Those are really the only two options at this point:
President Trump on Thursday said he was thinking of “this Russia thing with Trump” when he decided to fire FBI Director James B. Comey, who had been leading the counterintelligence investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election.
Recounting his decision to dismiss Comey, Trump told NBC News, “In fact, when I decided to just do it, I said to myself, I said, ‘You know, this Russia thing with Trump and Russia is a made up story, it’s an excuse by the Democrats for having lost an election that they should have won.’”
Trump’s account flatly contradicts the White House’s initial account of how the president arrived at his decision, undercutting public denials by his aides that the move was influenced in any way by his growing fury with the ongoing Russia probe.
The most insane thing about this to me is that people remain loyal to him. I simply do not get it. I had an NCO who fucked his guys over every chance he got. He didn’t last long.
I’d like to think that in an alternate universe Republicans are sharpening the guillotine after President Clinton fired Comey because of the “email thing.”
The Dangerman
Things go better with Coke.
dm
Why not both?
Mike J
I’ll take drugs if I get to choose. Oh, wait. It’s not about me? Whatever then.
Robin G.
Neither. Just sheer, mind-boggling stupidity.
RinaX
Sheer greed and love of power. And pissing off liberals, of course.
ms_canadada
I still have a spare room in Hamilton, Ontario Canada, if any
Juicers need a respite, or perhaps an adoption. As I am a 63 y.o. widow, I’m open!!
Just sayin’.
Ian
I just do not get the level of craven cowardice of the people who stand behind him when he says these things. Not only did he make all those people lie for him, they are now complicit in his perjury and obstruction of justice.
Even if I was ammoral (or immoral) enough to be part of this maladministration, I would be leaving now for self-preservation.
Don K
If it’s drugs I’d like to have the number of his dealer – it must be some great shit!!
jl
For the BJ legal flying wedge: how does the competency hearing interact with House impeachment and Senate trial? Or do we get to pass ‘Go’ straight to 25?
jl
@Ian: Standards for aluminum siding and used car salesman are pretty high these days, and they need a gig?
Geoduck
@dm: I had wondered where that meme had originated.
Lyrebird
@ms_canadada: Good to think upon! Actually, my next job will take me a bit closer to Canada, but under the QC part of the border rather than yours.
PeakVT
I understand (at an intellectual level) why President*’s voters remain loyal, but I agree that he receives any kind of personal loyalty from associates close or otherwise is truly bizarre. He is just vile on so many levels.
Then again, his administration seems to dish up dirt on him to the press on a regular basis, so maybe he just has an entourage of talentless grifters – people who just couldn’t survive either preying on anyone who isn’t so easily manipulated, or on their own skills. They have no choice but to continue grifting off of the worst man in the country.
efgoldman
@jl:
Either way, require a 2/3 vote in the senate to approve. I don’t see 67 votes, at least not until an electoral disaster is staring them in the face.
MomSense
Wasn’t the character Biff from Back to the Future based on trump?
SatanicPanic
@Ian: I don’t get it either. Have some f*cking dignity, right? Jesus
LurkerNoLonger
Is he saying that he was such a terrible candidate that he should have lost? Because if he is I finally agree with him on something.
BBA
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Trump is going to die in office.
I don’t know if it’ll be in 30 days or 30 years, but it will happen.
wjs
Josh Marshall cites “Trump’s Razor,” which is, no matter what people think Trump’s reasoning or strategy might be, the right answer is always the stupidest one.
If you boil everything that has happened down to one thing, just go with the stupidest possible explanation as to why Trump said it or did it. Honestly, it makes so much more sense.
Lyrebird
Re, “stupid” I agree with Chetan Murthy from the last thread:
..and at this point I also welcome the ways his ego (for lack of a better term) drives him to commit unforced errors, since they hamper his agenda of despoiling the USofA for his own gain.
SatanicPanic
@jl: 25 is beyond our ability to affect- it’ll come into play by some act of god, not by anything we do. Impeachment- who knows? I think it’s more possible than Mr Goldman does but between now and then we’ll going to see some sh*t most of us hoped we’d never see. Even if it works it’ll be ugly.
