Jim Newell has the news that John Thune is asking Trump to quit and calls it a turning point.
Thune is up for election this year. While it’s true that a Thune victory is pretty close to a sure thing, it’s not sealed. Thune faces underfunded, but qualified, opposition from Jay Williams. The two have two debates in the next week, and one more during the last week of the month. South Dakota is a tiny state (smaller than most Congressional districts). A lot of those voters are bible bangers. If Jay Williams is able to wrap Trump around Thune’s neck, Thune could be in a little bit of trouble.
If the reason Thune is calling for Trump to quit is because he’s running scared, what kind of insurance is this? He supported Trump through all of his other lies, racism, sexism, etc. Is Trump’s brag about his ability to sexually abuse any woman the bridge too far? Perhaps Thune is banking on some other terrible news dropping. Or he’s putting down a marker to be a somewhat reasonable Republican in the 2020 Presidential race.
Or maybe I’m overthinking this. If you’ve stood by Trump until October 8 and you’re up for election, all of your options are shitty. Death by firing squad or death by hanging is still death. Which one you choose is essentially a coin flip.
MattF
Maybe Thune is guarding against a surge of illegal immigrants from Minnesota.
Shalimar
Sure, ask him to quit now. Because everything about Trump screamed “class” before last night.
lamh36
? Martin
Pretty much this. Dignity wraith. They were fucked the moment they signed on.
dmsilev
@lamh36: Joe Biden, very much unlike Donald Trump, is a good person. I think that says all that needs to be said.
lamh36
I’m beginning to think this recording was “leaked” earlier than AH/NBC wanted by #NeverTrump GOP ops after Pence did well in VP debate and right before this debate that Trump HAD to “win”, just so that you can get all these pols withdraw DJT support & try elevate Pence as way for GOP to “salvage” their chances that they lose with Trump at top of ticket.
? Martin
Actually, they were fucked no matter what they did. Once the deplorables become the majority of the GOP base, they force you to either join up or get out. If you want to say in the GOP, you have to get on board.
BGinCHI
Dem candidates need to point out that electing anyone from Trump’s Party is a vote for policies supported by the man at the top of the ticket.
Make them show voters where the policy positions are different.
lamh36
Glad the eagle is ok, but the irony in this right at this moment in time is funny as hell!
@ABC
Clay County Sheriff’s Office says bald eagle is okay after getting stuck in the grille of an oncoming car
bemused
Why are they bothering to tell Trump to drop out? They should know by now that Trump is a child, a brat who has gotten his way most of his life. Nobody tells him what to do, it just makes him throw bigger tantrums.
Shalimar
Slightly off of the immediate topic, I am really looking forward to hearing what Trump considers the “far worse” stuff Clinton has said to him on the golf course. Not because I believe anything Trump says, but just because I want a look inside his head about what is considered “worse” by a man with no clear concept of morality.
debbie
@bemused:
If I were any of them, I’d be afraid of Trump turning his Twitter account on them.
MattF
@Shalimar: Trump is probably trying to think up a good answer to that at this very moment.
Keith G
If a Trump loyalist is up for re-election, it’s the demographics of the district that matters. I suppose many are safe and will continue to be safe up until the moment Trump’s DNA is discovered to have been found at the JonBenét Ramsey crime scene.
Right now in Wisconsin, Paul Ryan is catching hell for backing away from Trump.
dmsilev
@Shalimar: Don’t worry, I’m sure it’ll come up at the debate tomorrow. Probably in response to some audience member asking about climate change.
Shalimar
@shomi: If front-pagers here stopped posting, would you even exist anymore?
nonynony
You’re over thinking it. Racism in SD is more of a driver than “bible banging”. Like everywhere else in the country, the Bible banging is to cover for the racism, not an actual devout belief for most of them.
In the case of SD the racism is directed at the Native Americans because they’re the local hated minority. But its all of a piece.
