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Here are Handy Excuses for Trump Backers

TWS Editor’s Note: On 12 July 1973, humorist Art Buchwald penned a semi-satirical list of discussion points for defenders of then-embattled President Richard Nixon that ran in papers nationwide. TWS recently came across it (thanks, Slow Burn) and noticed a few eerie similarities, so we made an updated version for Fox News, MAGA Twitter, and congressional Republicans.

WASHINGTON -- These are difficult times for people who are defending the Nixon Trump Administration. No matter where they go, they are attacked by pseudo-liberals Democrats, McGovern lovers the DSA, heterosexual constitutionalists #NeverTrumpers, and paranoid John Dean believers #Resistance Twitter.

As a public service, I am printing instant responses for loyal Nixonites the #TrumpTrain when they are attacked at a party. Please cut it out screenshot it and carry it in your pocket save it to your unsecured iPhone.

1. Everyone does it. (President Trump: “This was a meeting to get information on an opponent, totally legal and done all the time in politics.”)

2. What about Chappaquiddick Fusion GPS? (Marc Thiessen: “The Clinton campaign proactively sought dirt on Trump from Russian government sources.”)

3. A President can’t keep track of everything his staff does. (Sen. Orrin Hatch: “The president should not be held responsible for the actions of the people he’s trusted.”)

4. The press is blowing the whole thing up. (Sarah Sanders: “You guys seem completely obsessed with this, while there are a lot of other things happening around the country and frankly a lot of other things that people care a lot more about.”

5. Whatever Nixon Trump did was for national security. (President Trump: “The Fake News Media wants so badly to see a major confrontation with Russia…They are pushing so recklessly hard and hate the fact that I’ll probably have a good relationship with Putin.”)

6. The Democrats are sore because they lost the election. (President Trump: Russia was an excuse used by the Democrats when they lost the election…It wasn't Russia, it was a bad candidate. It was a candidate that didn't go to Wisconsin and Michigan like they should have.”)

7. Are you going to believe a rat like John Dean Michael Cohen or the President of the United States? (Rudy Giuliani: “Cohen’s been lying all week—he’s been lying for years…If his back is up against the wall, he’ll lie like crazy. He’s lied all his life.”)

8. Wait till all the facts come out. (Speaker Paul Ryan: “I think he should be free to do his job, but I would like to see it get wrapped up of course.”)

9. What about Chappaquiddick Fusion GPS? (Rep. Mark Meadows: “The fact that the Clinton campaign and the DNC paid intelligence officials in Russia for salacious and false information on President Trump is suspicious enough. But we’re also beginning to see evidence that raises questions about whether the Obama Justice Department may have inappropriately involved themselves in this project both before and after the 2016 Presidential campaign.”)

10. If you impeach Nixon Trump, you get Agnew Pence. (Omarosa Manigault-Newman: “As bad as y’all think Trump is, you would be worried about Pence. We would be begging for the days of Trump back if Pence became President.”)

11. The only thing wrong with Watergate talking to Russians is they got caught. (Jay Sekulow: “The question is how would it be illegal? You have to look at what laws, rules, statutes were really broken here.”)

12. What about Daniel Ellsberg stealing the Pentagon Papers Uranium One? (Rep. Louie Gohmert: this insane chart)

13. It happens in Europe from China all the time. (President Trump: “We found that China has been attempting to interfere in our upcoming 2018 election coming up in November against my administration.”)

14. People would be against Nixon Trump no matter what he did. (Sen. Rand Paul: “Any country that can spy does, and any country that can meddle in foreign elections does…it’s all about partisan politics now. This is truly the Trump derangement syndrome that motivates all of this.”)

15. I’d rather have a crook fool in the White House than a fool crook. (The entirety of the Flight 93 essay by Michael Anton, who went on to serve on President Trump’s NSC.)

16. LBJ President Obama used to read about this before the election FBI reports every night. President Trump: “Just out: The Obama Administration knew far in advance of November 8th about election meddling by Russia. Did nothing about it. WHY?”)

17. What’s the big deal about finding out what your opposition is up to? (Rudy Giuliani: “Any meeting in regards to getting information about your opponent is something any candidate’s staff would take.”)

18. The President was too busy running the country and everyone else didn’t even know what was going on. (Jared Kushner: “They thought we colluded, but we couldn’t even collude with our local offices.”)

19. What about Chappaquiddick Fusion GPS? (Mark Steyn: “Everyone is colluding with Russia except Trump. You’ve got the Podesta Group, you’ve got the Hillary campaign, you’ve got the DNC, you’ve got the FBI, you’ve got Christopher Steele.”)

20. People who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones. (Sen. Lindsey Graham: “What I can’t get over is how much more has to be uncovered at the Department of Justice regarding a political agenda…This screams for a special counsel.”)

21. McGovern Clinton would have lost anyway. (Sen. Lindsey Graham: “Russia didn’t beat Clinton. Trump beat Clinton.”)

22. Maybe the Committee for the Re-Election of the President Don Jr. and Jared Kushner went a little too far, but they were just a bunch of eager kids. (President Trump: “[Don Jr.]’s a good boy. He’s a good kid. And he had a meeting. Nothing happened.”)

23. I’m not for breaking the law, but sometimes you have to do it to save the country. (Entire hacky conservative books have been written about this, but forgive us if we don’t link to their Amazon pages.)

24. Nixon Trump made a mistake. He’s only human. (Speaker Paul Ryan: “The President's new at this. He's new to government. So, he probably wasn't steeped in the long-running protocols that establish the relationships between DOJ, FBI and White Houses. He's just new to this.”)

25. Do you realize what Watergate this president is doing to the dollar abroad for our economy at home? (Speaker Paul Ryan: “Look, the tax cuts are working.”)

26. What about Harry Truman Peter Strzok and the deep freeze scandal his text messages? (President Trump: “Take a look at the horrible statements that Peter Strzok, the chief investigator, said.”

