Lordie... No matter if you're discussing the pandemic, John Bolton or election politics, it all comes back to the all too frustrating common denominator - Senate Republicans. This one group is the hold up, the enabler, the shameless, the feckless, the problem.
Among the many things John Bolton said that this column disagrees with is that the Republicans should keep control of the Senate whether Mr. Trump is reelected or not. Mr. Bolton reasoned that a political party shouldn't be driven by the individual but the philosophy and it's that conservative philosophy that needs to be in place as a check for a stable republic. However, Republicans in the Senate jettisoned their conservative philosophy for Trumpism, which isn't really even an 'ism.' Following the whims of an individual is not a political philosophy, it's the abdication of responsibility. What Mr. Bolton is saying is that if Joe Biden is president, they'll find their conservative footing again. Well, isn't that convenient? They all swore an oath to uphold the constitution and in these past 3 1/2 years, they've collectively broken that oath by not keeping a corrupt president from unlawful action.
In the case of John Bolton, he thought that Senate Republicans would want to know the truth from the guy who was in "the room where it happened" during the impeachment trial and subpoena him. Think again. Under the leadership of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), Senate Republicans had no interest, calling no witnesses. The bottom line is that if Mr. Bolton wanted to come forward and testify, he could have in the House of Representatives. And now he's worried that the republic would not be able to survive a second term of Donald Trump? Many Americans are worried about the same thing, but Mr. Bolton was in a position to do something about it. Instead, he cut and ran in the moment with an eye on a payout once he reached the other side. Mr. Bolton said that he sticks to his conservative philosophy, but if this is it, it's thoroughly compromised and needs to go. In other words, a Senate Republican majority needs to be sent home.
As NBC's Kasie Hunt explained, it is in June when the political bedrock is set for the fall election and many Senate Republicans have hitched their wagons to Donald Trump's, and it's too late to jump off. However, because of the spikes in coronavirus cases in namely Texas, Arizona and Florida, Republican senators are starting to grumble in an attempt to get their own voices back a bit, and Ms. Hunt reported that Senate Republicans, behind the scenes, definitely want a stronger federal response from the administration. They all know that the Trump Administration has handled the pandemic horribly. Mitch McConnell is now encouraging people to wear a mask, which can reduce the chance of transmission by 25 percent, but people on his side of the aisle aren't listening because the president refuses to wear a mask in any circumstance and will not encourage people to do so. His vice president can not even say the word 'mask' during a coronavirus task force press conference.
Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar this is a county by county issue that the federal government will be there to support counties and states as they need help. In his interview, he basically conceded that there is no national strategy and that the administration is essentially ignoring the 'pan' in pandemic. Without a national strategy one of the worries that New York Governor Andrew Cuomo mentioned was that the progress made in his state will be negated because other states haven't taken the necessary steps. All the administration's talk of counties and states was rightly interpreted by Mr. Cuomo who summed it up by saying that the states are on their own.
And because states on are their own with no national strategy to combat the spread and mitigate death totals, the rosy picture that Hugh Hewitt painted for January isn't going to happen. It was refreshing that Kasie Hunt called him out on his depiction of how great it will be if Trump is reelected - in January will be back at 3.5 percent unemployment, for example - so that this column didn't have to on that. However, in reaction to the president giving a nonsensical answer to what his second term priorities would be, Mr. Hewitt said that the president gave a Klayton Kershaw (Los Angeles Dodgers ace pitcher) windup but didn't deliver the pitch. We guess he could have said something stupider, but this comment was impressive in that respect. It's like he was trying to pull the best smelling crap from a pile of crap. Why Mr. Hewitt still has a radio show or platform is anyone's guess with these types of ridiculous comments.
Mr. Hewitt should do what the Senate Republicans have been doing with regard to the president's lawlessness, offensiveness, and impotent response to the pandemic. He should just say that he didn't see the tweet, put his head down and scurry away.
Panel: Kasie Hunt, NBC; Eddie Glaude, Jr.; Princeton University; Hugh Hewitt, Salem Radio Network
One more thing...
According to U.S. intelligence officials, Russians are paying bounties to the Taliban to kill U.S. soldiers. This story was reported in the New York Times, in which it also said that the president was briefed about it in March. The president said that he was not briefed on this, hence the administration has had no response. As much as we disagree with John Bolton, we're with him on this one thinking it's odd that a president would go out of his way to say that he was not briefed. Will Mr. Trump act? Maybe if he's pressured enough because he doesn't want to look anymore like he's in Putin's pocket than he already does.
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