Sunday Show Republicans: Do Not Look At Sex Crimes Behind The Nominees
It's your very 'Wicked' rundown.
There are some interesting parallels between Donald Trump and The Wizard from L. Frank Baum’s Oz books. Both are con men trying to project an image of omnipotence while secretly being weak charlatans who trick willingly gullible masses into making them their leaders. But this week, it’s Trump’s Republican enablers who are begging everyone not to look behind the curtain of his future presidency.
So let’s dive in and see how it went!
Cowardly James Lankford
Oklahoma Senator James Lankford is no stranger to playing tough only to show his belly at the first sign of a fight. And he was no different when asked about Trump’s replacement of (alleged)b sex criminal Matt Gaetz with former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi to lead the Justice Department.
After CNN’s “State Of The Union” host Dana Bash played footage of Bondi threatening that “the prosecutors will be prosecuted. […] The investigators will be investigated,” in Trump’s next term, Lankford tried to dismiss it as overblown.
BASH: Are you on board with her going after career prosecutors and investigators as retribution for Donald Trump?
LANKFORD: Well, I don't know if it's retribution. I think it's trying to be able to get us back to neutral and to balance on that, Dana.
Oh, it’s trying to get us back to “neutral and balance”! Well, I’m sure Lankford felt the same way about previous Democratic proposals to make the Supreme Court more “neutral and balanced” before, amirite?
Bash clarified her question and Lankford went ahead and doubled down trying to minimize the threat.
BASH: Yes, what I meant was using the Department of Justice to go after his opponents outside DOJ in that particular question.
LANKFORD: Well, we will see on that. I would tell you the past is prologue in some ways on this. […] President Trump didn't go after Hillary Clinton after he came into office in 2017. He said, hey, we're not going to do that.
I must have imagined all those headlines about Trump doing exactly that. In fact, the only reason Trump stopped investigating Hillary Clinton was that he ran out of presidency on account of losing in 2020.
So “if the past is prologue,” James Lankford, then you and your party are full of shit liars.
Heartless Markwayne Mullin
When I was younger, my drunken uncle once told me, “Never trust a man with two first names.” That axiom goes double when those two first names get mushed together like an unholy chimera to make a single one.
This week, Republican Oklahoma Senator (again?! WTFuck, Oklahoma!) Markwayne Mullin also appeared on CNN to make excuses for Trump’s Cabinet nominees. When asked if he’d like to see a proper FBI file on Trump’s “Intelligence” pick, former Democrat/current foreign asset Tulsi Gabbard, he said he would … conditionally.
BASH: Does any part of you want to see what either the FBI or the intelligence community, if they have a file on her, what it says?
MULLIN: Well, if they do have a file on her, we will obviously see it. The thing is, is, they don't have a file on her.
Well, we think the Biden Administration should do what it can to peacefully transfer power to help the future Trump Administration by asking the FBI to help them vet ALL THEIR CABINET NOMINEES. I’m sure Markwayne here will be very appreciative of that.
Bash then moved on to the next highest profile sex pest in Trump’s Cabinet nominees, current “Fox & Friends” (Weekends) host Pete Hegseth for Defense secretary. After the revelation of a police report detailing Hegseth's alleged sexual assault, Bash asked if he still felt comfortable supporting Hegseth. Mullin then characterized the events of that night in the most fucked up of ways.
MULLIN: There was no case here. He was falsely accused. […] There was two eyewitnesses said that she was being the aggressor. Pete wasn't even flirting with her. He was flirting with a different girl, and that the other girl was trying to flirt with Pete, the Jane Doe here that is unmentioned. […] As they were leaving […] Pete was intoxicated and that Jane Doe was not. […] Multiple people said that she was aggressively, to the point of aggressively, used the word aggressively flirting towards him when they were in the courtyard.
According to Mullin, it’s Pete Hegseth who was the real victim. This is why he locked Jane Doe in silence with a settlement and non-disclosure agreement (NDA) to keep his Fox News job. Totally what the “true victim” would do in his situation.
When Bash noted how Mullin only believed Hegseth's side, despite the report outlining Hegseth’s actions, Mullin made it clearer he supports abusers.
BASH: So I guess that just kind of answers the question, which is, from your perspective, you believe his part of the story, and not hers?
MULLIN: I absolutely do. He wasn't charged. He wasn't even kind of charged in this. There was no crime committed.
Harvey Weinstein, Bill Cosby, and Donald Trump himself were not innocent of their sexual assaults just because they weren’t charged at the time. That’s not how justice works. Putting a sexual assaulter in charge of the largest section of our federal government, with its checkered past of mishandling sexual assault, is like handing a free pass to abusers currently hiding in our military.
Mullin won’t lose any sleep though. You’d have to have a conscious heart to care.
Brainless Bill Hagerty
We conclude with Republican Tennessee Senator Bill Hagerty on ABC’s “This Week.” When asked about Pete Hegseth’s nomination, Hagerty was easily astonished by the routine.
HAGERTY: Jon, all these are, as you said, are allegations. It’s amazing how this comes out.
Yeah, Bill, that’s how vetting and background checks work. If you have no skeletons to hide, you usually are fine.
Or if Trump and his team did any actual vetting more rigorous than a toddler pointing in amazement at the flying monkeys on the TV.
Have a happy lazy holiday week.
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