Trump's War Crimes Threats Not War Crimes Threats, Say Sunday Show Republicans
We watch so you don't have to.
Another week of Sunday shows, more Republicans telling us we didn’t hear Donald Trump say the exact things we all heard him say, or in this case read on Truth Social. Let’s jump in!
What War Crimes?
We begin with New York GOP Rep. Elise Stefanik on CNN’s State Of The Union with Jake Tapper.
Stefanik was there to hawk her shitty book criticizing Ivy League universities, but the interview quickly zagged when Tapper asked her about Donald Trump’s latest crazy declaration from Truth Social:
Stefanik, a shameless liar but not a very good one, had a hard time trying to justify Trump’s clear threats of war crimes.
TAPPER: What did you think when President Trump threatened to obliterate the entire Iranian civilization?
STEFANIK: He was focusing on the Iranian regime. And what did it do? It brought the Iranians to the table. It led to the ceasefire. We know that President Trump has very strong statements when it comes to his tweets, but it has been targeted towards the Iranian terrorist regime.
TAPPER: He said the entire civilization will die.
STEFANIK: And it's very important to note that the -- I'm talking he was focused on the Iranian terrorist regime. […]TAPPER: […] Yes, but I'm not talking about the regime.
Tapper then noted the hypocrisy of Stefanik railing against universities and using antisemitism as a cudgel for censorship while defending the indefensible. Stefanik tried, but face-planted again, while talking over Tapper:
TAPPER: He said -- quote -- "Your whole civilization will die tonight." He didn't say the regime will be wiped out. He said, "Your whole civilization will die tonight."
And I just have to say it's interesting that a 20-year-old college kid on a campus yelling "From the river to the sea," that's worthy of condemnation, but a president of the United States who actually has...[Stefanik proceeded to talk over Tapper]
Tapper again tried to get Stefanik to admit the truth, to no avail.
TAPPER: I'm just -- it's just a very simple question.
STEFANIK: No, the very simple question...
TAPPER: Is calling for wiping out a civilization -- is calling for wiping out an entire civilization bad or good?
STEFANIK: No, it's targeted toward the Iranian terrorist regime.
TAPPER: But that's not what he said.
STEFANIK: Of course it's bad. That is not what he is calling for. He wasn't calling for genocide.
TAPPER: Your entire civilization will die.
STEFANIK: It was targeted towards the Iranian terrorist regime.
TAPPER: OK. All right.
STEFANIK: It was targeted towards the Iranian terrorist regime.
TAPPER: Agree to disagree. Agree to disagree.
Stefanik then tried to mean girl/neg Tapper and CNN while still hawking her book, but ended up looking petty and dumb:
STEFANIK: This is typical CNN. This is typical CNN. […] So, if you want to prop up the Iranian terrorist regime, that's on you. […]
TAPPER: […] No, I just -- I'm not trying -- I'm not defending anything.
STEFANIK: Thank you, as always, Jake, for selling books here.
TAPPER: I'm not defending anything. I'm saying it's all bad. Calling for genocide, calling for wiping out civilizations, whether it's some knucklehead on a college campus or Mahmoud Khalil or this person or that person or President Trump, all of it's bad. Congresswoman Elise Stefanik, thank you so much. Appreciate your time.
STEFANIK: President Trump was not calling for genocide. Shame on CNN for saying that.
TAPPER: I read the quote. Thank you so much.
Despite the bad false equivalence, Tapper does have a point about the hypocrisy of the GOP condemning what they see as incendiary while defending similar or worse statements from Trump.
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Secretary Of No Energy
Energy Secretary Chris Wright made multiple appearances on the Sunday shows. On CNN with Tapper, Wright showed the same lack of concern Stefanik did, with so much less energy.
TAPPER: Are you not concerned that Trump’s proposed strikes on civilian infrastructure would constitute a war crime? […]
WRIGHT: The president is looking for maximum leverage. […] No, I’m not worried about that.
On Fox News Sunday, with host Shannon Bream, Wright said something similar.
BREAM: When the president talks about blowing up every power plant and bridge, how does that complicate things?
WRIGHT: He’s a creative negotiator.
If you say so, Sleepy Chris.
Speaking of Die Hard, Bream asked Wright about something that sounds like the inciting incident of an action movie.
BREAM: What can you tell us about the missing scientists and people who have turned up dead, some of them with connections to nuclear?
WRIGHT: We haven’t found anything alarming yet.
Nothing to see here! Just a bunch of energy scientists going missing or dead. No big deal. (Wonder if the FBI Director is too busy to look into this.)
Tapper asked Wright whether gas prices would come down with all these “clever” negotiation moves by Trump.
TAPPER: [W]hen you were on the show March 8, I asked you when gas prices would go under $3 a gallon for regular unleaded. You said -- quote -- "In the worst-case, this is a weeks, this is not a month's thing." That was six weeks ago, so we're still within the weeks realm, but we're two weeks away from the months thing. When do you think it's realistic for Americans to expect the gas will go back to under $3 a gallon?
WRIGHT: I don’t know. That could happen later this year. That might happen until next year. But prices have likely peaked.
Don’t know about y’all, but we’re looking into the going rate of a kidney on the black market in case we need to fill up our car later this summer.
Have a week.
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“Stefanik was there to hawk her shitty book criticizing Ivy League universities...”
Harvard alumna Elise Stefanik, lest anyone forget.
An Aussie reply to Trump’s rant about ‘NATO not being there for us’:
“Mate. You run a country with 600,000 homeless people sleeping on the street tonight. A country where 40% of adults can't cover a $400 emergency without borrowing money. A country where insulin costs more than a car payment and people are rationing it to survive. A country where medical debt is the number 1 cause of bankruptcy. A country where women are dying in hospital car parks because doctors are too scared of abortion laws to treat a miscarriage.
You lock up more of your own citizens than any nation on earth. More than China. More than Russia. More than North Korea. The land of the free has 2 million people in cages, and a quarter of them haven't even been convicted of anything. They're just too poor to make bail.
Your life expectancy is going backwards. You're the only developed nation where that's happening. Your infant mortality rate is worse than Cuba's. Your kids do active shooter drills between maths and English while you sell the gunmaker's stock to your mates.
Your minimum wage hasn't moved in 15 years. You've got teachers working 2 jobs and veterans sleeping under bridges and you just spent a trillion dollars flattening a country that didn't attack you.
And you’ve got a convicted felon, adjudicating raping, paedophile protecting, porn star shagging insurrectionist running the biggest dumpster fire war campaign since the Taliban thanked you very much for losing again.
And you're calling Greenland poorly run?
Greenland has universal healthcare. Free education. One of the lowest incarceration rates in the world. Nobody goes bankrupt there because they got sick. Nobody dies in a waiting room because their insurance said no.
"NATO wasn't there when we needed them." When exactly was that, champ? September 11? Because NATO invoked Article 5 for the first and only time in history FOR YOU. Soldiers from dozens of countries deployed, fought, bled, and died in Afghanistan FOR YOU. Australia wasn't even in NATO and we still showed up. For 20 years.
And you pulled out at 2am without telling anyone and left them to deal with the mess.
So maybe before you start calling other countries poorly run, have a look at your own backyard, you spray-tanned aluminium siding salesman. The only thing poorly run in this picture is your fucking mouth.”