27. Franklin D. Roosevelt John Podesta did a lot worse things. (President Trump: “Nobody asks John Podesta about the company that he has with his brother in Russia.”

28. I’m sick and tired of hearing about Watergate Russia and so is everybody else. (Sarah Sanders: “The American people are sick and tired of being inundated with Russia Fever.”)

29. This thing should be tried in the courts and not on television. (Actually, this one doesn’t apply—these guys love litigating this stuff live on television.)

30. When Nixon gives his explanation of what happened Mueller comes up with nothing there are going to be a lot of people in this country with egg on their faces. (Rudy Giuliani: “I can guarantee you this: When Mueller is finished, no matter whatever he does, he’s not going to have a stitch of evidence that [Trump] colluded with the Russians.”)

31. My country right or wrong. (President Trump: “I’m totally allowed to be involved [in Special Counsel Mueller’s investigation] if I wanted to be. So far, I haven’t chosen to be involved.”)

32. What about Chappaquiddick Fusion GPS? (Rep. Devin Nunes: “You have a campaign who hired a law firm who hired Fusion GPS who hired a foreign agent who went and got information from the Russians on the other campaign. It seems like the counterintelligence investigation should have been opened up against the Hillary campaign when they got a hold of the dossier.”)

33. I think the people who make all this fuss about Watergate #Resistance should be shot. (President Trump: “You don’t hand matches to an arsonist, and you don’t give power to an angry left-wing mob. Democrats have become too EXTREME and TOO DANGEROUS to govern.”

34. If the Democrats had the money, they would have done did the same thing. (President Trump: “[The special counsel’s investigation] was based on fraudulent activities and a Fake Dossier paid for by Crooked Hillary and the DNC.”)

35. I never trusted Haldeman and Ehrlichman Rosenstein and Mueller to start with. (Roger Stone: “I’d fire Mueller and Rosenstein for wasting the taxpayers’ money.”)

36. If you say one more word about Watergate Russia, I’ll punch you in the nose.

a. If the person is bigger than you: “If you say one more word about Watergate Russia I’m leaving this house.” Say the same thing, but on Twitter.

b. If it’s your own house and the person is bigger than you: “What about Chappaquiddick Fusion GPS?”

The Nikki Haley Replacement Prospectus

Three weeks ago Monday, Nikki Haley abruptly announced that she would be leaving her post as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations. While many in the media have used this moment to portray Haley as “one of the good ones” in the administration, she was actually more like many other willing collaborators that had real credentials and a chance at a career after Trump: an enabler of his worst tendencies. Either way, she likely (and unfortunately) has a bright future in Republican politics and the “serious” foreign policy establishment.

What is less clear, however, is who Trump will nominate to replace her. This is an especially difficult question to answer due to the mercurial nature of The Decider, and the different groups of power-hungry sycophants that work for him. It could be that Jared reads the briefing book picture book wrong, puts the peanut butter on the Seb Gorka page instead of the Dina Powell page, and we end up with routine daily carry updates from our ambassador.

All of these possibilities have been accounted for in our scientific odds calculation. For each candidate, we have included the case for a Trump nomination, and the case against, as well as placed them into one of five categories.

The Conservative Intelligentsia Division

Jon Huntsman 100/1

FOR: Jon is a Serious Man with foreign policy credentials, and Trump liked him enough to let him run the Russia communications that aren’t conducted via Jared’s backchannels. AGAINST: Probably too serious--and too hard for Trump to control; he would also take flack from the Right Wing Fever Swamp.

Mark Dubowitz 100/1

FOR: The United Nations is a great form for bashing Iran, as evidenced by the administration’s conduct there last month. Also, Mark is always around when people bring up Trump admin jobs that need to be filled. AGAINST: Despite this, Mark still hasn’t gotten a call.

Sam Brownback 40/1

FOR: Qualified-ish diplomat that Condoleezza Rice is probably raving about behind closed doors. AGAINST: Trump wouldn’t make it through the interview without falling asleep. (“Food security? You mean like, a sturdier KFC bucket?”)

Richard Grenell 12/1

FOR: Tucker Carlson is mounting a cheerleading campaign for RG. AGAINST: Despite the photo, Trump has no idea who Richard is.

The Own the Libs Division

Ezra Cohen Watnick 150/1

FOR: One of the few people that work in the Trump administration that he actually knows. AGAINST: Devin Nunes would need to develop a new contact inside the Administration.

Gorka 50/1

FOR: Lib-triggering chart breaker who is “great” on TV and has foreign policy “experience,” plus a “book” to sell. AGAINST: The number of quotations marks above. Also, rehiring a former staffer that you already fired is a beta move.

Ivanka 6/1

FOR: You know he wants to--plus, it checks the “trigger the libs” box even better than Gorka. AGAINST: Very public denial of her own prospects.

The Let Trump be Trump! Division

Bill Belichick 300/1

FOR: Master strategist with experience at the helm of a tyrant organization that bends the rules and bullies opponents. AGAINST: Happy in his current role, and probably holding out for a POTUS run in 2024..

Dennis Rodman 200/1

FOR: Loves the camera. AGAINST: Potential conflict of interests, and remains largely unproven outside of Asian region.

Vince McMahon 100/1

FOR: Trump has been trying to find a job for Vince since he was inaugurated. AGAINST: Would demand entrance music for all UN meetings. (This actually may be a vote for, now that we think about it.)

The “Central Casting” Division

Heather Nauert 10/1

FOR: Trump has seen her on TV. AGAINST: Has shown a willingness, from time to time, to tell the truth from the podium at State.

Rick Perry 50/1

FOR: Still in search of a job that he understands, and the description here is a little clearer. AGAINST: Would need the Senate to confirm a new Energy Secretary, which Trump finds annoying.

The Simulation Admins are Bored Division

Kanye West 100/1

FOR: Recent meeting with the President that got that sweet, sweet press attention. AGAINST: Hard to control, and easily hackable.