Lyrebird
@Shalimar: YMMV, but I think that this
..might be not so terrible, for the same reason (no morality) you cite. Not sure if you got to read the couple-hundred replies ~2 threads ago re: Republicans generally and Trump in particularly having no clear concept of consent. So Trump probably doesn’t get that someone saying, “yeah, lookit her, I’d like to [enumerate enough acts to fill about 3 Hustler fantasy letters]…” without planning or praising assault is both not “worse” and just totally different.
bemused
@? Martin:
That explains why Republicans and the other prez candidates did such a lousy job campaigning, not using dirty oppo against Trump. They were too scared of the Trump base and evangelicals. Idiots thought they could court and scam all the deplorables for decades and they’d always stay in line. Trump and the Republican party have a lot in common, architects of their own flameouts.
Pest Bog Mummy, Frakensteinbeck
@Lyrebird:
What Clinton actually said doesn’t matter, of course. Trump will make up the worst accusation he can think of and drive it relentlessly. It’s going to be a strange debate.
Shalimar
@Lyrebird: That is what I suspect too. Trump has no idea why what he said was so horrible, so his “much worse” is going to be something like Clinton claiming he had slept with a huge number of women consensually. “See, Clinton talked about 400+. I only got caught talking about groping one.”
bemused
@debbie:
And Trump supporters who are already pissed off and it’s only been one day.
Elizabelle
Hearing that Kelly Ayotte is advising a write in for Mike Pence? That’s what she’s doing? (Was rumored, maybe on the thread below.)
Laughing. Hard. The great white (haired) hope of the Republican party is a Hoosier governor who heaved himself onto the Donald Trump Crazy Train so that he would not have to face Hoosier voters again. Cuz he was going to lose. VP selection announcement was made within days or hours of having to formally file in the Indiana governor’s race.
Republicans. Behold your savior.
ThresherK
@bemused: I stole this from the Professional Left podcast, over a month ago. Did not know it would be such a great(er) metaphor now than on Labor Day:
The R’s calling for him to drop out want to show they tried to talk the drunkard from putting his blowhard talk into action after he leaves the bar for home.
Elizabelle
@Pest Bog Mummy, Frakensteinbeck: What will our drinking words be?
If you picked “avalanche” or “insult” in the VP debate, you were insensate by its end.
bemused
@ThresherK:
Grasping for straws is their only option now.
Aleta
Now’s the time for any R who wants him out to begin leaking too.
Worries me when he says “I’ll never step down,” since he always lies, doesn’t keep his word, and loves to bargain hard.
Applejinx
@Shalimar:
Supposing Bill is an inveterate horndog, imagine it’s something like this: “See that girl? She’s sucked my dick five times today”
Note a key difference, even if it’s something as brazen as that: Bill is the grope-ee. Trump is the grope-ER. Bill Clinton didn’t have to be grabby, the whole point of a Bill Clinton is to get HIS junk grabbed by eager would-be starfuckers.
The Donald is not that kind. Those getting intimate with him are more mercenary, and he’s never quite learned not to just reach out and grab what he wants. To him, that is winning.
Anne Laurie
@Shalimar:
“I really admire the dignity President Obama has brought to the Oval Office. But then, when you look at his lovely wife and those two beautiful daughters, you knew he had to be a good man and a trustworthy leader.”
or…
“Hillary was always the smart one in our relationship; I’m just glad she’s had the grace to put up with my shenanigans all these years.”
or even…
“Y’know, lots of people made the mistake of assuming a white-trash hick from Arkansas would never finish college, much less end up in the Oval Office, but I’ve been blessed.”
MomSense
@Elizabelle:
I’m not sure it would be safe to pick a drinking word for this debate. Also too I never expected that pu$$y might come up in the course of a Presidential debate.
Pest Bog Mummy, Frakensteinbeck
@Aleta:
He’s not Bill Kristol. He’s not prophetically wrong. He just says whatever bullshit springs to mind at the time.
Pest Bog Mummy, Frakensteinbeck
@Applejinx:
I have heard Trump supporters talk, and Trump himself. He will almost certainly accuse Bill Clinton of actual rape. Remember, what Clinton actually said is irrelevant, much like Pence could just shrug his shoulders and say ‘He didn’t say that’ to quotes from Trump over and over. Trump will make up what is convenient for him to be true.
