Spinning Cotton

Hanging With George:  The two most remarkable things about the thirty hour interview that Trump’s gave ABC’s George Stephanopoulos are that he actually gave an anchor from a mainstream news outlet an interview and that he thought that he would be able to control the narrative so that he came out looking good.   All those ridiculous and revealing things he said were also remarkable but we only got to hear them because he sat, or in this case sat, drove, and walked with Stephanopoulos for so many hours.  In addition to the nugget that ABC released last week, that statement by Trump that taking “dirt” from foreign entities  had been fine by him in 2016 and would be fine in the run up to 2020, that only an idiot would contact the FBI when approached and that FBI Director Wray was wrong in saying otherwise, Trump also distorted the content and conclusions of the Mueller Report.  Specifically, he insisted to Stephanopoulos that Mueller had concluded that there had been no collusion and no obstruction and that he and his campaign had rebuffed all of Russian’s approaches and offers of dirt. As Trump snidely pointed out whenever he got tripped up, Stephanopoulos is small in physical stature but nothing about his size diminished his ability to beat back Trump’s false assertions, so he countered Trump’s efforts to twist the facts by repeatedly pointing out that though Mueller concluded that he couldn’t prove criminal conspiracy he saw lots of collusion and lots of receptivity from the Trump team. As to obstruction, Trump claimed he didn’t do any of that but that if he had it would have been okay because he’s an imperial president and as such had every right to fire Mueller.  He added that he didn’t because that Saturday Night Massacre thing hadn’t turned out well for Nixon.  Trump also went after former White House lawyer Don McGahn, asserting that he’d lied to Mueller’s team by saying he’d been told to fire Mueller because he was “confused” and “wanted to make himself look like a good lawyer. Or he believed it because I would constantly tell anybody that would listen -- including you, including the media -- that Robert Mueller was conflicted. Robert Mueller had a total conflict of interest." To state the obvious, McGahn’s no hero, he’s largely responsible for seating Justices Gorsuch and Kavanaugh and countless uber conservative judges but he’s not one to commit perjury. Trump also insisted that he’d been incredibly cooperative, providing written answers to all of Mueller’s questions, growing increasingly frustrated with Stephanopoulos every time he pushed back by pointing out that Trump hadn’t answered any questions about obstruction, so frustrated that he questioned whether little George had actually read the report.  With the interview behind him, Trump is now playing clean up.  He’s tried several times to walk back, or at least partially walk back his assertion that taking foreign dirt is hunky-dory, he’s managed to get a number of his Republican abettors to try to change the focus to Hillary and her “acid washed” email server, and, my favorite, with Sarah Huckabee Sanders on the way out, his team is now blaming her for allowing the  Stephanopoulos interview to even take place. 

More Trumpisms:  Trump celebrated the Father’s Day holiday by tweeting “Happy Father’s Day to all, including my worst and most vicious critics….”  He then added “A poll should be done on which is the more dishonest and deceitful newspaper, the Failing New York Times or the Amazon (lobbyist) Washington Post! They are both a disgrace to our Country, the Enemy of the People, but I just can’t seem to figure out which is worse?” His usual disdain for the press was particularly wound up by a NY Times report that Pentagon and intelligence officials have been escalating cyber-attacks on Russia's electric power grid by placing potentially crippling malware inside the Russian system.  He wasn’t all that please about the part of the article that said that he had not been briefed in any detail about the implanted computer code because of a "broad hesitation" by Pentagon officials to tell him about the details of operations against Russia over concern over how he would react, and the possibility that he might reverse the operations or discuss it with foreign officials named Putin.  Trump responded to that article by tweeting “Do you believe that the Failing New York Times just did a story stating that the United States is substantially increasing Cyber Attacks on Russia. This is a virtual act of Treason by a once great paper so desperate for a story, any story, even if bad for our Country." He then tweeted that the NY Times article was “NOT TRUE” even though a number of Pentagon sources report that it is, the NY Times stands by their story, and the practice of not telling Trump about actions to counter the Russians is consistent with what former Homeland Security Secretary Nielsen said during her term of office.  Trump is so out of the loop that he doesn’t even realize that he previously signed legislation that allows these types of activities to take place without his direct approval.  Trump is also particularly stressed out about his campaign’s internal polling especially the leaks of the polls showing him trailing Joe Biden by double digits in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Florida and Michigan. Those polls also found Trump behind Biden in several other states that were key to his win including Iowa, North Carolina, Ohio and Georgia while holding a narrow edge in Texas.  Trump’s first reaction was to deny that those polls even existed saying that they were “fabricated.” Then after his campaign manager/data guru Brad Parscale admitted that they were real but “out of date,” Trump killed the messengers, firing three of the five polling companies responsible for those polls including the company that was founded by White House advisor Kellyanne Conway.  It’s worth mentioning that Conway is known to be a prolific leaker, it’s quite possible that she was the source of those polling leaks, a strategy frequently employed by Trump’s staff when they are trying to get Trump to focus on things he’d rather ignore.             

Other Tidbits:  Former national security advisor Michael Flynn’s new lawyer is a former federal prosecutor named Sidney Powell who is one of the “earliest and fiercest” critics of the Justice Department and the FBI’s investigation into all things Russia. Trump responded to Flynn’s hire by tweeting “General Michael Flynn, the 33 year war hero who has served with distinction, has not retained a good lawyer, he has retained a GREAT LAWYER, Sidney Powell. Best Wishes and Good Luck to them both!” It wouldn’t be a leap of faith to believe that Flynn who hasn’t been sentenced yet, is cooperating on an open case and has been subpoenaed to appear before Congress still hopes to get a pardon and that Trump is dangling the idea possibly to get him to “tone” down his upcoming Congressional testimony.  A few weeks ago Treasury Secretary Mnuchin said that due to “unforseen” technical issues he was pushing off Obama era plans to put Harriet Tubman’s picture on the twenty dollar bill for at least six years.  It turns out that there are no technical issues, that the real issue is that Mnuchin doesn’t want to offend Trump who sees replacing Andrew Jackson with Harriet Tubman as a particularly offensive example of excessive political correctness.  Mnuchin picked the six year time period under the assumption that Trump will be out of office by then. Apparently he keeps missing Trump’s horrifying comments, including one he made this weekend, that his “supporters might demand” that he stick around longer, something he is more than open to doing. 

Iran:  In summary, the situation with Iran is not good.  Secretary of State Mike Pompeo says the US is "considering a full range of options" regarding rising tensions with Iran, including military options, although he emphasized Trump has said that he does not want to go to war.  Japan and Germany aren’t buying into our “proof” that the Iranians are responsible for the recent attacks on ships near the Straits of Hormuz maybe because Trump isn’t known to be a truth teller and to be fair he isn’t the first American president to create stories about non-existent dire threats to justify war.  The Iranians, who, to say the least, are hardly trustworthy actors, probably are responsible for the attacks, their way of responding to the extreme strains imposed on their economy due to the effects of sanctions that they hoped would be lifted as part of the JCPOA nuclear agreement, the one we’ve pulled out of and that they are beginning to violate. And just to spin things a little more, and by spin think the combination of centrifuges and hawks, Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton insists it will take no more than two strikes to win a war against Iran. Really?