Wonkette is old enough to remember when conservatives pretended to love the Constitution. It was bullshit, but they pretended. Mostly gone are the days when they’d hire legal fuckmooks like John Yoo or Johnathan Turley to try to constitutionally figleaf torture and other stuff.
Donald Trump is so openly authoritarian that it honestly turns the Sunday shows into unintentional cringe comedy watching Republicans do logic pretzels.
Let’s dive in.
Mike Waltz
We begin on CNN’s State Of The Union with UN ambassador and Signal chat power user, Mike Waltz.
Host Dana Bash began the interview asking about the response from the US to the Houthi attack in Saudi Arabia, the latest permutation in the ongoing Iranian clusterfuck created by Trump. Waltz, who was national security advisor until he added journalist Jeffrey Goldberg to the secret strikes group chats, tried to sound tough and direct.
But when Bash asked about reports that Trump’s war might last until the end of his term, or forever, he suddenly got vague:
BASH: [Trump’s] top advisers are warning that the Iran war could continue through the remainder of the president's term. We're talking 2029. Is that what you think?
WALTZ: Well, I think that time with the president's strategy and Operation Economic Fury is on the president and on the United States's side.
Two things:
That’s not “no it won’t.”
Are we the only ones who get triggered into remembering Denzel Washington’s 1998 supernatural thriller Fallen every time anyone says “time is on their side”?
Because in both Waltz's statement and in the context of that movie, that phrase is a harbinger of bad things to come and hardly reassuring.
Bash also asked about Trump’s latest assault on the First Amendment, namely banning news outlets from the White House for not kissing his ass enough. Waltz did some old school whataboutism:
WALTZ: Dana, the prior administration limited all kinds of journalistic outfits and journalists themselves that they deemed as right-wing. Those have now been allowed onto the onto the facility.
Oh, yeah, the Trump White House has let such “journalistic luminaries” as [checks notes] Pizzagate conspiracy theorist Jack Posobiec, beanied “accidental Russian asset” Tim Pool, and Mike MyPillow’s Lindell TV. These are truly equivalent to CNN, MS NOW, and Politico.
It’s the journalistic equivalent of Cecilia Giménez's 2012 “restoration” of Elías García Martínez’s 1930’s Jesus fresco, Ecce Homo, in Spain.
John Barrasso
Mike Waltz was not the only one having a hard time trying to justify Trump’s latest attack on constitutional rights. On NBC’s Meet The Press, host Kristen Welker pressed Republican Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso of Wyoming on whether he believed these bans amount to government censorship.
He said it was fine because Trump was banned from Twitter, which is the same:
“He was banned from Twitter. He was banned from Facebook, and I didn’t see people come to his defense,” the Wyoming senator told NBC News’ “Meet the Press.” “So it goes both ways. The press has an obligation to report fairly, and the president doesn’t see it happening that way.”
Sure, man.
Steve Scalise
Republican House Majority Whip Steve Scalise did the whataboutism on ABC’s This Week with Jonathan Karl:
Karl also asked Scalise about former Tarrant County GOP chair and current Republican nominee for the Texas Railroad Commission Bo French, who did racism so bad that it converted Karl Rove into a Democrat, at least for a second:
He said the new magic word!
Bill Cassidy
On CBS’s Face The Nation, outgoing Republican Senator Bill Cassidy, like a Temu Dylan Thomas, is refusing to go gently into that good night (despite everyone’s desires), even though he’s been instrumental in “the dying of the light” of our democracy.
Host Margaret Brennan asked him about presidential failson Donald Trump Junior’s wedding party being paid for by a crony of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
CASSIDY: Any time someone gives a $250,000 gift and they have strong ties to the Kremlin, that’s – that’s wrong. […] And even though in your mind it might be a gift, the appearance of it is really bad.
We’re sure he’ll do something about it.
Maria Elvira Salazar
We conclude with Republican Florida Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar also on CBS’s Face The Nation.
The Miami congresswoman is having a hell of a time trying to save her congressional seat after all the work she’s done to hurt her majority Hispanic constituency.
Salazar’s strategy? To deflect from Trump and blame his “advisers” for his evil immigration policies, without naming any of them specifically, while using the tone of a person trying to talk down a raging baboon about to tear her face off.
SALAZAR: I think that some of his advisers are compromising his legacy. […] And I think it’s my duty, it’s my duty not to attack. […] I’m just forewarning him and advising him […] that some of his advisers are just not presenting the whole picture…
BRENNAN: Secretary Mullin?
SALAZAR: … and that some of the immigration enforcement…
BRENNAN: Tom Homan? Stephen Miller?
SALAZAR: […] He is the president. I – what I’m doing is, I’m coming from an elevated emotion. I’m coming from a good place. I'm telling him, "Sir… this – look what you did [winning the Latino vote in Florida last election]. Don't squander it."
Salazar also tried to defend Trump's decision by Trump to leave Delcy Rodríguez, a person she referred to as a “thief who destroyed Venezuela,” in charge of that country, with similar failed results.
Things aren’t better back home, as the local press in her district has not been gentle, as they have pointed out her rank hypocrisy. Watch this clip of Salazar being called out for taking credit for federal funding for her district that’s been in bills she voted against:
Truly, this “leopards eating faces” moment couldn’t happen to a more deserving ghoul.
Have a week.
[NBC News]
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I know facts are meaningless, but Trump was banned by Twitter for inciting an insurrection against the United States of America. Twitter was not a part of the Federal Government until Trump made Musk official executioner of poor and starving children.
OT: meanwhile FAA had to ground a ton of planes because construction workers cut a cable they shouldn't have...
https://www.bbc.com/news/live/c6j9xpgl8pzwt