Splitting Image
@Elizabelle:
It would make a good ad for Indiana: “You didn’t want this person as your governor. Are you sure you want him for President?”
Elizabelle
@MomSense: I would not have taken the bet that the p-word would come up before the n-word.
And I’d love someone to put up a link to young principled Paul Ryan’s Wisconsin event later. Not anywhere near a teevee. Thank dog.
Bill E Pilgrim
The dream awakens from its slumber.
What I would love to hear Hillary Clinton say tomorrow night is something like:
“Let’s talk for a moment about the political party that gave you Donald Trump as their nominee for President. For years, Republicans have denied that their openly declared program of creating gridlock would damage the country, and then you watched as it did great damage. For years they claimed that if we just give trickle-down economics another chance, give tax cuts to the wealthy and let it trickle down to the rest of us, our country will be better off. But any time we’ve tried it we’re far worse off, because nothing trickles down, the wealthy just spend it on luxuries and offshore investments. For years Republicans claimed that they were the party of fiscal responsibility, then they nominated a candidate who pays no income tax on millions of dollars in earnings. It’s time to stop listening. If you vote to elect a Republican to Congress, either the House or the Senate, you’re enabling more gridlock, more dysfunction, and more money for the wealthy with nothing for the rest. Let’s get this government working again. Elect me, but elect enough Democrats to Congress along with me so that we can end the work stoppage and get things done. I am me, and I approve this message.”
Drumpf is so toast at this point that at debates she’s already got the Bully Pulpit, as it were. Take advantage. He’s a ghost, go after the rest.
Barbara
What Trump said is shocking — that he said it, and that there are random tapes of him out there saying it, is totally unsurprising. To be honest, if Bill Clinton were running this year, I think people would be more skeptical and less inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt on the allegations that dogged him. But all of this was well-litigated, literally, and in the public eye non-stop and people made up their own minds at the time — and Bill Clinton is not running. Trying to use something that he was judged not culpable for against his wife is its own kind of misogyny, among all the other kinds the Trump campaign seems to have internalized.
Anne Laurie
@Applejinx: Nah, Bill’s looking a lot frailer these days, I’m guessing his horndog days are behind him. I can imagine him saying something like “Dang it’s discouraging when the young girls treat you like their granpa instead of a hookup, ain’t it?” and grossly offending The Donald with the assumption that he’s also a back number, though!
Keith G
From one of the lower circles of hell:
Elizabelle
Do you think Trump will show for the debate tomorrow night? I am wondering if he will come down with health issues or laryngitis or something.
Aleta
Still don’t know if it can happen, but Pence has always had the odor of a stealth candidate. (Not that his violations of human rights are under the radar, but that his steady white glow is a mask like Bush’s ruddy boyish smile was, for people who want things that aren’t there.)
Baud
@Keith G: Both sides!
debbie
@bemused:
You’re right. I didn’t think about them. Scary.
Bill E Pilgrim
@Keith G: Funny I read that as “the goddess progressive agenda” at first. So specific, I thought.
Feudalism Now!
Pence as GOP White Knight seems to be the party line. Ayotte said she will be writing in Gov. Pence and the Utah Contingent along with Thune and few others are asking Trump to “step aside’ for the good of the party and let Pence have a shot. MoJo had a list of Thuglicans who had pulled their support so far. Most of the statements mention Pence and only chance of defeating Hillary. That is what is important. Not that Trump is unfit for the office, but he has no chance of defeating Hillary.
sigaba
@Keith G: Doesn’t he have some militiamen to minister to somewhere?
Meanwhile, Tic Tacs have broken their silence.
MomSense
@Anne Laurie:
I actually think that Hillary and Bill have a great marriage. They are clearly intellectual equals and I can’t imagine there are many other people either of them could spend their lives with. They speak of their marriage as a conversation that started 40 years ago which says to me they are still learning together and interested in each other. I honestly don’t care one bit about the extramarital sex. That’s between them.
