Sunday: The Further Descent of Rudy Giuliani

Hello Wonks! We made it through another Sunday journeying into the Mountains of Madness that are the political shows to witness the horror that they are.

First up is Republican Senator Roy Blunt of Missouri making his CNN’s STATE OF THE UNION (CNNSOTU) debut. He serves on the Senate Intelligence Committee even though any committee that includes Marco Rubio, Tom Cotton, John Cornyn and Joe Manchin is really stretching the meaning of the word “intelligence.” Here he is showing the banality of evil:

JAKE TAPPER: Let me ask you this. Does it matter if the president of the United States lies to the American people? The majority of the American people do not find him honest and trustworthy. That is a problem. Doesn't that get in the way of the agenda? And, as an American, wouldn't you prefer to have a president who you don't have to worry that what he says is just demonstrably false, such as when he says two of the hostages that were taken were taken -- that are in North Korea were taken under Obama, when two of the three were taken while he was president?

BLUNT: Well, you know, that Trump persona has not changed since the campaign.

TAPPER: Does it bother you, though?

BLUNT: It would bother me less if we weren't getting things done.

This is what allows this merry band of criminals to continue to operate. The same reason evangelicals like Franklin Graham, political leadership like Paul Ryan, pundits like Rick Santorum can give him a mulligan on this horseshit: The Ends Justify the Means. So as long as Ryan can have his college wet dream, McConnell can rob a Supreme Court seat and Scott Pruitt keeps personally punching the environment, they will be using the rotting corpse of this failed administration.

Next is counselor to Trump and Supergirl of bullshit Kellyanne Conway!

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Kellywise makes her return to CNNSOTU (and this weekly post) to spin the unraveling shitstorm created by Rudy Giuliani when he stated, “That money that was paid by his lawyer, the president reimbursed that over the period of several months,” to Sean Hannity (who was genuinely horrified that he may have accidentally performed journalism!). Rudy insisted the payments were “perfectly legal” because the money used was not campaign money. This of course led Trump to try to clean this up via Twitter:

Mr. Cohen, an attorney, received a monthly retainer, not from the campaign and having nothing to do with the campaign, from which he entered into, through reimbursement, a private contract between two parties, known as a non-disclosure agreement, or NDA. These agreements are.....

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 3, 2018 

...very common among celebrities and people of wealth. In this case it is in full force and effect and will be used in Arbitration for damages against Ms. Clifford (Daniels). The agreement was used to stop the false and extortionist accusations made by her about an affair,......

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 3, 2018 

...despite already having signed a detailed letter admitting that there was no affair. Prior to its violation by Ms. Clifford and her attorney, this was a private agreement. Money from the campaign, or campaign contributions, played no roll in this transaction.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 3, 2018 

First, Conway tries to change history by trying to Jedi Mind trick Jake Tapper (and us) into thinking Trump was answering a question he wasn’t:

TAPPER: So, it's "did you know about the $130,000 payment to Stormy Daniels?"

"No."

So, you are saying that he didn't know at the time…

CONWAY: At the time.

TAPPER: But then the next question -- or a subsequent question, "Do you know where he got the money to make that payment?"

"No, I don't know."

That's present tense.

But he did know.

CONWAY: You have to look at the president's three tweets. Again, I'm going to relay to you what the president has told me, which is the best I can do. He didn't know it at the time that the payment occurred. Separately, if you look at his three tweets this week, he said a lot in his three tweets on Thursday morning, Jake. I'm sure you have them or people can pull them up for themselves. It's democratization of information. The president tells everybody at the same time what is on his mind. In those tweets, he went back and repeated that this was a private arrangement, and there was an NDA involved, and that he is saying these are false claims, and that Ms. Daniels and her attorney have violated that NDA. This is the president speaking. And the president says it is a very typical course of action for famous people or people who are wealthy. And the president has said that he did this to save his family the embarrassment.

So, there you go! The keys to success are nepotism and blackmail lawsuits, according to Conway. That and trying to keep your couch-confined husband from undermining your propaganda:

 https: //t.co/bsZKAUJpu3   pic.twitter.com/xJgZXrvSuT 

— George Conway (@gtconway3d) May 3, 2018 

But we end this today with the man who started this week’s Series of Unfortunate Events for the Trump Administration: Count Olaf himself, former NY Mayor and brilliant emergency planner  Rudy Giuliani.

He appeared on ABC’s THIS WEEK with George Stephanopoulos where he proceeded to put out the fire he set by drowning it in gasoline (I know it’s a long clip, but this seriously destroys the entire narrative of this past week):

This was such a wreck that Stormy Daniels's lawyer, Michael Avenatti, couldn’t believe he had witnessed his case being made infinitely easier:

But Michael Avenatti comes to the same conclusion George Conway and most rational people come to:

With that we end this week’s installment of the slow-motion car wreck that is this White House on the Sunday shows. The fact that these bumbling morons that managed to win election are falling over themselves to get caught is spectacular. So, until I return to this time and place next week:

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