Donald Trump convened a press conference on Wednesday afternoon as his administration rushes to respond to allegations he abused the power of his office in the course of pressuring Ukraine to launch an investigation into Joe Biden and his son Hunter.
The president, looking tired and struggling to express himself coherently after a whirlwind 48 hours, attempted to deflect criticism by “demanding” transparency from Biden and asserting that Democrats have engaged in coercive behavior similar to that on full display in the declassified account of a July 25 call between the president and his Ukrainian counterpart.
“I have informed Kevin McCarthy and all Republicans in the House that I fully support transparency on so-called whistleblower information but also insist on transparency from Joe Biden and his son Hunter, on the millions of dollars that have been quickly and easily taken out of Ukraine and China”, Trump said.
He called the Ukraine fiasco a “hoax” and claimed world leaders at the UN were “coming up” to him and “laughing at the stupidity” of Democrats. Although he tried to muster his signature bombast, his heart wasn’t in it. The president was clearly exhausted.
“No push, no pressure, no nothing. It’s all a hoax, folks. It’s all a big hoax.”, Trump sighed, referencing his bi-lateral press availability with Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky, who we now know was asked by Trump to work with Rudy Giuliani and William Barr on an investigation into the Bidens.
He went on to call Nancy Pelosi’s impeachment inquiry “a joke”. “The witch hunt continues”, he said, adopting a fatalistic tone. “Impeachment? For that?”
He claimed a Washington Post article which suggested acting director of national intelligence Joseph Maguire threatened to resign if the administration compelled him to stonewall Congress was “fake news”.
Maguire released a statement to that effect just before Trump started to speak. “At no time have I considered resigning my position since assuming this role on August 16, 2019″, Maguire said. “I have never quit anything in my life, and I am not going to start now”.
You can draw your own conclusions on whether Maguire was simply doing damage control in order to avoid making an already awkward situation worse ahead of his own testimony on Capitol Hill. On Tuesday evening, Pelosi warned Maguire that he was breaking the law.
Asked specifically “why the American people should be comfortable with an American president asking a foreign leader for information about an American citizen?”, Trump launched back into a critique of the “total phony scam witch hunt” on the way to recapping his 2016 election victory.
“It was set up by people from within the government to try to stop somebody from getting elected”, Trump said, indulging the “deep state” conspiracy believer community of which he is by now a card-carrying member.
The president then delivered the following incoherent, paranoid jumble:
After that person – namely me – won, and convincingly won at 306 to 223 in the electoral college – which by the way, when you run a race, if you’re running electoral – now, if you go by the college, that’s a much different race than running popular vote. It’s like the hundred yard dash or the mile. We won an election convincingly. And then you had the text message on ‘Well, if she doesn’t win, we’ve got an insurance policy.’ How bad was that? You know what the insurance policy was? That’s sort of what’s been taking place over the last number of years.
Somehow, that was supposed to be an answer to why Americans should be comfortable with their president asking a foreign government to work with his personal attorney to go after a US citizen and his family.
Suffice to say the word salads Trump half-heartedly served up on Wednesday evening won’t do anything to allay the concerns of those determined to remove him from office in the interest of restoring the rule of law and safeguarding the vision of the Founders.
But that’s fine, because as Trump accidentally reminded everyone, his base doesn’t care about the rule of law or know anything about the principles on which the country was founded.
“You know what? The millions of people out there that are looking at what’s going on, they understand it”, he said. “They see it, and they think it’s disgusting”.
Read more: Trump, Giuliani Tried To Conspire With A Foreign Government Against Joe Biden’s Family
“It’s all a hoax, folks. It’s all a big hoax” — referring to his presidency, of course. This is an inflection point — and if Barr is completely discredited as the worthless fat hack that he is and Giluiani ends up facing charges, well, so much the better.
Hearing him talk about that “insurance policy” almost, for the very first time, made me feel bad for him. Then I remembered who it is we’re talking about.
The House will impeach, and then the Senate will invite Chief Justice Roberts over to watch a sham ten minute trial where they will acquit in a party-line vote with Manchin flipping to the Republicans. I have seen the future.
When are people going to start raising the issue of Trump’s obvious drug use? He was clearly under the influence in his appearance before the UN General Assembly. A menacing speech with anti-Semitic undertones read disintererestedly from teleprompters by a narcotized POTUS. Adderal and a too-heavy dose of Valium or some other sedative to keep his crazy sniffing under control? Also helps to explains the “exhausted” press conference he gave.