The Lawnmower Kid 1000/1

FOR: Keeps his head down and does his job. Familiar with White House protocols. AGAINST: Bit of a wildcard outside of his yard-work.

Gritty 5000/1

FOR: Trump and Gritty both have similar aesthetics. AGAINST: Possibly ANTIFA

Seven Ways Ambassador Nikki Haley Furthered the Trump Agenda on the World Stage

In a surprise departure today, President Trump and U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley announced the latter’s departure from her post at the end of this year.

While there were certainly upsides to Haley’s tenure as ambassador (she spoke, for instance, much more strongly against Russia than the president—admittedly a low bar) the celebration of her “moderating voice” in the administration may be more than a little over the top. Looking back, she followed the president’s direction in word and spirit at the United Nations, time and time again. A sampling is below.

#1. Indulging in childish, Trumpian bullying on the world stage:

Haley is being portrayed as an adult in the room upon her departure, and to be sure, she was a more reliable partner to our allies than the president (again, low bar). But she still exhibited classically Trumpian behavior from time to time, including when she threw a reception for “friends of the United States” only after a contentious vote.

#2. Gleefully slashing the development funding that helps vulnerable people and works to keep us safe:

Way back at the beginning of her tenure, Haley proved herself eager to fulfill Steve Bannon’s mission of “deconstructing the administrative state” when she celebrated massive cuts to U.S. contributions to the UN’s peacekeeping budget. Eliminating peacekeeping funding seems an odd thing to boast about, but it did probably curry favor with her boss.

#3. Pushing the president’s warmongering against North Korea:

Back before President Trump and Kim Jong Un “fell in love” over their pre-Singapore correspondence, Haley was all about the ‘fire and fury’ rhetoric: Not long after the president’s first inflammatory UNGA address, she warned that North Korea would be “utterly destroyed” in a military conflict. That’s not exactly checking the president’s most reckless impulses.

#4. Agreeing to the Trump Administration’s retreat from the UN’s institutions:

There is a clear pattern in the administration’s approach to the UN that has made “America First” look an awful lot like “America Alone.” Every step of the way, Haley has supported Trumpism’s direction—most notably in her speech withdrawing the United States from the UN’s Human Rights Council.

#5. Contributing to the perpetual messaging chaos constantly telegraphed from Washington:

If there’s one constant from the Trump Administration, it is chaos—and while Haley kept herself above the fray most of the time, her occasional breaks with the White House did create some confusion. Remember the time that she promised sanctions against Russia that the White House had no intention of implementing?

#6. Leading the charge to increase tensions—or provoke an outright fight—with Iran:

Haley supported withdrawing from the Iran Deal, against the advice of national security leaders like Secretary of Defense Mattis and then-National Security Advisor H. R. McMaster. Along with new National Security Advisor John Bolton, she has since encouraged the president’s drive for conflict with Iran; all this chest-thumping, however, hasn’t changed Iran’s behavior, but it has left us isolated from (and threatening economic friendly fire against) our allies and partners.

#7. And ultimately, working harder than most in the Trump Administration to peddle the myth that America is now “respected again.”

Fundamentally, this is the most ludicrous line—pushed right up through Haley’s resignation press conference. It seems hard to argue with a straight face given that the president was literally laughed at on the world stage less than a month ago.

At the end of the day, Nikki Haley was little more than one more Trump enabler time and time again. The problem, as is the case with most resignations from this administration, is worrying who might come next.

Congressmen Pompeo versus Secretary Pompeo on Nuclear Verification

Earlier this week, as President Trump was celebrating himself for eliminating the North Korean nuclear threat that he took no concrete steps to actually eliminate, reporters were (understandably) confused.

During a press availability, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo got very angry when a reporter was trying to ask how, exactly, North Korea’s nuclear dismantling—which again, Kim Jong Un did not commit to in writing—would be verified. Behold, the following exchange:

“The president said it will be verified," the reporter said to Pompeo in South Korea, to which Pompeo responded, "Of course it will."

"Can you tell us a little bit more about what is, what is — what discussed about how," the reporter continued.

“Just so you know, you could ask me this, I find that question insulting and ridiculous and, frankly, ludicrous," Pompeo said. "I just have to be honest with you, it’s a game and one ought not to play games with serious matters like this."

We at TWS are very well aware that nothing matters. Even so, there’s a stark contrast between Secretary Pompeo’s feelings about the terms of denuclearization vis-à-vis North Korea and then-Congressman Pompeo’s feelings about the same with regards to Iran. Consider a discussion the latter had on 14 July 2015 on CSPAN:

“While we do not know the exact details of a deal, we know Iranians will be able to continue enriching. When we see the details of the verification regime, we will find that it is a joke…We will find that the verification regime fails to do what the president has said it will do.”

So Congressman Pompeo didn’t even need to see the details of a verification regime before you know that it’s a total joke that will never work. But for Secretary Pompeo, for anyone to ask for anything from broad strokes to details about a verification regime (that again has been in no way agreed to or codified) is “insulting, ridiculous, and ludicrous.”

A remarkable reversal, to be sure. Where again is that lauded good-faith professionalism that led Senate Democrats to allow Pompeo’s confirmation?

(More than) 12 Gripes about Bret Stephens’ Column on the Iran Deal Withdrawal

Is denouncing individual columnists’ pieces on President Trump’s decision to withdraw the United States from the Iran Deal important in the grand scheme of things? No. But does it make your TWS authors feel better? Also no.

Still, we did it anyway, tackling Bret Stephens’ latest poorly argued, scarcely sourced, whatever-happened-to-#NeverTrump loveletter to the president’s bad decision making. Accordingly, annotations are below.

#1.

As “courageous” as being a conservative columnist who is so oppressed that the only have a top tier national platform, no doubt.

#2.

Ah yes, that “risable” idea that countries should [checks notes] adhere to agreements from one administration to another absence a change of facts on the ground, to at least aspire to continuity on the world stage despite politics at home.

#3.