Barack and Michelle are similarly the only people for each other and I think that is a real love story. Each one is extraordinary. I always guessed that Valerie Jarrett was there to make sure the stresses and power of the job never caused problems.
Aleta
@Pest Bog Mummy, Frakensteinbeck: I like this Pest Bog location for a Mummy.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Like giving people access to health care through insurance and subsidies. Verily I tremble for my country when I contemplate that God is just.
bemused
@debbie:
They’re unhinged. Very concerning.
MattF
@Aleta: Right. Trump is probably looking for a way to come out of this while clearing a profit.
Trentrunner
McCain is out.
First GOP senator in close race to jump Trump ship, right? ETA: Ayotte slipped my mind. Second!
More popcorn!
Elizabelle
@Feudalism Now!: That makes Tim Kaine’s work during the VP debate even more important.
He was a serial interrupter, which he is not in real life, but there are loads of short soundbites of Pence lying about Trump’s record.
Of course, were Trump out of the race, the GOP will again be lily clean and lily white. All sins washed away. They were only Trump’s. And how did he end up on the GOP ticket, anyway?
dedc79
Keep in mind, there are still tons of people (within and outside the political press) heavily invested in propping up the Republican Party. I fully expect any/all Republicans who break with Trump today or later this week to be praised for their supposed bravery.
PPCLI
@Shalimar: Probably he means that Bill spoke in favor of a single-payer health care system.
mike in dc
http://www.rawstory.com/2016/10/bombshell-trump-told-howard-stern-its-okay-to-call-ivanka-a-piece-of-ass/
Like a steady stream of Hellfire missiles slamming into the Trump Train.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Trentrunner: as in withdrew his endorsement? Oh, man, if Arpaio Republicans turn on McCain…. deep breaths, don’t count chickens, et cetera.
sigaba
@Trentrunner: McCain’s out out? A bunch already have, Ayotte and Thune in particular, at least among those who have endorsed him.
I think the biggest development today is that the RNC has halted production of Trump direct mail and has removed his name from all their telephone solicitation scripts. Though I suspect this is less due to the senators than it is due to whale Republican donors dropping the boom.
Trentrunner
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Yup. Not voting for Trump.
scav
Amusing. After Pussygrobazi arises CAT: Candies Against Trump
Baud
@dedc79: Agree. Their problem is that their base is pro-Trump.
Trentrunner
LOL these GOPers waiting for Trump’s Sunday debate performance to decide…
…Have you guys SEEN Trump in debates?
JMG
They cannot get rid of him. It’s too late. They were too stupid to ally against him in the primaries when it could have made a difference. Now, they cannot dump him without tearing the party in half and incidentally torching their own careers.
Bill E Pilgrim
Republican operatives are warming up the time demolition ray to blast the period from July to early October out of existence. “I opposed Trump, vociferously, as the Republican nominee in 2016” will be boilerplate.
What does pre-infuriate me is how many people will recall that he was winning before “that tape came out”, when he was in fact sinking like a stone.
hueyplong
@Trentrunner: Trump won THEIR debates.
Because the 27% made up more than half the GOP.
It also explains why no one stopped him. Trump is the soul of the GOP now.
Elizabelle
@dedc79: Because if there is anything that Republicans stand for, it is principle.
sigaba
@Trentrunner:
More like they’re all running internal polls and watching what happens to people like the Blue-Eyed Granny Starver and Thune and Joe Heck.
And it’s not pretty:
ETA. I really don’t think this is likely, but if the Trumpers can maintain their unity through this election and glom onto new candidates, we’re looking at a repeat of the California Republican Party’s Prop 187 gambit. It’ll kill them and their voters will never let them give it up, the Trumpers will sooner vote for third parties than give up their toys and rejoin the establishment.
bystander
I want to hear why NBC was sitting on this and it was Farenthold at WaPo who broke the story. That liberal MSNBC.
They’re now reporting another stupid nothing story from Trump Tower. Trump came down to give a fist up to his supporters on Fifth. MSNBC’s Ali Vitali looks like she’s afraid to be there. All the supporters are men.
