Before you read some passages from Kathleen’s latest, do just take a second to let this week sink in.
Here’s a fun recap:
- Trump attempt to shame his own AG into resigning,
- a new communications director whose nickname is “The Mooch” calling known bigot and alt-Right godfather Steve Bannon a “cocksucker” in an angry phone call to The New Yorker,
- that very same “Mooch” calling Trump’s Chief of Staff Reince Priebus “a fucking paranoid schizophrenic,” in that very same angry phone call to The New Yorker,
- Reince Priebus resigning,
- “repeal and replace” crashing and burning for the umpteenth time,
- Trump banning transgender folks from the military via Twitter, apparently without actually getting consensus from the military itself.
- The Boy Scouts issuing an apology for Trump’s speech at their jamboree
- The police community promising they won’t take Trump’s advice to violate suspects’ rights
- Trump threatening China on Twitter on Saturday night
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Excerpted from a longer piece by for WaPo
Donald Trump had his worst day since he was elected president – we’ll just call it Friday – and his worst week since the last one.
Things can only get worser and worser, as the Bard would permit me to say.
Let’s start with the vote-a-rama and the “skinny repeal,” which puts me in mind of a state fair ride and placing an order at Starbucks.
I’d like a skinny repeal, please – venti, with mocha.
As all know by now, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) didn’t get the skinny on repeal and shocked the chamber by voting no with a thumbs-down.
[…]
Back at the Ponderosa, Trump at least had a soul mate in whom to confide, Anthony Scaramucci, the White House’s new communications director. “Mooch” or “Mini-Me” to Washington insiders, Scaramucci is Trump’s kneecapper. Good cop, meet seriously bad cop.
Scaramucci is the personification of Trump’s deep brain. To the extent that the president ever withholds a thought, Scaramucci is there to express it for him. He’s his human Twitter feed. Thus, we may assume that what Scaramucci says, Trump thinks. Thanks to the New Yorker’s Ryan Lizza, we’re privy to enough premium quotes to entertain ourselves for months.
[…]
By late Friday afternoon, Priebus was out of a job, with Trump tweeting that he was replacing him with Homeland Security Secretary John F. Kelly.
Next, we visit El Salvador, where, strangely, we find Attorney General Jeff Sessions. We know Trump wants to get rid of Sessions, but sending him into the maw of the beastly MS-13 gang seems excessively aggressive even for this president. While Poor Sessions (see previous column) was practicing Spanish for “I have nothing against tattoos, but seriously?,” Trump was making a play in Ohio for tighter immigration by focusing on the gang’s murderous record.
And, lest we ignore the gold coin Trump magically pulled from his ear, the president randomly ordered transgender people out of the military. What, no women bleeding this week?
Health care, schmealth care, in other words. As buffer to the inevitable, Trump made sure to create a little sidebar drama – expelling thugs and transgender people, rooting out leakers and traitors, and threatening to fire anyone who says “Russia” in his presence.
So many shiny objects, so few left to fool.
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