Giuliani Gets Santorum On Kevin McCarthy. Your Sunday Show FUCKIN' MADNESS

Hello Wonks and welcome to another Sunday recap. Let's begin with Rudy "9/11" Giuliani, appearing onThis Week with George Stephanopoulosto defend a letter sent out by the legal team trying a REMIX of an old defense: "If the President does it, it means it is not illegal." If this sounds familiar, it's because it is the most infamous quote from the very long (four 90 minute interviews!) Frost/Nixon interviews in 1977 (three years after he resigned due to Watergate). Here is a clip from the movieFrost/Nixonthat gets the same point while sparing you Nixon trying to rehabilitate his legacy.

Stephanopoulos asks about the most murky legal assertion/Constitutional Crisis harbinger in the letter:

STEPHANOPOULOS: The most breathtaking claim to my eyes in the letter is that claim that the president basically cannot be investigated for obstruction of justice, that he can terminate an investigation at any time for any reason. Any time for any reason?

GIULIANI: I think -- I think that -- look, when you argue, you argue the broadest possible point. We don’t have to go there.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Well, but you do go there.

GIULIANI: Well I didn’t. I wasn’t there then. I’d save that as the last argument.

I think the stronger argument is he didn’t -- or I’ll bet he didn’t -- I mean, firing an employee when you know that another employee’s going to come in and take that job and further the investigation cannot possibly obstruct the investigation. He said that to Lester Holt when he was interviewed within days of doing it, so you’ve got a contemporaneous statement of his intent. So how’s that obstruction.

If only we had a very public admission of Trump trying to obstruct justice...

Of course Giuliani explains inconsistencies like this one regarding that Trump Tower meeting with Donald Trump Jr, Paul Manafort and Jared Kushner with this novel legal theory:

STEPHANOPOULOS: It’s not a very complicated thing. The president wasn't there. He was dealing with the letter. First it was all denied and now you’re saying he dictated it.

GIULIANI: But I don’t know that Jay -- Jay would have to answer that, and I've talked to him about it. I think Jay was wrong. I mean,this is the reason you don’t let the president testify.If, you know, every -- our recollection keeps changing, or we’re not even asked a question and somebody makes an assumption. In my case, I made an assumption. And then we corrected and I got it right out as soon as as it happened. I think that’s what happened here.

Oh, so that's how that works! If you are ever in legal trouble, just tell the prosecutors you can never give a statement because everything you say is full of shit! Thanks, Rudy!

While Trump and his legal team were trying to see how they could get democracy to allow him to do whatever he pleases, the panel onCNN State of the Union with Jake Tapper(minus Jake Tapper) weighed in on this quote from Obama advisor Ben Rhodes's new book. In it, Rhodes quotes President Obama reflecting on his legacy: "Maybe we pushed too far. Maybe people just want to fall back into their tribe. Sometimes I wonder whether I was 10 or 20 years too early." Senior adviser for MOVEON.ORG Karine Jean-Pierre tried to explain why the last great president might feel this way and the hard pendulum swing to the total opposite of that when Santorum tried to mansplain racism to a person of color:

JEAN-PIERRE: There is something that says a lot about this country, and what Donald Trump did is he tapped into it. Because let's not forget he started his political career talking about birtherism, being the spokesperson of birtherism. And so he saw something as well and tapped into that, tapped into that racism that we have been seeing for the last -- in particular very heavily so in the last 10 years.

And so this is where we are. And he's taking that, Donald Trump is taking that. And he ran with it.

And let's not forget how he capped off his first year, he saw neo-Nazis marching in Charlotte and what does he say, they're fine people on both sides. This is the president of the United States that we're talking about.

SANTORUM: What's being ignored here is the role that Barack Obama played in all this. I mean, you just can't go from, we elected our first black president and all the sudden we get Donald Trump. There was something in between those two things.

JEAN-PIERRE: No. I'm saying that we -- clearly it tapped into something in this country --

SANTORUM: The thing that tapped into this was--

JEAN-PIERRE: -- when we elected the first black --

SANTORUM: -- that many, many, many people saw --

JEAN-PIERRE: -- of racism.

SANTORUM: -- Barack Obama being just that, doing more to exacerbate racism in this country that any --

JEAN-PIERRE: How? What did he do? What did he do?

SANTORUM: -- every time there was a controversy with someone of color was involved he took the side many times against the police, against people. He did it over and over and over again.

It's true. Barack Obama once said a policeman acted stupid when he arrested Henry Louis Gates for being inside his own home. 

Here is an SAT prep question for Santorum: If "against racism" is being "against police," then does that mean beingFORracism mean you are for the police?

We conclude this week with House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy. While being questioned by Dana Bash onCNN State of the Union, McCarthy tried to downplay the possibility of a trade war:  

MCCARTHY: First, let's look at the facts. We are -- I disagree with trade wars. I don't think anybody wins a trade war. But we are not in a trade war.

BASH: Not yet, but is the president pushing us to head that way?

MCCARTHY: No, he is not. We are in a trade discussion to renegotiate NAFTA.

That's brilliant! The way to always (re)negotiate any deal is to piss off the other parties until NO DEAL can be passed. Amazing! That's the equivalent of before getting married at the altar, telling your significant other how you plan on imposing strict rules on monogamy on them while you're behaving like you're in an "open relationship." See how well that plans comes out! No wonder he never became Speaker of the House. I just hope a lot of you turn up in November because if we can't take the gavel from human jellyfish Paul Ryan, we can at least settle for making sure this idiot is not SECOND in line for the presidency.

Time to fight hard for Truth & Justice, Wonks! Until Next week, "Go Forward."

 via GIPHY