McCain is withdrawing his endorsement. Another Salty Repubtini, heavy on the tears, Dmitri!
Elizabelle
@Trentrunner: Do you think Trump will show for the debate/town hall?
Bill E Pilgrim
@bystander:
Oh dear…
Nothing is really going to be the same at this point when referring to Trump. It’s just a law of nature.
Pest Bog Mummy, Frakensteinbeck
@Bill E Pilgrim:
I don’t think so. I think changing the subject will be the go-to response. It’s working for a lot of them right now, with Trump in front of them. This will be like GWBush, who even after eight years of Obama hate has disappeared down the memory hole for most Republicans.
EDIT – Although they’ll have a different problem. Trump’s voters are not going away. They’ve had a taste of ‘loud and proud.’
dedc79
@Baud: Yup, and we’re seeing signs of this already at some of the republican rallies this weekend:
dmsilev
@Trentrunner:
Third. John Thune earlier today.
McCain’s statement:
I assume that last bit means that he’s writing himself in.
Trentrunner
@Elizabelle: Yes. It’s a show. Moth to a flame.
Trentrunner
@dmsilev: Thune’s race is not close, right?
Bill E Pilgrim
@Pest Bog Mummy, Frakensteinbeck: Did you ever notice how many people claim that they opposed the invasion of Iraq? There was a prime example recently, cant think of his name….
Aleta
@dmsilev: Or Sarah Palin
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@dmsilev: He and Lindsey will write each other in
bystander
@Elizabelle: I wish everything I read left me with the big grin I have now. It’s a disaster unfolding like a Rube Goldberg invention, with touches of Feydeau slamming doors.
Pest Bog Mummy, Frakensteinbeck
@dedc79:
The voters who got Trump the nomination, the actual core of the GOP, cheered when they heard Trump say those words. They not only think he’s being attacked for being honest, they think he’s being attacked for being awesome.
Bill E Pilgrim
@bystander:
Points for that. French ones.
my favorite Feydeau story: He was an insomniac, and after watching one of his plays and staying out late he’d wander around the streets of Paris even later, and once looked up and saw a red glow and thought wow, is that morning already? He couldn’t quite make it out so he asked a younger, strapping tradesman nearby delivering something “Monsieur, is that the dawn?” and the guy peered at it, looked back and said ‘I don’t know monsieur, I’m not from this quartier”. Feydeau liked it so much he put it in a play.
dmsilev
@Trentrunner: No, you’re right. I had missed the ‘close race’ stipulation.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I despise John McCain, but he’s been up by double digits for the last couple of weeks. I don’t know AZ politics that well but it wouldn’t surprise me if this is a risk for him. Depends on if Trump or a local supporter can figure out a way to go after him, I’d guess. Jan Brewer was campaigning for Trump not too long ago
bystander
@Bill E Pilgrim: Sorry, an upheld fist.
But if you saw the dumb schmucks parading in front of his atrocious eyesore, you’d realize he could have come down to the street snapping rubber gloves on and asking who’s first, to a sea of volunteers.
TriassicSands
@scav:
Sorry, but historical orthodoxy demands we call this “Pussygate.”
Rommie
Gov. Pence, the quality option – blech. He makes Rick Snyder look great, and Snyder has signed on to some GawdAwful crap during his stint as Michigan’s Governor. The GOP willing to say and do anything to win has finally left them with nowhere else to turn.
MattF
FWIW, there’s a literary precedent for our current lesson in Politics 101. Dashiell Hammett’s ‘Red Harvest’ describes what happens when you let the thugs in through the back door– they take over, and then you’ve got a problem. The ‘solution’ to this problem in Hammett’s novel was a (literal) bloodbath.
sigaba
@Pest Bog Mummy, Frakensteinbeck:
Not a serious suggestion, but it’d be fun to watch as an experiment: Someone like Howard Dean needs to go on TV, put on his most grave face, and say, “What the Republican Party needs to do now is do is follow the recommendation of the press and experts, and find a new candidate, maybe someone like Mike Pence, whom I have serious disagreements with, but is at least a politically correct man.”
maya
After waking from a long deserved nap from a hard two hours of campaigning last week, Gary Johnson’s aides briefed him on all that transpired while he was asleep. He only had one question: “What’s Apussey?”