A strange opening argument, given recent polling that only 29 percent of Americans want to withdraw from the agreement; 42 percent support staying in, and 28 percent said they “didn’t know.”

#4.

What’s more remarkable: that this qualifier is obviously untrue and therefore being offered in bad faith, or that this is a question we have to ask about a presidential administration?

#5.

No one denies that Iranian missile tests are destabilizing. They are also, however, not covered by the JCPOA for a reason: these negotiations were focused on the most urgent priority of stopping Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon. We could have, perhaps, negotiated with Iran on ballistic missiles—had we not just gone back on the previous agreement we made with them, that is.

#6.

How curious that Stephens doesn’t provide a link to a source here? He also seems to omit that Congress was able to pass new ballistic missile sanctions on Iran under the deal during both the Obama and Trump Administrations.

#7.

Again, no source. It’s also useful to point out that 1) however “loose” the structures are, they still prohibit the development of nuclear weapons and allow inspectors to validate that, and 2) that the U.S. withdrawal from the deal makes it less likely, not more likely, that the limits in place before the sunsets will break down.

#8.

Maybe it will, maybe it won’t, who knows? With our famously restrained and even-keeled president surrounded by a cadre of advisors who have definitely not advocated publicly for this exact conflict, what could go wrong?

#9.

Ah, the time-honored, classily Washington Blob approach of projecting our political aspirations onto Iran and calling it ~analysis~, ignoring its internal dynamics, political diversity, and all cultural and historical factors but the ones we claim to profess.

#10.

Lots to unpack here. First, this administration can scarcely negotiate with its own party in Congress. Second, there’s the logic of “missed an opportunity to prevent war by not provoking war.” Third, it’s remarkable that all this is being written in defense of a president that the author freely admits “isn’t exactly a tribune of liberalism” (check out Truman Center’s new authoritarian monitoring tool, Stop the Slide!). And finally, the above-mentioned need to “mend fences” with European allies comes from President Trump knocking them in speeches, literally shoving them around, and most recently doing the exact thing that this column is defending.

#11.

So it all comes back to this. Stephens praises the president on the basis that there is a plan going forward (there isn’t), and then reveals that he doesn’t have one either—instead ending with the expectation of a mythical better deal, despite the fact that the United States has now forsaken its seat at the table, is reinstating sanctions backed by none of our allies, and has ‘punished’ Iran despite its compliance with the original agreement’s terms.

#12.

You could say it is “courageous” to write this piece knowing that they aren’t, but if you’ll be able to keep your kushy column gig purely on the basis churning of contrarian hot takes (regardless of making factual errors or offering unfounded praise of a man you called “mentally ill”) is it?

The Swiftboating of Robert Mueller

A qualified public servant, once regarded with largely bipartisan praise, steps forward for a new role in public life. Initially, his record (which includes honorable military service) is respected, and the conversation stays focused on the issue at hand. But soon, a rising fever pitch against him overwhelms reason and leads to overblown rhetoric and nasty attacks—all in service of purely political ends.

If this story sounds familiar, it’s because we’ve seen it play out in a particularly egregious way at least twice: once against presidential candidate and then-Senator John Kerry, and now against Special Counsel Robert Mueller III. (Arguably former Sen. Max Cleland too, but that’s another story.)

In 2004, a group called Swift Boat Veterans for Truth emerged onto the political scene, purporting to advance a cadre of men who served contemporaneously in Vietnam with U.S. Navy veteran Kerry. They put forth arguments, primarily through brutal TV ads, that insisted that Kerry had 1) exaggerated the war crimes of U.S. servicemembers in Southeast Asia to bolster his own personal status as a young veteran (he hadn’t) and 2) that he embellished his personal military record and accomplishments (he didn’t). These attacks were later largely debunked, but not before they did serious damage to Kerry’s campaign.

The attacks against Special Counsel Robert Mueller are much broader than those against Kerry (and have so far not touched his military service), yet they follow a similar pattern of clear efforts to invalidate what should be unimpeachably patriotic credentials. Mueller critics have attacked his FBI career, unfairly blaming him for the Boston Marathon bombing and falsely implicating him in other scandals. More broadly, they paint him as exceeding his mandate (he has not) as part of a sinister, KGB-esque (literally) Deep State operation out to get President Trump. All this, of course, is the stuff of a near constant drumbeat urging Fox’s most dedicated viewer to fire the special counsel and shut down the ongoing investigation.

Unlike the swiftboating of John Kerry, however, these attacks are not just damaging to Mueller’s personal reputation. They are clearly meant to undermine the entirety of his investigation which has so far produced 19 indictments or guilty pleas and is foundational to the effort to prevent foreign interference in our elections in 2018, 2020, and beyond. They also reflect a disturbing wider tendency of the Trump Administration—the president himself, as well as his allies—to degrade critical institutions of our democracy including law enforcement, the media, and the judiciary whenever it suits their political ends.

All of this underscores the urgent need for bipartisan legislation to protect the special counsel from the undue firing that President Trump keeps threatening—legislation like that which the Senate Judiciary Committee voted to advance today. Should Majority Leader McConnell allow that bill to reach the Senate floor, perhaps some senators will remember the smears against their former colleague from Massachusetts. Impossible as it seems, the stakes may be even higher now than they were back in 2004.

Here are All the Positions the U.S. Government has had on Syria in Less than One Week

Last Thursday, President Trump departed from the script of an infrastructure speech in Richfield, Ohio, and proceeded to tell his audience that the United States would be withdrawing troops from Syria “like really soon.” To put it simply, since that point, it’s been hard to keep up.

Accordingly, here is a brief summary of the U.S. government’s various positions on the fate of the some 2,000 men and women in uniform (plus many other civilians serving in agencies like USAID) there since the president first turned his goldfish-like attention to the subject:

Just before the speech—in fact, mere hours before—Chief Pentagon spokesperson Dana White said that “important work remains to guarantee the lasting defeat of these violent extremists” in Syria.