Bill E Pilgrim
As is so often the case, a quote from Taxi comes to mind.
That was my favorite episode. “Slow down!
GregB
It is gonna be a long hot summer.
The tapes are coming.
http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/the-administration/332939-the-feds-have-trump-tapes-akin-to-nixons-watergate
Chetan Murthy
I think this little bit from Dr. Maddow is really enlightening — from 4:00.
He’s not erratic — he knows what he’s doing, and thinks it’ll work. Dr. Maddow notes that when Trump admits that he planned to fire Comey all along, he was calm, unruffled, and did it *on purpose*. “We fired Comey — whaddaya gonna do about it?”
ms_canadada
@Lyrebird: Montreal is amazing! One of my faves! My sister lives in Kanata, ON, my brother and his husband live in Ottawa. We live down in the banana belt, at the head of the lake (Ontario). 45 minutes to Niagara Falls and Toronto.
wjs
@jl: Not a lawyer, but I believe that the fate of the Republic hinges on one critical thing–Trump has to go to Walter Reed and get a physical. Maybe not right away, maybe not in a few months, but, at some point, he needs to be examined by a real doctor who has real qualifications and professionalism. If Trump refuses or avoids going to Walter Reed for his “presidential checkup” then that’s a pretty clear indicator that he’s avoiding the medical assessment of his physical and mental well being. If found to be physically unfit to hold office, I don’t know what is triggered legally.
In the case of Reagan and his cancer operation in 1985, it was a signed document–power was transferred to Vice President HW Bush. In this case, power could be transferred by order of a physician. Now, there would be a “second opinion” consultation and a review of medical findings, but the 25th Amendment could be invoked in this manner without it ever being a decision made by anyone in Congress or the Executive Branch. Would that happen? Who the hell knows at this point. But if you’re looking for a scenario where everyone is off the hook and everything–the fate of the country, the safety of the world, the preservation of Western Civilization as we know–is decided with a single medical examination, then there’s an O-5 with a medical degree in suburban Washington D.C. who could change history with the stroke of a pen.
(would love to hear others chime in with more knowledge on this, please)
MomSense
I think I need some drugs
Death Panel Truck
Preibus: Mr. Kushner? The president wants a meeting with all aides, right away.
Kushner: Now? At one o’clock in the morning?
Preibus: Yes, sir.
Kushner: Do you know what it’s about?
Preibus: Yes, sir – strawberries.
amk
He is thumbing the nose against all the so called institutions. The corrupt congress, the corrupter senate or the corruptest media ain’t gonna save the voters. They have to vote with their feet in 2018 without all the prodding and pushing.
jl
@wjs: Marshall presented some evidence that the Trump’s Razor is really running everything. IIRC, Trump did not fire Trump in an attempt to run from the investigation into his own or his flunkies involvement with Russian interference. Rather, Comey’s demeanor at the hearing pissed Trump off. Comey was getting more favorable attention than Trump was, which was outrages, and Comey seemed to enjoy it too much, which was unbearable And when Comie said that he felt ‘mildly nauseous the idea that how he handled the Clinton email investigation may have affected the election, Trump took that as a personal insult.
So, Trump blew a gasket, had a toddler tantrum, and fired Comey. Literally everything else was an afterthought. The startling implicaton of that is the even the idea that Trump fired Comey, at least at this specific time, to obstruct the Russian investigation is a cover story!
The Continuing Triumph of Trump’s Razor
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/the-continuing-triumph-trump
jl
@wjs: WP ate the last two attempts to comment with links, so I’ll summarize.
If you look at TPM editor’s blog today you’ll see evidence and an argument that Trump fired Comey in the course of a toddler tantrum Trump had because he felt personally dissed by Comey’s testimony. Literally everything else was an afterthought. Even the line that Trump fired Comey to obstruct the investigation is a cover story, since Trump can’t focus long enough for plan that far ahead.
Might be true.
Edit: probably true that Trump would have fired Comey sooner or later to obstruct the investigation. But firing Comey right now was result of a toddler tantrum because Trump thought Comey dissed him at the hearings.
