1984 Calling

Orwellian:  Echoing George Orwell’s 1984, yesterday during a Kansas City speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars  Trump told the audience that “much of what you are seeing and what you are reading is not what’s happening.”  He went on to slam the “fake media” particularly NBC and the really horrible CNN, comments that a VFW representative later apologized for, pointing out that the press has always been supportive of veterans.  Last night, after additional audio from one of Michael Cohen’s taped conversations with Trump was released by Lanny Davis, Cohen’s PR lawyer, it became clear why Trump delivered his “don’t believe anything that you hear that’s not from Fox” message.  The released tape, which Trump’s PR lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, had earlier told us fully exonerated Trump whatever that means, shows that Trump did know about the payment made to Karen McDougal, the playmate who says that she had a ten month affair with Trump. The tape reveals that Trump and Cohen discussed the possibility of reimbursing someone named David, probably AMI’s David Pecker, the Trump friend and owner of the National Enquirer, for his $150,000 “catch and kill” payment to McDougal for her story about her affair with Trump.  Though the tape doesn’t reveal if Trump or Cohen actually made a payment, Trump is overheard saying that they should consider it in case Pecker is ever “hit by a truck,” implying that if Pecker wasn’t around someone else at AMI could decide to release the story in the future.  The two also discussed having Alan Weisselberg, Trump’s long term accountant, open one of those special “accounts,” implying that Trump and Cohen had made similar payments before. It’s not clear that anything the two discussed will result in any legal trouble for Trump but the conversation was unseemly, betrays Trump’s assertion that he wasn’t involved with McDougal and may be a harbinger of bad things to come from the remaining eleven tapes.  It’s not just the tape of his implicating conversation with Cohen that Trump wants us all, or at least his base, to forget or not believe, he also wants us to forget what Putin said during last week’s Helsinki press conference, specifically Putin’s answer to a question posed by a Reuter’s reporter who asked “did you want President Trump to win the election and did you direct any of your officials to help him do that?”  Putin responded “Yes, I did. Yes, I did. Because he talked about bringing the U.S.–Russia relationship back to normal.”  In a truly Orwellian move, that response has been wiped from the official White House transcript of the press conference.  The efficient and thorough Kremlin has gone one step further, they went ahead and deleted both the reporter and the whole exchange from their version.  Having excised evidence that Putin was all-in for Trump during the last election, Trump is now willing to acknowledge that the Russians may well be planning to interfere in the upcoming mid-terms, only this time he wants us all to believe that the Kremlin will be supporting Democrats.  Yesterday he tweeted “I’m very concerned that Russia will be fighting very hard to have an impact on the upcoming Election. Based on the fact that no President has been tougher on Russia than me, they will be pushing very hard for the Democrats. They definitely don’t want Trump!”  With polls, to the extent that they are to be believed, indicating that Americans were not all that impressed with Trump’s Helsinki behavior and also indicating that the much talked about Democratic wave may actually be coming in November, his worst fear given that Democratic control of the House would almost certainly result in the initiation of impeachment proceedings especially if Mueller concludes that there was obstruction and/or collusion, Trump appears to be laying the groundwork to claim that any election results that don’t go his way are fixed, His tweet is reminiscent of some of the things he said in the run up to the 2016 election when he thought that he was going to lose to Hillary.  Yesterday, Brian Kemp, the anti-immigrant far right candidate that he fully endorsed in Georgia won a run-off election becoming the state’s Republican nominee for Governor. Don’t expect to hear Trump claim that the run-off was fixed or influenced by the Russians.  Kemp will be facing Stacey Abrams, the Democratic nominee, a progressive who, if she wins, would be the first African American woman Governor. Talk about a stark contrast in philosophy and candidates.  To the extent that Abrams manages to win, far from a certainty, expect Trump to attribute her victory to Putin because in his mind that’s the only way that an African American woman could beat a guy who campaigns with a bus equipped with a few rifles in case he encounters any illegal immigrants on the campaign trail.  Really.    

Trump Trade War:  Well it doesn’t look like Trump’s tariff program is working out as planned.  Yesterday, just two days before he is due to visit Iowa, one of the red agricultural states hurt most by China’s retaliation against US imposed tariffs, the administration announced that it would provide up to $12 billion in emergency relief to farmers hurt by the Trump trade war.  The farmers have already lost around $13 billion so at best the relief will cover only a portion of the losses that they have incurred up until now.  Since the trade war doesn’t appear to be nearing an end more aid will be needed to make the farmers whole.  Farm groups and lawmakers, including many Republicans immediately criticized the move.  Tennessee’s Senator Corker, one of the soon to depart Republicans who has found his voice called the policy terrible, saying that it sends farmers to the poorhouse while we “borrow the money from other countries.”  Nebraska’s Senator Sasse, a frequent critic who is staying around, at least for a while, said  "this administration’s tariffs and bailouts aren’t going to make America great again, they’re just going to make it 1929 again" and Alaska’s Senator Murkowski wants to know how Trump could single out farmers for help when the manufacturing and energy industries are also affected.  She then asked “where do you draw the line?”  Apparently, the answer to that last question is that as long as money can be borrowed and/or taken  from health care or any environment related programs, there is no line.  Shortly after the farmer aid plan was announced first daughter Ivanka announced that she was closing down her fashion business because she is too busy in Washington doing whatever it is that she does in Washington to focus on shoes and dresses.  Her business which manufactured all of its products outside of the US was probably impacted by the tariffs although there had been some suggestion that her products might be exempted, a solution that even Ivanka recognized might be hard to justify.  It was also getting increasingly difficult, even for Ivanka, to attend more of those “manufacture in America” meetings while her products were all sourced elsewhere. Lastly, and probably most importantly, her business wasn’t doing all that well financially.   

The Kids:  Tomorrow is the day that all of the children separated from their parents at the Mexico border are supposed to be reunited with their families.   So far the government has reunited or otherwise resolved cases for just under half of the 2,551 children ages five and older, reporting 1,187 reunifications "or other appropriate discharges." Those children were reunited with 879 parents who were still in immigration detention when the government was ordered to put the families back together. Unfortunately with somewhere around 460 of the parents deported prior to the court ordered freeze on deportations, the freeze that is supposed to stay in effect  until the families are put back together, it remains likely that many of the separated children will never make it back to their parents.  At best those children will end up with other families members or in “suitable” foster homes. Turns out that when you implement a callous, ill thought out strategy, one without any concern for its impact on affected children, you end up with a less that satisfactory outcome.  Who knew?