Scoreboard: 1 point for Status Quo

During the speech, President Trump said that “we're knocking the hell out of ISIS” and that therefore, “we’re coming out of Syria, like, very soon.” He adds that we will “let the other people take care of it now, very soon. Very soon, we're coming out."

Scoreboard: 1 point for Withdraw

Immediately after the speech, State Department Spokesperson Heather Nauert said she had “heard of no policy determination to pull U.S. troops out of Syria,” while CENTCOM simply stated that “The military strategy in Syria is the defeat of ISIS,” which is not yet complete. The Pentagon and the NSC both punted to the White House.

Scoreboard: 2 points for Status Quo, 2 points for ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

On Friday, President Trump ordered that $200 million in State Department funds for Syrian reconstruction be frozen.

Scoreboard: 1 point for Make It Worse

Yesterday, President Trump again said, “I want to get out…Sometimes it’s time to come back home. And we’re thinking about it very seriously.” At the same time however, added that “Saudi Arabia is very interested in our decision” and claimed he told them “Well, you know, you want us to stay? Maybe you’re going to have to pay.” But of course, at a different event happening at almost the same time, CENTCOM’s Gen. Votel (speaking along with USAID Administrator Mark Green and Special Envoy Brett McGurk) said, “The hard part [in Syria] is in front of us,” implying that we aren’t getting out any time soon.

Scoreboard: 1 point for Withdraw, 1 point for Stay for $$$, and 1 point for Status Quo

And finally, this morning, the Washington Post is reporting that President Trump “has instructed military leaders to prepare to withdraw U.S. troops from Syria,” yet he has “not set a date for them to do so.”

Scoreboard: 1 point for Withdraw and, for good measure, 1 point for ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

All this makes you wonder if Russia, Iran, and the rest of the world have these types of charts for the U.S. foreign policy now too…

The Natural Evolution of Trump’s Shakeup

The year is 2023. Russian actors are buying ads on Facebook in bulk, the Democratic party is fighting about whether “Bernie would have won the second time,” and Donald Trump is still the President of the United States.

Back in the early Spring of 2018, it was thought that the rapid rate of departures would finally allow the President to fill his inner circle with advisors he could trust--but that was short lived. Even as the the President shed his bureaucratic skin at a historic rate, he was still limited by a staff of backbiters and self-promoters.

But the President knew he couldn’t make drastic changes with a re-election campaign looming. Following his 2020 win, however, he knew he could finally “be himself.” As he prepares for his third term, Trump has assembled a team that will finally implement his MAGA agenda without blinking twice. Meet the dream team.

Communications Director - Charlie Kirk

Pros: looks the part (central casting); speaks to millennials; finally someone that gets along with Miller

Cons: can’t send emails

Without

Hard

Returns

Secretary of Homeland Security: Jesse Waters

Pros: is ideologically aligned with the administration’s policy towards immigrants, if you know what we mean; “funny”

Cons: Fox News finally forced to shut down as Steve Doocy is the only remaining staffer still outside the administration

Secretary of Veterans Affairs - The Commando Elite

Pros: resourceful; obedient; muscles

Cons: small

Chief of Staff - Dan Egan

Pros: great on TV; doesn’t mind getting trashed by the boss

Cons: gaffe prone; occasional nervous breakdown; trashes the boss back (anonymously) worse than the Mooch did Steve Bannon

Secretary of State - An empty McDonald’s bag

Pros: cheap; see’s eye-to-eye with POTUS on diplomacy; doesn’t call POTUS names

Cons: none

Secretary of Education — Dolores Umbridge

Pros: qualified; cares more about American children than fmr. Secretary Betsy DeVos; weapons-talented

Cons: intimidates other cabinet members

Secretary of the Interior: Kid Who Mowed the White House Lawn in 2017

Pros: enjoys the outdoors; works for free; real go-getter

Cons: he’s alright, actually

Secretary of Housing and Urban Development - Roseanne

Pros: "great” on social media; steward of taxpayer dollars

Cons: jokes aren’t actually funny; ratings haven’t held up

Secretary of Defense - Vince McMahon

Pros: great on camera; not afraid of a good fight; suits fit really well

Cons: tries to start fights in cabinet meetings

Secretary of Energy: A Lump of Coal

Pros: embodies administration’s idealizing of the past; more articulate than fmr. Secretary Perry

Cons: still doesn’t demonstrate the administration’s understanding that the Department is actually mostly about nuclear issues

Attorney General - Convicted Felon Dinesh D’Souza

Pros: TBA

Cons: is also simultaneously defending himself; no legal experience on the ‘upholding’ side of the law; constantly hawking his book on government email

UN Ambassador - Guy Fieri

Pros: great energy; “cultured”

Cons: won’t follow the dress code; doesn’t get along with Secretary of State

Secretary of the Treasury: Auric Goldfinger

Pros: brings international trade expertise to the administration; understands the President’s aesthetic; rich

Cons: literally a Bond villain rather than someone who just seems like a Bond villain; fuels administration’s now multi-term trend of issues with domestic abuse

EPA: n/a

The lump of coal from DoE just does double duty.

What “Others Would Say” About John Kelly

“There are 690,000 official DACA registrants and the president sent over what amounts to be two and a half times that number, to 1.8 million,” he said. “The difference between (690,000) and 1.8 million were the people that some would say were too afraid to sign up, others would say were too lazy to get off their asses, but they didn’t sign up.”

This was what White House Chief of Staff John Kelly said today about the Trump Administration’s immigration proposal—or rather, about the part of it that wasn’t an immigration hardliner’s Pennsylvania Avenue Slenderman cosplayer Stephen Miller’s wish list of enough immigration restrictions to literally keep the United States a majority-white country for five years longer than previously anticipated.