RedDirtGirl
@ms_canadada: Can I let you know?
Thru the Looking Glass...
Oh good lord, is Twitler referring to HIMSELF in the 3rd person, again???
Couple of observations here…
1. Of all the idjits in the center of this mess, the one who’s been the quietest is Manafort as far as I can tell…
Carter Page can’t shut his mouth to save his life… neither can Stone… and Trump will live by the Twitter machine and die by it… Flynn is toast, period…
But Manafort… nary a peep in weeks… does that mean he’s cut a deal and is talking, or does it mean he realizes just how much trouble he’s in?
2. For all the public taunting Trump loves to engage in, he NEVER mentions the State of NY’s investigation, which is supposedly moving forward… never mentions it or ridicules it or anything… does that mean he’s afraid of it or just doesn’t even think about that one?
Jay Noble
@MomSense: I don’t know, but every time I see that sneer of his, all I see is that scene from Back to the Future 3 where Biff shoots Marty and snickers and sorta shrugs it off while all the bystanders just look horrified.
jacy
Reposting from downstairs — because this is my particular hobbyhorse.
From the evidence, I conclude he is suffering from a narcissistic breakdown — precipitated by some stressor, which could be incipient dementia, or could be some sort of depression-based thing. It doesn’t mean he has always been as debilitated as he is now. In fact, when you look at his speech patterns and behavior over the course of his public life, you can clearly see the deterioration. I’m not a psychiatrist or a psychologist, but I have intimate and long-standing experience with this type of behavior, and have studied it relentlessly for several years. (And I do have a medical background, in molecular biology and immunology, so I’m comfortable digesting complex scientific information.)
You can be a malignant narcissist and get along fine in the world for a long, long time. You can even seem relatively normal. But under stressful circumstances (which can be a simple as aging), you begin to decompensate. And that compounds the stress, because your strategy to decrease the stress actually increases it, because you act irrationally to protect your hidden self and other people eventually push back on the crazy.
So he hasn’t always been this “crazy.” But it’s accelerating. He has been insulated from consequences by dint of money and power. And now, increasingly, he is insulated from consequences by his adult children and sycophants he surrounds himself with. And now he can’t hide, so it’s going to get worse. I believe you mistake serendipity (the success of his rallies) for strategy. The fact that he has not been brought low by his deficits is not a monument to his abilities, but is happenstance, luck, and the ministrations of those around him who cover for him and manage him.
Again, I’m speaking from intimate knowledge — I have witnessed this first hand and been a victim of it. It’s disorienting, because we want it to make sense and we want to ascribe motive and thought and planning, because that’s the way the world is supposed to work. I have no doubt he was once more capable, but I think he no longer is. Understanding this is important, because you deal differently with somebody who is completely untethered from reality than you do someone who has machinations. I believe, not completely, but to a great degree, that he has no current capability for rational action in a reality-based world.
John Weiss
@Ian: Yeah. Me too. Anyone of moderate intelligence would distance themselves from Trump’s toxic wasteland. I wouldn’t touches that wasteland with your ten foot pole.
Joyce H
I saw some clips from that interview, and besides what he was saying and the way he was saying it, I was really struck by how bad he LOOKED. Blotchy and bloated, and as for those bags under his eyes, well! It looked like he had a couple raw oysters pasted under his eyes!
Lyrebird
@ms_canadada: Agreed, Montreal is wonderful! And Hamilton has some pretty good researchers over at McMaster iirc.
chopper
well, at least trump admits that he should have lost.
Thru the Looking Glass...
@Chetan Murthy:
Right… and then Putin told his lap dog to let Kislyak & Lavrov into the Oval Office for a photo op for RUSSIAN media… one final gob of spit in our faces… and Trump DID as he was told…
Said an angry WH official afterwards…
Really, Skippy? You’re finally catching on?
I’ll bet Putin was laughing so hard, he wet his own pants…
Thru the Looking Glass...
