"He Really Thinks His Call Was Perfect. It Wasn't": Trump at Odds With GOP, Kushner, His Campaign...

[hlthe2b]

New Piece at Vanity Fair

“Senators really dislike Trump and are tired of having to go to the mat for him on crazy, batshit stuff,” a source said. Read more here:

Link to tweet

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/01/trump-at-odds-with-kushner-as-impeachment-bites

As Donald Trump’s defense team prepares to make its first arguments on the floor of the Senate on Saturday, top Republicans are increasingly worried that Trump’s lawyers are woefully unprepared to counter Democrats’ meticulous, fact-based case for removing Trump. In the president’s circle there’s not full-blown panic—but there’s worry. “A lot of Republicans think the Democrats have done a very good job,” a prominent Republican who is close to Trump’s legal team told me. “It’s been a lot better than we expected.” Florida congressman Matt Gaetz, one of Trump’s fiercest House allies, seemingly spoke for many when he blasted Trump’s lawyers, telling Politico this week that the Trump team’s presentation was worse than “an eighth-grade book report.”

Removing Trump from office remains a distant outcome, but the dynamics of the Senate trial are clearly shifting in directions that are dangerous for the president. A new Emerson poll released on Thursday showed 51% of registered voters support removal, an uptick of two points. A Reuters poll published on Wednesday showed nearly three quarters of Americans want to hear new witnesses. The prospect that former national security adviser John Bolton would testify is alarming Republicans. (Trump and Bolton’s relationship is badly damaged. A day after Bolton left the administration in September, Trump raged that Bolton was “a liar and a leaker,” according to a person briefed on the conversation.) “If witnesses start coming and Bolton is negative, it could win some Republicans,” a source close to Trump told me. “Senators really dislike Trump and are tired of having to go to the mat for him on crazy, batshit stuff,” the source said. “We know if senators took a secret vote today, he’d be removed.”

Trump’s circle is waking up to the notion that impeachment is a serious drag on his campaign. “Impeachment is drowning out all his accomplishments,” a Republican insider said. But impeachment is only one aspect of the problem. Inside the campaign there is an intensifying debate between Trump and his advisers about whether the campaign should run on base-incitement issues like immigration or a moderate-appealing message about the economy that could win back suburban voters. “They’re all trying to get Trump to run on general election issues and not get caught up in side issues,” a source close to the campaign said. “But Trump is focused on other stuff and going after [Joe] Biden.”

--more at the link-- (including his Kushner/Pascale "issues" with handling the campaign and Trump's continuing "foul mood" and grievances--e.g. Time Mazazine cover of Kushner)

[Iliyah]

1. Republicans ain't tired enough tho . . .

[Cosmocat]

7. Yeah

Yeah, just more of the same, like they were going to stand up to him at the convention 4 tears ago ... like, McConnell, collins, cruz saying how horrible he was before planting themselves up his ass, they will go out in front of the cameras and scream LIBERALS, hype it on fundraising, etc.

[hlthe2b]

2. Great Response:

(wouldn't we all, wouldn't we all)

Link to tweet

[Bernardo de La Paz]

4. 1945. Trump was born in June 1946, so conceived the previous year. . . . nt

[2naSalit]

10. I give the guy

a 99 out of 100 points for the concept!

[Bernardo de La Paz]

12. +1

[Mc Mike]

3. He also thinks he's svelte, tan, dreamy looking, with a luxurious mane of hair.

And he thinks he's a very stable genius. And a fantastic businessman.

[The Wizard]

5. What exactly constitutes a

"perfect call?" He just makes up terms on the spot and keeps pounding away just like he learned from Hitler and Goebbels. Every utterance is the opposite of what he says. The GAO says he broke the law. The question is was the law perfectly broken?

[localroger]

6. This. It doesn't mean anything.

Trump does not use language descriptively; he uses it emotively. You can't even call the "perfect call" comment a lie, because to be a lie it would have to describe something that could be true or false. What it is is a way he wants you to feel about the call. He has always done this to a certain extent; it's Propaganda 101 and I suspect he took some seminars on those techniques when he was younger. As Trump has gotten in over his head in every aspect of the Presidency, his language has gradually lost what meaning it used to convey and become pure emotive manipulation. You see this in its purest form at his rallies, where he is free to go off on whatever hare-brained shiny object captures his attention.

