or that, and I dare them... blah, blah, blah. But at the end of the day, he's going to do what's he told and he was told to testify, which he did. Mentor or not, if Roger Stone has to go down because of Mr. Nunberg's testimony then so be it in the mind of Sam Nunberg.

This leaves us with the big announcement on North Korea, in which the President of the United States of America agree to meet with dictator Kim Jong Un in may, the details for which have not yet been laid out. I state it like that because one would have to agree with the panel consensus that it's largely a win for Kim to get the meeting. They also pointed out that usually the diplomacy comes first and then the summit, but this seems to be the other way around. However, with this president it seems that these two things are going to happen simultaneously. And now that Gary Cohn is gone when you look around the room in the Trump administration you have to ask, who's going to get this done? As Andrea Mitchell pointed out, we have no Korean expert in the administration, no ambassador to South Korea.

We'll see how it all goes, but we probably know how this summit's going to start...

Kim: Do you know Dennis Rodman?

Trump: I do know Dennis, too much metal in his face but a good guy.

Kim: He is my friend...


Panel: Andrea Mitchell; NBC News; Peggy Noonan, The Wall Street Journal; Matt Bai, Yahoo News; Eugene Robinson, The Washington Post

3.4.18: Russia Is the Reason for the Crazy Season

The chyron read, "crisis, chaos and confusion" as a description of the White House's current state under Donald Trump's leadership.

The chaos is being sown from the continual personnel exodus, President Trump's rash and ill-timed decisions made under duress and scandal after scandal the most significant this week centering around the president's senior advisor, and son-in-law, Jared Kushner who lost his top secret security clearance. Then the news broke that during the transition Mr. Kushner held meeting in the White House about securing financing for his Manhattan property, 666 Fifth Ave. basically self-dealing using the power of the White House to enrich himself. Given both, Mr. Kushner should have been out the door last week. The only advice to offer Mr. Kushner at this point should be to 'be polite and hold the door for your wife first on the way out.'

Insert "pot-shot with purpose" here: Where is Republican leadership with all this corruption occurring in executive branch of our government? The reason for this becomes more significant farther into the column.

The administration's confusion is obvious because clearly President Trump is confused about policy, history and his day to day statements which are constantly changing. Guns are just the latest example of this. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, in his interview today, said "What ever his final decision is, is what will happen. What he has said, he has said. If he says something different, he says something different. I have no reason he's going to change." For the love of God... He just said that the president changes his mind, so what, but to be sure he does not change his mind. And then when Chuck Todd challenged him on the ridiculousness of this, he rephrased it, but essentially repeated the same notion.

Here it is:



Not only that, but Mr. Ross's defense of the president's decision to raise tariffs on steel by 25% and aluminum by 10% bordered on senile, saying that retaliation has nothing to do with the cost of a can of beer. He also said that it wasn't a rash decision because the president had made this promise on the campaign trail. Fine, but the timing of such an announcement without any significant consultation qualifies it as just that, rash. The administration's top economic advisor, Gary Cohn, has threatened to resign.

Senator Angus King (I-ME) in his interview explained that there need to be extensive negotiations with the countries that are our trading partners, all of which are allies with the exception of China, before making this kind of decision.  For his part, Mr. King did not say he was opposed to these tariffs, which is curious, but like all of us is questioning the random timing and ill-process of such a decision. Every state could be negatively impacted by this decision, especially ones where Mr. Trump's base resides. Also curious was the fact that Mr. King said he was not prepared to comment on whether or not Mr. Kushner was self-dealing in the White House, which must mean that his committee has concluded that he has.

All this because Russia is the reason for the crazy season. Communications Director Hope Hicks resigned this week because she didn't want to get any muddier from an investigation getting ever so closer to the Oval Office. Not to mention that when you're the White House Communications Director and it's leaked that in your congressional testimony that you tell 'white lies' for the president, let's just say it doesn't help you're long-term prospects on the job.

And you know what they say about 'white lies...'

Twice as sweet as sugar, twice as bitter as salt
And if you get hooked, baby, it's nobody else's fault,
So don't do it!

(OK, that's from Grandmaster Flash's "White Lines," but you get the idea.)

More seriously, Mr. Mueller and the special counsel's office have handed down indictments in regard to a cyber attack on our country and as Doris Kearns-Goodwin explained, the president is derelict in his duty to uphold the Constitution by not protecting our democracy. Here's something key to remember: If we've heard of a question that Mr. Mueller is asking of interviewees, he and his team already know the answer. So does Mr. Trump and that is the reason why there's so much chaos, crisis and confusion in the administration. Mr. Mueller's investigation is truly making Mr. Trump batty; 'unglued' is the term used in the press.

With all that is known, Mr. Trump has taken no initiative to defend the country. NBC's Katy Tur noted that NSA chief Admiral Mike Rogers has not received an direction from the White House in terms of responding to Russia's cyber-aggression. The president is blaming the Obama Administration for not having done enough when it was in power. You don't get away with arguing that your predecessor didn't do enough when since the time you've taken over, you've done nothing. Yet, fmr. Obama Administration White House Chief of Staff, Denis McDonough, was on to defend his former boss, and what was clear from the interview was that the Obama Administration could have done more, but got hamstringed. Mr. McDonough explained that there wasn't a sense of urgency on the part of the Republican members of the 'group of 8' leadership group with regard to Russian election activity, specifically from Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY). Senator McConnell's name always seems to come up when the country writ large gets let down. Once again, not speaking out and on the wrong side of a decision that would be beneficial to the country. Mr. McDonough reluctantly admitted that Mr. McConnell didn't want to sign onto a bipartisan statement outlining and condemning Russia. What that did was make any potential out front statement by President Obama political and then seen as trying to tip the scale in favor of Mrs. Clinton. Image if Mrs. Clinton had been elected with Republicans still in control of congress. Hearing would be going on right now about how the Obama Administration tipped the scale. But McConnell and Republicans did nothing. Interestingly, Mr. Donough explained that the Russians didn't do some of the things the Obama Administration thought they would because the face to face meeting Mr. Obama had with Mr. Putin, where the president got into the Russian's face had an effect.

Despite that of course, Mr. Trump has done nothing so we see Vladimir Putin still able to smirk at the Trump reality-TV administration as he denies any role or knowledge of in what these indicted Russians have done. He's given himself free reign as far as acting and facing no repercussions. As this, while Xi in China consolidates even more power. Without presidential leadership there's no direction and we're just a dog chasing its tail in an ever-maddening circle.

But hey, be optimistic, the other news this week was that Mr. Trump announced his reelection bid this week as well.


Panel: Katy Tur, NBC News; Tom Brokaw, special correspondent NBC News; Doris Kearns-Goodwin, presidential historian; Al Cardenas, Republican Strategist