@Joyce H: What do you mean, ‘LOOKED LIKE”?
efgoldman
Vermilion Vermin has found the magic bullet (as it were) to get the country behind him.
mai naem mobile
Just because you’ve got psych issues or are in the earlier stages of dementia,does not mean you can’t make some plans and go through with them. I am not sure which one he has or if he has both but jeezus there is definitely something majorly off mentally. If it’s drugs it’s drugs he’s unaware of and are being given to him surreptitiously.
GregB
@Thru the Looking Glass…:
I did think it was funny that as the White House submission photo-op was going on there was an interview with Putin released and he was in full hockey uniform.
Russia finally got revenge for the 1980 Olympics by scoring a goal in the Oval Office.
Suzanne
I have been thinking of greennotGreen and her family today. I hope they are all finding peace and comfort, and are able to support one another.
efgoldman
@mai naem mobile:
Why would he “make plans” or “have a strategy” now, when he has never done it before?
Narcissists don’t think more than a minute ahead.
Smiling Mortician
Jeez-o-man, you can’t go perform a two-hour show without coming back to yet another internet full of What the fucking fuck happened to grown-ups?
Bobby Thomson
Nah, option C. He’s a world class dipshit. It tales a lot of money to be that stupid.
NotMax
If one had, say, three copies of the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders and opened each of them to a random page while blindfolded, at least two of those pages would have a description of something clinically applicable to Dolt 45’s mental processes and state.
seaboogie
John – that Theory of Mind thing makes sense. A lot of sense, so let’s quit trying to contextualize T in a way we understand, and work with what is. Fewer column inches for the pundits, and a better read on the super-strange sitch we find ourselves in. Like if you were on a battlefield in a foreign land and trying to understand your enemy. Can’t expect them to adhere to your cultural norms, gotta see where they are coming from…
Redshift
@GregB:
If you read past the headline of that piece, all it says is that the intelligence services monitor communications with foreign operatives, so they must have “tapes” of the Trump people. Yeah, no shit; that’s not exactly breaking news. The author doesn’t claim to have any special knowledge or inside information. It’s pure, empty clickbait.
Redshift
@efgoldman:
I want aware it had been conclusively established that he has never made plans. I find the theory of mind stuff pretty convincing, but not to the point where it can be presumed to be true and used to dismiss any alternative out of hand.
frosty
@Geoduck: I’ve always liked this one from League of Their Own.
Thru the Looking Glass...
@GregB: I don’t doubt in the least that the photo op in the WH held great personal significance for Vlad…
What I find so… shocking… is the degree to which Republicans in general are willing to debase themselves at this point… there appears to be no bottom the the barrel for those arses at this point…
efgoldman
@Thru the Looking Glass…:
They would lick his wrinkled fat ass in the Oval Office, in front of all the network cameras, if it assured them of re-election.
? ?? Goku ? ?
@Jay Noble: Funny you should mention that: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=g5xs4vMx-fM
Biff was based on Donald Trump, who was already notorious by the 80s
Smitty
@wjs: Given that impeachment is not an option, resignation remains viable. If RICO investigation in NY convinces Trump that asset forfeiture is imminent he might use poor health as a face saving out to resign.
ted mills
Not enough people comment about how he talks about himself IN THE THIRD PERSON. it drives me crazy.
dogwood
Drugs or Senility? I think I’m done coming up with plausible excuses for the man’s character and behavior. He’s an odious, vulgar, classless, narcissistic creep. Neither drugs nor senility are contributing factors to that fact. We’ve already had a President in our lifetime who displayed early signs of dementia. It didn’t turn him into a different person.
frosty
@jacy: I’m getting an education in narcissists on this blog lately from you and Mnemosyne who’ve had to deal with it close up. Your painfully earned knowledge has been very helpful.
efgoldman
@Smitty:
If NY indicts him on a state charge, I expect his lawyers will dash into court like a blur with motions that say a state can’t indict a sitting president. It will end up in front of the nine ::barf:: wise souls, five of whom are partisan RWNJs. Will they do the right thing? Who knows.
Also, if he resigns, the state (and federal court) are free to prosecute.
And no, a pardon deal from Dense won’t matter to the state charges.