The impeachment defense promises to be an interesting study in this because we know Trump is going to insist on a lot of the language his defense team will use, so it is likely to be a mix of the arguments just debunked by Schiff et al and more crazypants word salad meant to soothe Trump's sense that the right emotional buttons are being pushed. It was clear the R senators were deeply uncomfortable listening to the Democrats' case; it will be very interesting to hear how they react to whatever response Trump's team puts up.

[2naSalit]

11. It's what pooty remarked when he bragged about it in

their secret phone call after it happened. Or, pooty told him it would be perfect if he did that. Either way, it was a golden comment by his idol so he'll repeat it forever in association with the call.

[Kaiserguy]

8. Drowns out Trump accomplishments

What has he accomplish that has been good for the 99% ? I cant think of one thing. I can however think of lots of things that he has done that have cause harm to us.

[tanyev]

9. Ha! I wondered if IMPOTUS would be ticked off by Jared's magazine cover.

His extreme narcissism renders him unfit for any position of responsibility. How did he not get laughed off the stage during the Republican primary?

[eppur_se_muova]

13. And WHY does the POTUS have such lousy lawyers ? WHY ?

Shouldn't "the most powerful man in the free world" be able to attract -- or at least choose -- the top talent in the whole legal world for his defense ? Shouldn't the prosecution be cowed by the very mention of the names of the top legal talent lined up against them ? Shouldn't the defense team be surrounded by an aura of gravitas and highly capable resolve ? Why should his "Dream Team" be anything less than the absolute best ?

We all know the answer(s): 1. Because he picked them himself, and he has excruciatingly poor judgement and worse taste, grounded in lifelong, utterly refractory, overwhelming ignorance, and 2. Because truly capable legal and political talent would want absolutely nothing to do with this third-rate grifter for a client. Only the bottomest of bottom feeders, the most harebrained, conspiracy theory-consumed hacks, and petty grifters sensing common cause with a lifelong fraud would see joining this team as an opportunity.

45's defense team joins that long list of abject failures which have been anointed with the Trump brand. It is truly the Kiss of Death.

[hedda_foil]

15. He's only comfortable with the bottomest of bottom feeders, the most harebrained, conspiracy theory-

Etc, etc etc.

[LastLiberal in PalmSprings]

14. GOP insider: "Impeachment is drowning out all his accomplishments."

I keep hearing Fat Donnie's supporters touting his "accomplishments" without naming a single one. Once on Samantha Bee's show they sent a "reporter" to a Trump rally to ask people wearing red hats to name a single accomplishment, and the result was nada. But they sure as hell loved Trump.

The only "accomplishments" I can see are those which benefit Trump's company, and by extension the Three Stooges (his children). Some are monetary, like all the golfing trips to his property, and the other are ego-driven, like the Wall and Space Force.

His other "accomplishments" are those which benefit his rich "friends" (I doubt he has a real friend -- you have to be able to laugh to have a friend, and you have to be humble to have a good friend, and he has neither quality).

Finally, his "accomplishments" include those that benefit his insane religious "base," most of which are rabid anti-abortionists and racists. He has appointed nearly one quarter of the federal bench, including two Supreme Court justices. The primary qualification one needs to be given a lifetime appointment is to profess an anti-abortion pro-business philosophy, plus unerring loyalty to Herr Orange One. Being young is another necessity. Having any true legal credentials is not required -- in fact he seems to take pride in appointing judges who have been rated "not qualified" by the ABA.

When the Senate votes to acquit they will forever have destroyed the Constitution's prescribed role of Congress as the branch of government which operates as a check against excesses of the Executive. Trump will have proven without any doubt that he can do anything he wants and not have to provide a single document or employee to testify in either house to justify his actions.

#MakeAmericaGoAway