GOP Active Trumpism Drills

It's your Juneteenth/Father's Day Sunday show rundown!

Jun 20, 2023

Because we live in the worst timeline (we blame Barry Allen ), rather than ever dealing with guns, we've come up with one those three word strategies — like the old fire safety technique " stop, drop and roll " — to put the onus on the victim to save themselves: Run, Hide, Fight.

Ironically enough, these three active shooter techniques describe how the current crop of Republicans are dealing with Donald Trump, both on the campaign trail and in Washington DC.

Run

One example of running away in fear of Trump and the MAGA base is House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Turner of Ohio on CNN's "State Of The Union."

When asked about the serious risk to national security from Trump hoarding documents , as outlined by the Special Counsel indictment, Turner turns to the ol' trusty "both sides" argument.

TURNER: Well, it's certainly of grave concern. So, the chair and ranking of both the House Intel and Senate Intel have seen some of the documents, both from the Biden cache and the Trump documents itself. [...]

Host Jake Tapper, for his part, point out the clear differences between the Trump and President Biden cases.

TAPPER: I take your point. The White House does say that President Biden's team contacted the National Archives the very same day they found these documents. That's obviously not what Trump did. He stonewalled for 14 months and allegedly hid documents from his lawyers in order to obstruct the efforts to return those documents, even after receiving a federal subpoena.

Tapper then proceeded to play clips of Republicans, like GOP Congressman Don Bacon, from the past week, all stating how extremely ludicrous Trump's actions were. Turner never gave much of a rebuttal and then quickly shifted to other topics.

Over on NBC's "Meet The Press," the soon to be departing Chuck Todd interviewed Vice President Mike Pence.

Pence spent his time on trying to thread the needle between defending Trump and condemning him just softly enough that he thinks the people who wanted to hang him on January 6th might somehow vote for him.

Some highlighted quotes from Pence's cowardly appearance:

PENCE: It's one more example of a two-tiered justice system that we've been living through for seven years. I mean, I have to tell you, after seeing Hillary Clinton given a pass [...] I think the American people would like to see evidence that we don't have a two-tiered system of justice. Seven years it appears as though Democrats get one level of treatment, and Republicans, especially those of us in the Trump-Pence administration ...

Todd pointed out what Republicans really wanted:

TODD: But there's a difference between equal treatment and equal outcomes.

Yeah, Chuck did some journalism again.

Pence then threw out buzzwords and dog whistles to the GOP base because when in doubt, use "woke" or "BLM" to be racist without being overt about it.

PENCE: We've literally seen the Justice Department targeting parents going to school board meetings. We've seen the Justice Department targeting pro-life activists. And – and I have to tell you, Chuck, I'm still waiting for the rash of prosecutions of people involved in the BLM riots from the summer of 2020. [...]

Pence's Susan Collins impression was truly so strong that we're prone to believe Collins copied him and not the other way around.

PENCE: I always hoped he'd come around on this issue because I believe no one who puts himself over the Constitution should ever be president of the United States. And I had hoped that President Trump would eventually see that he'd been misled by the so-called legal experts that had advised him wrongly.

Kudos on blaming the lawyers for Trump's criminality.

But the most succinct proof of what an empty suit Mike Pence is was his inability to describe what exactly IS a Pence voter.

It's a very Pence move.

Hide

Meanwhile, two GOP presidential candidates have chosen different ways to hide from Trump. On ABC's "This Week," former Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson was asked about his attempt to get the RNC to add an anti-criminal addendum to the GOP presidential support pledge.

Hutchinson, like the Republican Party in 2016, believes that Trump should drop out or not be endorsed if he is convicted of the crimes he's been charged with. But Hutchinson is either the naivest Republican of all time or Dick Durbin if he believes we are somehow gonna save democracy by counting on norms and decency.

I think Trump's political career has proven that is a fool's hope.

Meanwhile, over on the softball fields of "Fox News Sunday," Vivek Ramaswamy was continuing to prove that the best way to hide from Trump is to run to be an even more sycophantic VP than Mike Pence was. Last week, this was the chyron while he spoke to CNN:

chyron: Ramaswamy vows to pardon Trump as president

Of course, it's hard for anyone to take Ramaswamy seriously when he's yet to outline what he could bring to a presidential ticket. Two weeks ago, Ramaswamy's ABC interview with Martha Raddatz got off to a "good start" when it outlined what a longshot he is.

“when the first question of your interview exposes why it's a silly interview in the first place”
— Aaron Rupar (@Aaron Rupar) 1685890279

Two weeks later, Ramaswamy still can't shake that his campaign is seen as a joke.

Maybe running as a tech bro troll on Twitter rather than a serious candidate is not a good idea.

Fight

We conclude with former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and Attorney General Bill Barr on CBS's "Face The Nation." Both are choosing to actually fight Trump.

Christie as a GOP presidential candidate ...