? ?? Goku ? ?
@dogwood: Reagan was always an asshole and never changed I believe
Elie
@Thru the Looking Glass…:
Things are way way out of control and spinning out. There is just way too much going on to many dimensions for this incompetent crew to deal with AND there really is no one over the crazy man. What is clear, despite the various attempts at positioning is that Ivanka and Jared are just window dressing and that there is no real there there. Where is Bannon? Is he skulking around in the air ducts at the White House? What is also really clear is that there are no brains running this operation. It might be humorous and vaguely entertaining if these assholes didn’t have such impact on our economy, our environment, foreign relationships and our rule of law and civility. But it is what it is and we can’t spend any more time mourning what was lost….
This crew is on its way into deeper trouble. Who the hell knows what is next? Seriously. ANYTHING could happen with orange cotton candy head. Hes trashed Comey for who I held NO affection but I got to wonder, is he gonna lay a big poison turd on the old man? I wouldn’t blame him one bit.
seaboogie
@Suzanne: thank you for the reminder about gnG and her fam…lighting candles again tonight and sending all love and light in their direction…
efgoldman
@? ?? Goku ? ?:
True, but he was a good enough actor to convince people he was a human being.
? ?? Goku ? ?
As others have noted, Trump is becoming more erratic and unpredictable with each passing day and there’s no one in the White House that’s seems competent. More than just the US is danger here. The entire world is; human civilization itself hangs in the balance right now I feel. If Trump started a nuclear war tomorrow, it would be not only every idiot that voted for Trump/didn’t vote at all fault but Putin’s as well for ending the world as we know it
As always: Trump first, Putin next
Smitty
@efgoldman: Correct. Who knows about SCOTUS. And the litigious Trump will assert that POTUS is above the law. However, I contend that any attack on Trump assets will be the reason for Trump-Barnum to send in the clowns and drop the bigtop.
Ruckus
@dogwood:
Not all dementia is the same. There are different causes and not everyone acts exactly the same even with the same cause.
jl
@? ?? Goku ? ?: I hope that, as during the last days of Nixon, that Trump’s central casting generals are quietly arranging some additional informal check points if Trump gets any violent ideas about how to increase his popularity. or vent his rage.
mai naem mobile
@efgoldman: I should have been clearer. I’ve dealt with people with dementia and psych issues. What I mean by plan is if they want to commit some bad act towards somebody they can plan that. They may not think of consequences etc. but they can plan an attack on somebody.
jacy
@frosty:
It’s freaky. Terrifying. I literally (in the real sense, not the Joe Biden sense) seriously considered killing myself when it was at the height of madness. It’s taken me nearly three years of therapy to get back to “normal,” but I still have sort of PTSD reactions sometimes, although not as often now. That’s one reason I was calmer than some other people in the aftermath of the election. I know that having the world seemingly destroyed around you is survivable.
fuckwit
It’s neither drugs nor senility. It’s pure asshole, all the way through.
Rich, spoiled narcissist who thinks he is entitled to get away with anything. The textbook description of a “tyrant”.
Very many leaders of nations have been like him, throughout history. Very many still are today– though usually in tinpot dictatorships in third-world countries.
We also are spoiled as Americans: we’re not used to this kind of narcissistic asshole in charge of a democracy. We expect better. But ask someone who comes from Africa, or the middle east, or south or central America. You will find that this kind of egomaniac runs many if not most of the countries of the world. It’s the norm.
Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. This is not a new lesson, by far.
TriassicSands
The only question that should be on the minds of House members tonight is “Do we impeach him or get Pence to invoke the 25th Amendment?”
The evidence that Trump is not simply the stupidest dolt on the planet is growing — dementia seems more and more likely and it’s getting worse.
Much of Trump’s ramblings are virtually incoherent. K. Drum has a post up about Trump discussing health insurance. The only problem is it sounds a lot more like he’s talking about life insurance, though he doesn’t get that quite right either. Yesterday, Trump was rambling on about how he’d just coined the phrase “primed the pump.” That’s a phrase he used numerous times during the campaign and I’d guess that priming the pump is a lot older than the oldest BJ commenter. Last week he was wondering why no one has ever asked about why the Civil War happened. He is clearly unaware that he makes a fool out of himself every time he opens his mouth, and his cluelessness is so overwhelming that it’s become impossible for me to conclude it is a product solely of his emptiness as a human being.