We’ll skip right over the details of the faux-compromise itself only to allocate proper attention to the rotten core of Kelly’s remarks: his implication that apparently most immigrants are “too lazy” to apply for DACA protections. Even before the horror show that is President Trump’s ICE, it would be an entirely bad-faith assumption to declare that a simple lack of effort, rather than a well-founded fear of abruptly losing the lives they have established in the United States (through no fault of their own), was what kept DACA-eligible people from applying for protections from a government seeking to deport them.

So what would it sound like—hypothetically, of course—if someone took the same bad faith approach and applied it to Kelly’s own decision-making processes during his tenure in the Trump Administration? Some would say that the chief of staff has merely and meekly been standing dutifully by his president, but others would say he:

Slandered a member of the U.S. Congress by making false claims about a speech she gave and, when video footage surfaced showing that he was wrong, adamantly refused to apologize;

Moralized at the press about knowing Gold Star Families rather than accepting that in America, reporters should be able to ask questions of an administration without precondition;

Pressured the acting DHS Secretary to send Hondurans living in the United States back to a state that doesn’t have the infrastructure to support them (all in the name of the administration’s “wider strategic goal” on immigration);

And continues to willingly provide cover for a president who is too intellectually shallow to read a ten-page memo, too obsessively fixated on a vanity border wall to realize it’s a laughable idea, and too busy gleefully calling for another government shutdown to negotiate in good faith on anything at all.

What’s more, still others might even start to suspect that Kelly was doing all of these things not out of some noble patriotic paternalism, but because he simply believes in and backs the Trump agenda.

Good Riddance, Trey Gowdy

Somewhere, buried in the playbook that is every US Congressional candidates’ manifesto, there is a chapter about how the American people hate its capital city. Washington is a problem that must be fixed. It is an enemy that must be fought. It’s a foreign land reaping unearned benefits that should be forced into economic decline.

It’s through this lens that voters allegedly favor candidates who offer “common sense” solutions to complex problems, vow to end petty partisan bickering, and make Washington actually work for the people who need it. In practice, however, this is rarely the outcome. Astute observers of the news will point out that despite all of this getting down to business talk, Washington gridlock is all the rage, and governing by crisis continues to be the Beltway’s standard operating procedure.

Enter Congressman Trey Gowdy of South Carolina. Gowdy rode into to DC on the populist Tea Party wave that promised to punch Washington in the face and kick it in the groin on the way down. Armed with fresh congressional majorities and a right-wing boogie man in the oval office, the freshman class that included the likes of Mick Mulvaney, Blake Farenthold, and Michael Grimm set out to change Washington in their image. Of course, among this crowded cadre of faux-patriots, Gowdy had to find his niche. And with the tragedy in Benghazi, he did.

Gowdy’s crowning achievement was taking charge of an incredibly wasteful, bad faith, and conspiratorial investigation. With his powerful position to do good on behalf of the American people, Gowdy politicized the deaths of American diplomats and contractors in an attempt to sabotage a political opponent. With the help of respected politicians, he maliciously misled the American people with this taxpayer funded Fox News filler that’s now floating through cyberspace like a Christmas tree in February (the links to the Committee’s work are currently defunct). It’s hard to find a better example of the the kind of grandstanding and bluster that frustrates large swaths of the electorate—and it surely has something to do with over 62 million people hitting self-destruct button in the fall of 2016.

Congressman Gowdy is everything that is wrong with Washington, and now he’s leaving. Whether it’s because he’s dreading the hours of donor wooing required for reelection, or if he thinks Mueller is about to bring this whole thing down, it doesn’t matter—his legacy of bad faith politics, and the forces that brought him here, aren’t going anywhere. As long as Sean Hannity needs to fill an entire hour of programming, formerly elected officials like Trey Gowdy, Jason Chaffetz, and Daryl Issa will line up to give it to him. This cycle of self-serving nonsense is as close to public service as they’ll ever get.

The Increasing Dangers of the Fox News Pipeline

Tuesday night, as news networks covered significant races in Virginia, New Jersey, and elsewhere across the county, Fox News structured its programming a little differently. The lineup of true believers devoted mere minutes (in some cases, seconds) to resounding Democratic wins, instead choosing to continue dealing devastating blows to the Clinton Administration of Earth-2.

It's easy to make fun of Fox's alternate reality-cum-state television approach to the age of Trump, but the fact is that like all disinformation, their programming poses serious risks to our democracy. Specifically of concern is the way that the network has, of late, been serving as a virtual pipeline that pumps sewage straight from the murkiest cesspools of the internet into the mind of not just its most devoted viewer at 1600 Pennsylvanian Avenue, but in turn other areas of national policymaking that should be entirely free from politics.

To be sure, we’ve seen variations on this theme in the past year. Consider Sean Hannity’s relentless obsession with the murder of DNC staffer Seth Rich, an internet conspiracy of the grossest kind that can be sourced to a moronic, rambling Reddit post. Hannity’s yammering was bolstered by a now-retracted Fox News story that repeated the unsubstantiated claims of a “private investigator” who just so happened to be a Fox contributor. All this led to Newt Gingrich (if not a serious person, an undeniably mainstream one) calling for investigations on air. The process is as clear as it is disturbing: The wildest of fringe ideas, amplified by Fox reporting and punditry, can now gain traction in real life.

The pipeline reached a new level of toxicity this week, however. The Intercept reported that CIA Director Mike Pompeo had been directed by President Trump to meet with William Binney, a former NSA official who disagrees with the unanimous assessment of the U.S. intelligence community that Russia intentionally influenced the 2016 presidential election. Binney maintains that someone within the DNC was responsible for getting all those emails to Wikileaks, which in turn undermined confidence in the Democratic Party and candidate Hillary Clinton—a view that President Trump just so happens to share, because it would remove at least one of the asterisks next to his election night victory.

