If It's The Sunday Shows, It's Republicans Sanewashing Trump And Vance!
If It's The Sunday Shows, It's Republicans Sanewashing Trump And Vance!
It's your pre-VP debate Sunday show rundown!
While Donald Trump is at tiny gatherings rallies ranting about how he loves scab labor (good call there, Sean O’Brien), his campaign surrogates appeared on the Sunday shows to clean up his rhetoric like broken “Star Trek” translators, with expected results.
So, let’s dive right in and see how they did.
Lindsey Graham on CNN’s ‘State Of The Union’
The South Carolina senator really tried to clean up Trump’s ableist comments from this weekend, when he called Vice President Kamala Harris “mentally disabled,” but he had mixed results.
JAKE TAPPER: OK, so first of all, there are actual people out there with mental impairments, and that's insulting to them. Second of all, Vice President Kamala Harris is not mentally impaired.
GRAHAM: No, I just think she's crazy liberal. I don't question her …
Yeah, that doesn’t even remotely excuse Trump using mental disability as a pejorative. This also isn’t the first time Trump’s disdain for people with disabilities has revealed itself.
Fred Trump III (son of Donald Trump’s late brother Fred Trump Jr.) recounted in his book All in the Family: The Trumps and How We Got This Way how Donald spoke about people with disabilities when he was president and Fred was trying to advocate for them.
He sounded interested and even concerned. I thought he had been touched by what the doctor and advocates in the meeting had just shared about their journey with their patients and their own family members. But I was wrong.
“Those people . . .” Donald said, trailing off. “The shape they’re in, all the expenses, maybe those kinds of people should just die.”
Donald would later reveal to Fred that his disgust didn’t even spare Donald’s own nephew and Fred’s son. When a family fund to take care of William’s medical needs was running low and Fred asked Donald about helping to keep it going, Donald made his disgust for people with disabilities clear.
Donald took a second as if he was thinking about the whole situation. “I don’t know,” he finally said, letting out a sigh. “He doesn’t recognize you. Maybe you should just let him die and move down to Florida.”
Let’s also not get into the gall of a guy who constantly brags about his “Person Woman Man Camera TV” cognitive test like he’s Alan Turing breaking the enigma code questioning other people’s cognitive functions.
Graham, trying to evade the subject of Trump’s rhetoric, spouted off some immigration statistics he was not fully ready to have challenged.
But they were and it was glorious.
TAPPER: But what do you think about that rhetoric?
GRAHAM: I just think the better course to take is to prosecute the case that her policies are destroying the country. They're crazy liberal; 400,000 people have been let loose in our country, 16,000 people convicted of being a rapist, 13,000 convicted murderers, and 400,000 people generally convicted of crimes released on her watch.
It's not going to get better.
TAPPER: OK, so I saw that statistic. We dove into it, our fact-checker. […] That statistic is actually over decades. So, some of those people you're talking about are people that came into the country during Trump. And second of all, some of them are in prison. A lot of them are in prison, not ICE prisons, but federal prisons, for their crimes.
So it didn’t go well for Lindsey Graham.
Tom Emmer on ABC’s ‘This Week’
Here’s what House Majority Whip and Minnesota Rep. Tom Emmer had to say about Tim Walz:
EMMER: Yes, you – Tim’s been a complete disaster in Minnesota. And what’s happened is he’s so good at being this folksy, nice, kind of down to earth guy until people get to know him and his policies.
Emmer then took it a step further trying to hype JD Vance by denigrating Walz.
EMMER: He’s not well liked because once you get to know the real Tim Walz, he’s like Gavin Newsom in a flannel shirt. […] Let’s talk about Tim Walz. I just told you, he’s not a popular guy in Minnesota. […]
MARTHA RADDATZ: Let’s — let’s talk — let’s go back to my question about J.D. Vance.
EMMER: People should get to know Tim Walz.
RADDATZ: Let’s go back to my question about J.D. Vance and those unfavorability ratings. Tim Walz’s are higher than J.D. Vance. So, J.D. Vance clearly wants to do something different to raise those favorability ratings. What does he do?
EMMER: I think J.D. is very likeable and I think he’s well liked. And I don’t buy into these snapshot polls that are being done for a specific reason. […] People do not like him once they get to know him. And J.D. will expose that on Tuesday.
This would sound more honest and genuine coming from Emmer if we didn’t have receipts showing how friendly he’s been with Walz.
But we guess it’s easier to lie about a former friend/colleague by comparing him to a rightwing media boogeyman like California Gov. Gavin Newsom. It doesn’t comport with anything anybody has ever said about Tim Walz, but sure.
Have a week!
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Ta, MM.
A TT informed me that JD stands for Just Disappointing. That works.