His apparent stupidity and actual ignorance are so profound that dementia seems like a more likely explanation for the spectacle that Trump is putting on every day. Instead of gradually getting comfortable in the job, Trump seems as clueless today about what the presidency entails as he was on January 20.
His dealings with Comey stink of obstruction of justice, which when coupled with the mockery he is making of the emoluments clause would be adequate grounds for impeachment, conviction, and removal from office. But first, he should be examined by a panel of mental health experts and medical doctors who specialize in dementia. It is vital to the safety and well-being of this country (and the world) that we determine sooner, rather than later, whether he is mentally fit to stand trial in the Senate for his impeachable offenses. If not, then Pence should invoke the 25th Amendment and the cabinet should vote unanimously to remove Trump from office.
The downside to that is Trump will be treated much more gently by history that he deserves. He was a malignant narcissist long before he became president and his lack of ethical and moral behavior deserve to be recognized. But we can’t afford to have a senile sociopath sitting in the White House.
dogwood
@? ?? Goku ? ?:
I don’t know what will happen with this WH. What I do know, is that he doesn’t have any of the positive attributes that allowed Reagan and W survive when things went bad. First of all, those two guys who we all love to hate actually formed a functioning government and organized a WH that was actually staffed with people who had jobs other than babysitting the POTUS. That’s actually crucial when things go tits up. Because as Bush found out, frustration and anger about the War really came to a head in Sept 05 when we found out the FEMA director was a clown. How much worse would it have been if we had found out there wasn’t even a FEMA director in place, or the president had never gotten around to staffing it. Well, that’s Trump. Reagan saw plenty of shitty poll numbers, but he wasn’t self-absorbed or thin skinned, so you plow through it. Trump can’t do that. W. had self-discipline. Not a bad quality when when real crises occur. Trump? He hasn’t faced any trouble that wasn’t of his own making, and he doesn’t have the discipline to STFU. So I don’t see how Trump is ever going to turn things around for more than a few nanoseconds at a time.
dogwood
@TriassicSands:
Sarah Palin can’t construct a coherent sentence and doesn’t know jack shit about basic American history or world events. She’s certainly not senile; she’s an idiot. Same with Trump.
Joyce H
@dogwood:
No, this is different, it really is. Granted, Trump has always been a malignant narcissist and corrupt to the bone, but he used to be coherent. Recently on Hardball, Chris Matthews played a clip of Trump from the 2000-2001 era, answering a question about whether he would consider running for president. I was honestly shocked at how different he sounded back then. He could form a coherent answer that made sense and held together, and he knew some things. Sometime in the past decade or so, his mental processes and memory have really seriously deteriorated. They have. Find old video of him; it will convince you.
dogwood
@Joyce H:
You may be right; I just don’t give a shit about what’s wrong. He’s unfit. Period.
Elizabelle
@jacy: Terrific comment.
Elizabelle
@Joyce H:
And isn’t it interesting that just as he marinated in cognitive decline and contempt and paranoia and FoxNews worldview —
he became just what the Republican base wanted in a president to follow Barack Obama?
TriassicSands
@dogwood:
Palin and Trump are very different.
sm*t cl*de
@Thru the Looking Glass…:
I’m sure Putin has people whose pants he wets rather than his own.
SFAW
@efgoldman:
Thanks, that was outstanding.
Uncle Cosmo
@TriassicSands:
Someone down below noted the use of the phrase as an economic metaphor from the 1930s. For an interesting example of another figurative use from 1963, click here & listen.
Kenneth Kohl
@ms_canadada: just a bit west of wine country.no? My wife, her sister and brother-in-law and I make a pilgrimage to Beamsville, Jordan, NOTL, etc. every summer. Since we live in Buffalo, this is a great day trip!