It's fun to follow along with MMFA's intrepid Matt Gertz as he tracks President Trump’s morning tweets (now in #280characters, God help us) along with Fox & Friends. But even scarier than the idea of Steve Doocy crafting national messaging by the transitive property is the notion that intelligence is being deliberately politicized by this administration—and specifically, through the president’s consumption of garbage from online. Unfortunately, the Trump Administration seems to have little respect for the idea that intelligence should be grounded in facts rather than opinions, whether they’re showing it by enlisting Iran hawks to find a reason for war or demanding law enforcement leaders “knock down” the (actual) Russia story

In short, President Trump’s love of conspiracy theories has been problematic in the past, but it’s only getting worse. The chief executive should not be allocating the CIA director’s time at all, let alone in the direction of two-bit conspiracy theorists. Intelligence has to remain agnostic to politics and true to facts—because when it doesn’t, the consequences can be deadly.

#Fox News #Russia Investigation #Seth Rich #Pompeo #CIA

7 findings that the Trump orbit doesn’t want you to see

In light of Monday’s indictments (and other news), the research division of TWS has uncovered new evidence for Special Counsel Mueller and his team. We believe that these digital breadcrumbs paint a vividly grim portrait of what the Trump orbit is (and has been) thinking in recent months.

This information is extremely sensitive in nature.

#1. LEWANDOWSKI, COREY; 08:00; 30 OCTOBER, 2017

#2. KUSHNER, JARED; 17:43; 19 OCTOBER, 2017

#3. CONWAY, KELLYANNE; 09:32; 30 OCTOBER, 2017

#4. FLYNN, MICHAEL; 04:25; 09 NOVEMBER, 2016

#5. SPICER, SEAN; 12:22; 30 OCTOBER, 2017

#6. SESSIONS, JEFF; 23:59; 12 SEPTEMBER, 2017

#7. TRUMP, DONALD JR; 07:23; 20 JANUARY, 2017

Authoritarian Envy

In the past, it's been a general consensus of U.S. foreign policy to oppose authoritarianism around the globe—if not always in practice, at least in rhetoric. If you purport to be the world's foremost champion of democracy, you're generally expected to praise things like elections, reform, and civil society while opposing the expansion of power in the hands of a few.

President Trump, however, does not seem to share this philosophy. He has a dominance-based, "dog eat dog" view of the world that would make even the most aggressive foreign policy realists blush; you can see it in everything from his faux-machismo about handshakes to his bullying on the debate stage to his 30+ years of caterwauling about other countries “laughing at” and “taking advantage of” us.

It's no surprise then that President Trump is taking a backwards approach to messaging against authoritarianism abroad. And while TWS could expound upon his love for a certain autocrat in Russia (where are those sanctions, by the way?), President Trump has been more than a little infatuated with—and perhaps even jealous of—other dictators and strongmen the world over.

First, there’s the case of President Trump’s bromance with Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte. Duterte had a strained relationship with President Obama, to say the least, but there have been no such tensions with President Trump. Indeed, the current occupant of the White House has praised Duterte’s toughness on crime—otherwise described as gratuitous extrajudicial killings—and both invited him for a state visit and planned a meeting during his upcoming tour of Southeast Asia.

President Trump also called to congratulate a Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan when a hotly contested, internationally criticized, and narrowly won referendum vote granted him a suite of expanded powers. That fawning seems particularly humiliating given that Erdogan's thugs later attacked protestors on U.S. soil during a state visit. While members of Congress and authorities in the District of Columbia have called for prosecution of those crimes, the White House has stayed curiously quiet.

And just yesterday, President Trump tweeted about his congratulatory exchange with Xi Jinping, President of China and head of its communist party, who was enshrined into his country's constitution and has recently signaled he has no intentions of grooming an heir-apparent any time soon. President Trump expanded on the subject in his “interview” with Lou Dobbs, calling Xi “a very powerful man” and winking that “some people might call him the king.” The Trump-Xi relationship has been a troubling one since the beginning, when China’s leader was able to, over the course of a casual conversation, convince our tabula rasa president that his country used to control Korea.

All of this matters beyond trying to understand the president's issues of projection and narcissism, though. For one thing, it's an obvious and dangerous red flag how enthralled with toughness and expanded powers President Trump is—and one shudders to think what ‘enshrining’ his thought in our Constitution would even look like. But more broadly, these explicitly pro-authoritarian signals coming out the White House are disheartening to the world. The United States support activists and reformers rather than praising those who consolidate their power and use it to suppress dissent—and that starts with the President of the United States showing that he is not just willing but eager to stand for the values of this nation.

We’re Still Waiting on those Russia Sanctions

Everyone knows that President Trump can attack any political enemy or ally, foreign leader, public figure, private citizen, or even brand identity --save for one person who seems untouchable to him. Yet when it comes to punishing Vladimir Putin’s behavior with actions, the president is even worse than he is with words.

President Trump opposed Russia sanctions in Congress--arguably fighting harder against these popular and necessary measures than he’s lobbied for any of “his” own legislation.

Then, when the bill passed, President Trump dragged his feet on signing the veto-proof bill…and when he did sign, he didn’t require his customary gaggle of adoring overseers to show his signature to, but instead harrumphed that the whole thing was unconstitutional.

Now, we’re well past the deadline for his administration to submit a plan to implement the sanctions, to the concern of a bipartisan group of senators who are beginning to ask questions.

_____________

Update on 27 October 2017: Trump Administration has finally began the implementation process by submitting a list of suggested persons and entities to sanction to Congress. They claim the delay is a result of having fewer staff to do the work...which seems like a good reason to stop slashing the State Deparment.

In any case, we are freezing the counter at 25 days, 18 hours, and 49 seconds past when implementation should have began. Here's hoping that's the last delay...but we aren't holding our breath.

The Last Great Neocon Hope

Former Ambassador to the United Nations was left in the cold because President Trump reportedly doesn't like his mustache. Elliott Abrams and his ilk are shut out too, having signed one too many #NeverTrump letters during the election season. But one great hope remains for the neoconservatives still looking for a way to tip the scales towards war with Iran, and her name is Ambassador Nikki Haley.

