Thoroughly Modern Donny

I Am President They’re Not:  Saturday night, Trump tweeted that his “use of social media is not presidential, its MODERN DAY PRESIDENTIAL.”  Apparently a modern president is someone who aspires to be the master of tacky, sexist, press bashing, violence promoting tweets.  On Sunday morning to further establish his credentials, thoroughly modern Donny retweeted an edited version of an old video showing him wrestling and beating up WWE’s Vince McMahon in the so-called battle of the billionaires with a CNN logo in place of McMahon’s head.  Trump’s tweet left Tom Bossert, a Homeland Security official appearing on one of the morning shows as the video went viral struggling to defend the explosive tweet instead of addressing his intended subject, fireworks protection.  With Trump’s disgusting Mika and Joe tweet smacks reaching the end of their news cycle he desperately needed something new to divert attention from his flailing healthcare legislation so wrestle bashing CNN fit right in with his anti-elitist, liberal press mantra.  Trump was only partially successful, the Sunday news shows ran the CNN meme but quickly moved on to Trumpcare.  For its part, CNN responded to the tweet attack by pointing out that competent modern world leaders prepare for important economic summits suggesting that Trump’s time would be better spent getting ready for Thursday’s G-20 meetings especially his scheduled one-on-ones with Russia’s President Putin, Chinese President Xi, and German Chancellor Merkel and other world leaders most of whom spent their weekends reviewing briefing books and planning meeting strategies.

Trumpcare or Bust:  Trump’s tweets notwithstanding, Trumpcare was the focus of the Sunday morning talk shows.  Nebraska Senator Sasse who stirred the Trumpcare pot by suggesting that a straight repeal of Obamacare might be the way to go, backed off a little adding that any repeal would need to incorporate a delayed implementation date giving the Senate enough time to obtain the sixty votes necessary to pass a replacement plan.  Sasse, who describes himself as one of the most conservative members of the Senate, may also be among the most naïve ones.  The likelihood of getting sixty votes for a new healthcare plan out of this Senate and then getting it approved by the House is somewhere around zero percent. However, Sasse’s comments on Trump’s tweets were spot on, he criticized weaponizing distrust and called attacking of the press inappropriate.  Notwithstanding Sasse’s call to separate repeal from replace,  Majority Leader McConnell is still working on his version of Trumpcare plan.  He likened it to working with a Rubik’s cube and said he is still moving the pieces searching for a solution because it’s hard making America great again, especially when the president has no consistent views and his limited attention span is used for inane tweeting. The not so popular Senator Cruz is pushing a provision that will allow states to offer at least one stripped down health plan covering few, if any, essential services, giving younger, healthier people the option to buy into low cost, no coverage policies.  The Cruz suggestion would be a catastrophe for everyone else, raising the cost of insurance for full service plans leaving them with sicker, older participants and negatively impacting budget scoring. McConnell is expected to ask the scorers to deliver that news to Cruz so that he can get back to negotiating with his more moderate naysayers.  Ohio’s Governor Kasich, with the support of a number of Republican and Democratic Governors, is pushing for a bi-partisan plan that adequately funds Medicaid spending and opioid treatment.  For his part, Health and Human Services Secretary Price says that he is confident that Trumpcare will pass very soon, adding that there is no reason to increase opioid treatment funding because opioid treatment is so overrated. Price refused to criticize Trump’s nasty tweets.   

          

Getting Recruited For Russian Collusion:  The Wall Street Journal story about Peter Smith, the now deceased operations research guy who said he was working to locate Hillary Clinton’s “missing” emails with former adviser Mike Flynn and possibly other Trump campaign officials has legs.  Matt Tait, a cybersecurity researcher and a former British government information security specialist was one of the sources for the Journal story.  Friday, in a blog posted on Lawfare aptly titled “The Time I got Recruited to Collude with the Russians,” Tait reports being solicited by Smith and being shown a convincing document about the company that Smith set up to conduct opposition research on behalf of the Trump campaign at enough of a distance so as to avoid campaign reporting.  Tait is convinced that Smith’s claimed connections to Flynn were real.  He also wrote that the documents Smith showed him indicated convincing knowledge of the inner workings of the Trump campaign operation. Tait stayed in communication with Smith to learn more about the potential source of the emails but declined to join his team.  It’s highly likely that to the extent there are any Trump campaign communication records documenting the Smith connection, they are being reviewed by Special Counsel Mueller and are, or will be, a subject of discussion with Flynn, who has been out of sight lately possibly already cooperating with Mueller.  Mueller is still beefing up his prosecutorial team and expanding the scope of his investigation, he just added a top public corruption prosecutor who previously worked for Preet Bharara and has taken over all the Trump related investigations that had been handled by the New York Federal Attorney’s office.

The Pointless Commission:  Despite Trump’s tweet smack suggesting that states refusing to comply with his voter fraud commission’s overreaching data request must be hiding the millions of sunglass wearing Democratic corpses that they bus to the polls every election day a la Weekend at Bernie’s, more states are jumping on the no-way Jose bandwagon.  Kentucky’s Secretary of State said “not on my watch are we gonna be turning over something that’s left to the states to run.”  Adding “there’s not enough bourbon here in Kentucky to make this request seem sensible.”  Wild Turkey, anyone?

Happy Independence Day!