Jim, Foolish Literalist
again, I despise him, but this puts McCain a couple of laps ahead of most of the “liberal” media I’ve been watching for the last twenty-four hours
ETA: of course, Birtherism didn’t seem to bother him for the last five plus years
Percysowner
This is interesting Fox News: Ben Carson Warns Trump Camp Bracing For More Revelations because it pretty well confirms that there is more out there to be revealed. Trump can’t even say this is the only skeleton in his closet.
raven
Jesus, 2 1/2 hrs of butterbean shuckin!
dmsilev
@Percysowner: At this point, it wouldn’t surprise me to learn that Trump had an _actual_ skeleton (from a drifter that he personally killed) in his closet. Gold-plated, of course.
MattF
@Percysowner: I’d be cautious about Carson as a source.
Poopyman
In huge type at the top of the CNN front page:
And in smaller type much further down the page:
I LOLed
bystander
@Bill E Pilgrim: Saw a hilarious production of Madam’s Late Mother many years ago that had me in tears. Film versions of his work seem leaden and unfunny.
Anne Laurie
@Elizabelle:
His “team” is probably trying to convince him to do this right now, but I don’t see it happening. After weeks of his “weak sickly Hillary who has to rest all the time” crap, the laws of Primate Dominance demand Trump show up on stage tomorrow to prove he’s (literally) the Real Man here. And that’s the ONLY law Trump’s always respected!
Aleta
TriassicSands
You go, Melania. You managed to marry into riches, but I’m sure you have no illusions about your husband. You married Donald in 2005, the same year he uttered the appalling words on this recording. So, while he was courting you, he was “moving on” other, married women. He was trying to “fuck them” and expressed his opinion of women — they’ll all let him assault them, because he’s famous just as you were becoming the third Mrs. Trump. You must be very proud.
Trump is going to look ridiculous criticizing HRC for sticking with Bill when his own wife is now supporting by him even though the likelihood that he’s been faithful to her is less than zero.
Again, while towering icons of principle and virtue like John McCain have finally seen the light (this was the steel I-beam that broke the camel’s back), I doubt if Trump’s core support will suffer much, if at all. He’s a pig. But they already knew that. He’s a serial liar. But they already knew that, too. He’s assaulted countless women. But that’s what virile men, like Donald Trump and Vlad Putin, do. If Trump can’t force women to have sex with him, how is he ever going to get Mexico to pay for the wall? Answer: he’s going to fuck Mexico just like he fucked all those women. And America will be “great again.”
Elizabelle
@Aleta: Randall!
I love that vid.
Pest Bog Mummy, Frakensteinbeck
@TriassicSands:
I don’t blame anyone for selling out themselves, even their body. EVERYONE is haggling over price. It’s called ‘survival.’ It’s selling out other people that I detest, and Melania is complicit there.
Feebog
This is so much fun that I’ve already finished all the popcorn and moved on to M&Ms.
Agorabum
@Bill E Pilgrim: that would be an awesome speech. I hope Hillary drops that truth bomb
SiubhanDuinne, liberal mob enforcer bitch
@Keith G:
I was offline much of the day, so not sure I have this quite right. I’ll list what I understand to be the case, and you fill in or correct me where I’m wrong:
1. Trump was originally schedule to be a special guest at Paul Ryan’s Wisconsin thing.
2. Trump imploded yesterday, Ryan disinvited him from the Wisconsin thing, and Pence said he’d be there instead.
3. Earlier today, Pence withdrew from the Wisconsin thing.
Steeplejack (tablet)
@SiubhanDuinne, liberal mob enforcer bitch:
That’s pretty much correct.
SWMBO
@SiubhanDuinne, liberal mob enforcer bitch: Also after uninviting Trump, Ryan was booed by the crowd.