Though she was prone to sporadic fits of feeble spine during the campaign in opposing candidate Trump's most egregious failings, Haley has become a full and faithful acolyte since joining the Trump Administration as Ambassador to the United Nations. She once gleefully tweeted about slashing the UN's peacekeeping budget, and--in keeping with the theory that you can't work for Trump without becoming more like him--has echoed some of the president's more dangerous and escalatory rhetoric aimed at Pyongyang.

But more interestingly to the neocons still sniffing around the edges of the administration, Ambassador Haley has been a driving hawk on the question of derailing the Iran Deal. When other influencers with actual military experience (like Secretary Mattis and General Dunford) urged Trump to recertify the Iran Deal, it was purportedly Ambassador Haley who provided one of the strongest arguments to the contrary. She even slipped the line into his address about Trump's authority to unilaterally wreck the deal at any moment--last minute copy edits being a tried and true method of making national security policy around the so-called "axis of adults."

And with tired basset hound who occasionally wanders away from home Secretary of State Rex Tillerson still pushing a constructive line on Iran and unable to deny that he called his boss a "moron," there might be a vacancy in the higher echelons of the Trump cabinet sooner rather than later. Some have already speculated that Ambassador Haley is angling for the new gig--and it seems likely that if she lands a seat at the table, so will the neoconservatives get to attach their wagon to the MAGA train.

Then again, if all the maneuvering is for naught and she doesn't move on up, the neocons will always have Senator Cotton.

Trump vs. the Iran Deal: A Story of Laziness and Spite

This afternoon, President Trump “decertified” the Iran Deal—despite having verified Iranian compliance already twice this year, and against the advice of the IAEA, nonproliferation experts, our allies abroad, and his own senior military leaders.

This decision appears to be based mostly on the fact that the President is mad he has to think about his predecessor’s flagship foreign policy achievement every three months, as is mandated by U.S. law. President Trump isn’t exactly a deep thinker on the subject of nuclear weapons (whether discussing how many we should have, how they work, or if we should use them), so it’s no surprise that he’s been repeating the same anti-deal talking points with a typically Trumpian spin since the earliest days of his campaign.

This “decertification” of the Iran Deal, however, is one of those areas of increasing frequency where Trump’s lack of understanding and the Republican Congress’ “dog that finally caught the car” mentality comes together to produce serious consequences. Opponents of the Iran Deal never had a plan for the alternative, always insisting they’d “get a better one” without any insight as to how that could be achieved. It’s a classically Trumpian line of thinking—we’ll get a beautiful deal, the best deal made by the smartest people—with the all the substance and prospects to match Trump Steaks.

So what happens now? Congress has a 60 day review period in which they can choose to levy additional sanctions on Iran. If they end up implementing old nuclear sanctions (repealed via the deal’s terms) for non-nuclear Iranian behavior, that’s a violation—and the whole agreement, including limits and inspectors on Iran’s nuclear program, crumbles. Their time would be better spent enforcing and providing oversight for the sanctions that they just passed with bipartisan flying colors, but some hawks (looking at you, wannabe SecDef Cotton) will doubtlessly try to seize the day.

So, here’s hoping congressional inaction, seemingly the only stopgap between the United States and rage tweet-induced Armageddon, can save us again (more on that next week). In the meantime, hopefully cooler heads will prevail among the other parties to the Iran Deal—meaning that the president’s choice to cut off our nose to spite our face won’t undo the progress we’ve made in keeping the most dangerous weapons in the world out of Tehran’s hands.

These Goons Keep Getting Sacked for the Wrong Reasons

It's no secret that the Trump Administration has had some trouble retaining, to use the phrase very loosely, "talent." Everyone from cabinet secretaries to White House ushers seem to be dropping like flies—whether they're fired, forced out, or falling on their sword at least somewhat voluntarily.

Because we live in a reality where nothing makes sense, however, most of these exits are happening for reasons unrelated to the most heinous qualities of the men (weird how it's all men) concerned. To show what we mean, take an In Memoriam journey with TWS as we look back at some of the top Trump Admin characters whose contracts aren't being renewed for season two:

Former White House Chief Strategist Stephen Bannon

Should've been fired because: He's built a career on boosting white nationalism out of the darkest corners of the Internet and into the streets with guns, torches, and vehicles they use to kill peaceful counterprotestors.

Actually fired because: Trump saw one too many thinkpieces calling Bannon his “brain.”

Former Secretary of Health and Human Services Tom Price

Should've resigned because: He was a key player in an effort to take health insurance away from millions of his fellow human beings.

Actually resigned because: The president is mad he hasn't gotten to tear down a huge piece of his predecessor's legacy, and Price got caught using taxpayer monies for private planes (which, to be fair, is a good enough reason for us—Secretaries Mnuchin, Zinke, and Pruitt, call your offices).

Former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn

Should've been fired because: He's shilled for Russian propaganda outlets, was secretly on the payroll for multiple foreign governments and business projects, and liked to have private call time with the Russian Ambassador but couldn’t ever remember what was discussed.

Actually fired because: He lied to the Veep once--the other stuff is, apparently, fine.

Former White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer

Should've resigned because: His bosses demanded that he lie repeatedly, vociferously, and shamelessly, starting on his literal first day with an empirically disprovable whopper about crowd sizes.

Actually resigned because: Someone (see below) got hired into the chain of command above him.

Former White House Communications Director Anthony "The Mooch" Scaramucci

Should've been fired because: He gave an expletive-laden phone interview to a reporter completely on the record, the transcript of which is modern political journalism's equivalent of a Renaissance painting.

Actually fired because: Actually, this one seems about right.

Advisor Jared Kushner

Should've been fired because: He failed to provide full lists of his foreign contacts repeatedly on his SF-86, he tried to set up a secret backchannel for communication with Russia outside of U.S. security or diplomatic channels, and he attended a meeting to get information about his father-in-law’s political opponent from the Russian government. Also, he has no relevant experience or discernable skills.

Actually fired because: HOW DOES HE STILL HAVE A JOB, LET ALONE A SECURITY CLEARANCE???

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