There's certainly a lot to comment on from this past week, but it's important to start with what Senator Ben Sasse (R-NE) explained in his interview today which was as long as we're focused on the daily incompetence of the president, there is no longer term vision or policy that is being executed. Granted it's almost impossible not to discuss anything without factoring the president into the equation, despite what Budget Director Mick Mulvaney said to donors the other day that if you take Mr. Trump out of the equation, Republicans will do very well in these midterm elections. Not much of a pep talk.
According to the anonymous op-ed in The New York Times written by a senior administration official, the public should take some 'cold comfort' in the fact that there are adults in the room. Kellyanne Conway, counselor to the president, is not one of them. She's the ultimate enabler to be certain. She explained that the team has tightened this week because of the op-ed, as they are "joined in our outrage." Aptly put considering that a majority of Americans are joined in their outrage about the performance of this president. Everyone's raging...
Chuck Todd asked Ms. Conway if the president is in charge of his presidency, to which you'd never get any other answer than 'of course.' But it's clear, as the panel discussed, that we have learned nothing new from the op-ed or from the excerpts of Bob Woodward's upcoming book Fear, except to confirm what we've been hearing on a daily basis. Case in point is Ms. Conway herself. She received a request from Mr. Woodward to interview the president for the book, and even though she does have direct access to the president, she decided herself to bury the request instead of informing the president about it. She admitted as much today.
Any which way, an 'unelected cabal' of people in an administration, especially this one, is not how the country should be run. As Cornell Belcher and Danielle Pletka agreed, it's both slightly comforting, but also terrifying.
And of course, what the op-ed achieved was to bring out even more authoritarian tendencies on the part of Donald Trump, ignorantly accusing The New York Times of treason. Also, when Mr. Todd asked Ms. Conway what law was broken that would precipitate President Trump telling Attorney General Jeff Sessions to investigate the leak, she of course didn't have an answer.
In terms of the Republicans in Congress, for the most part they're just keeping their heads down with nothing to say with the exception of the aforementioned Mr. Sasse who did in fact describe this administration as a reality show today. But writ large, Republicans haven't done a single thing in the form of any real oversight of this president or administration.
Instead, they're only, obviously, interested in their own power to in the case of confirming Judge Brett Kavanaugh for the Supreme Court, protecting their interests in the event that they lose power. Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) today accurately described every one of the Mr. Kavanaugh's answers as evasive and numbingly repetitious. Throughout the hearings, Mr. Kavanaugh repeatedly said that he would not answer a 'hypothetical' question so there was no gaining any insight into his judicial philosophy because so much of the documentation on Mr. Kavanaugh was withheld from the public.
Mr. Todd brought up Senator Kamala Harris's inquiry to Mr. Kavanaugh as to whether he had spoken to anyone at the president's lawyer's firm about the Mueller investigation. Mr. Durbin answered that Ms. Harris had heard that such a conversation may have taken place so she asked the nominee about it. It was the only definitive answer he gave, which was a 'no' answer, however it took him two days to answer with that one-word response.
Mr. Kavanaugh should not be confirmed for a lifetime appointment as a Supreme Court Justice as he is the epitome of an activist jurist. In the moment, as Mr. Durbin rightly outlined, he would rule for President Trump to deem any legal action against the president unconstitutional, essentially putting Mr. Trump above the law. And then in the long term, Mr. Kavanaugh, despite what he's said in these hearings, will acquiesce to the hard right and decide again Roe vs. Wade should it come before the court. Unfortunately, Republicans will successful jam this nominee through before the midterms, where they are anticipating losing control of Congress.
Our completely Republican-controlled government did the only two things it could in these two years of absolute control - confirm hard right Supreme Court judges and pass a massive unnecessary tax cut for the wealthiest Americans.
Panel: Katy Tur, NBC; Danielle Pletka, American Enterprise Institute; Cornell Belcher, Democratic Strategiest; Erick Erickson, The Resurgent
One More Thing...
The president really needs to learn how to say 'anonymous' to fain any sort of outrage. Or maybe just the meds were kicking in, anyone's guess...
Update: And if we were betting on who the anonymous op-ed writer is, this column predicts it's National Security Advisor, John Bolton.
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