Foreign leaders have lined up to speak with him. He has
rattled Mexico and Canada with threats of steep tariffs and warned there would
be “hell to pay” for militants in Gaza unless they release the hostages by the
time he’s sworn in.
That won't happen for another 45 days, but Donald Trump, the
president-in-waiting, isn't shying away from acting like the
president-in-reality.
Trump can't sign a bill or issue an executive order yet, but
he is crowding out Joe Biden as the sitting president winds down his term and
steadily recedes from public view. In two foreign trips since the election,
Biden has answered all of two questions from reporters.
He has been left to kibitz about Trump’s pronouncements — “I
hope he rethinks it,” he said of Trump’s plan to impose 25% tariffs on Canada
and Mexico — rather than drive an agenda of his own.
Why TF is Donald Trump in France for the reopening of Notre Dame and meeting with President Macron?
Throughout the campaign this summer and fall, Republicans routinely referred to their candidate as "President Trump" or "the President." Many broadcast "journalists" did so also and only on rare occassions would the news host \offer the correction of "ex-President" or "former President."
If there was one essential prenuse if Trump's candidacy, it was that he has been "President Trump" all along. AP reported in March
Republican Donald Trump has launched his general election
campaign not merely rewriting the history of the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack,
but positioning the violent siege and its failed attempt to overturn the 2020
election as a cornerstone of his bid to return to the White House.
At a weekend rally in Ohio, his first as the presumed
Republican Party presidential nominee, Trump stood onstage, his hand raised in
salute to the brim of his red MAGA hat, as a recorded chorus of prisoners in
jail for their roles in the Jan. 6 attack sang the national anthem.
An announcer asked the crowd to please rise “for the
horribly and unfairly treated January 6th hostages.” And people did, and sang
along.
“They were unbelievable patriots,” Trump said as the
recording ended.
Having previously vowed to pardon the rioters, he promised
to help them “the first day we get into office.”
In September, Trump admitted that he had lost the 2020 election "by a whisker." That was six months after falsely claiming "eighty-two percent of the country understands that it was a rigged election" and three months after whining that Biden "only attained the position of president by lies, fake news, and not leaving his basement."
It's who he is- or rather, whom he pretends he is. He always has to be the Big Man on Campus and wants to portray himself as having always been President. He's still the guy who brushed aside the prime minister of Montenegro at a NATO summit in Brussels in May, 2017. He always has to be the Big Man on Campus, who became the President, was cheated out of a second term, and will be President indefinitely.
Joe and Mika are butthurt by the backlash from them going to Mar-a-Lardo to slurp on trump’s tiny 🍄. “We went there to get the read of the man.” 🙄 What’s to read? We already know he’s a racist, fascist, criminal piece of shit. They can go fuck themselves.pic.twitter.com/N2hvBeVxla
In a classic example of platforming a demagogue and totalitarian whom pre-election they had labeled a "fascist," Joe Scarborough on Thursday morning
defended a meeting that he and Brzezinski had earlier this
month with Trump. Their revelation of the off-the-record visit to Mar-A-Lago
drew a backlash, as they had previously warned of Trump’s authoritarianism and
even compared him to a fascist.
He acknowledged that people were upset and that “maybe we
should have given them more of a warning,” but “the main complaint was that we
called Donald Trump’s rhetoric fascist during the campaign, and then we went
down to have an off the record comment with him.” Brzezinski noted that other
news outlets like The New York Times, The Washington Post and even The Atlantic
have done the same.
When on November 18 the two revealed they had a chat with the President-elect
Scarborough said, “we didn’t see eye-to-eye on a lot of
issues, and we told him so.” But “what we did agree on was to restart
communications,” Brzezinski said, suggesting that their behavior should be a
model for others..
Brzezinski said Trump was cheerful, upbeat and “seemed
interested in finding common ground with Democrats on some of the most divisive
issues.” She did not specify which ones.
In her explanation of the meeting, Brzezinski pointed to
Trump’s election victory and said “Joe and I realized it’s time to do something
different, and that starts with not only talking about Donald Trump, but
talking with him.”.
Three+ weeks later
On Wednesday, during a segment on former Fox News host Pete
Hegseth’s teetering nomination as Trump’s next secretary of defense, (Atlantic writer David) Frum
quipped, “If you’re too drunk for Fox News, you’re very, very drunk indeed.”
That was in response to an NBC News report that colleagues on Fox & Friends
Weekend had concerns over Hegseth’s drinking.
With stick stuck squarely up her rear end
Brzezinski followed up the segment by telling viewers that
Frum’s comment was “a little too flippant” and that “we have differences in
coverage with Fox News, and that’s a good debate that we should have often, but
right now I just want to say there’s a lot of good people who work at Fox News
who care about Pete Hegseth, and we will want to leave it at that.
I was invited onto MSNBC’s Morning Joe to talk from a studio
in Washington, D.C., about an article I’d written on Trump’s approach to
foreign policy. Before getting to the article, I was asked about the nomination
of Pete Hegseth as secretary of defense—specifically about an NBC News report
that his heavy drinking worried colleagues at Fox News and at the veterans
organizations he’d headed. (A spokesman for the Trump transition told NBC,
“These disgusting allegations are completely unfounded and false, and anyone
peddling these defamatory lies to score political cheap shots is sickening.” )
I answered by reminding viewers of some history:
In 1989, President George H. W. Bush nominated John Tower,
senator from Texas, for secretary of defense. Tower was a very considerable
person, a real defense intellectual, someone who deeply understood defense,
unlike the current nominee. It emerged that Tower had a drinking problem, and
when he was drinking too much he would make himself a nuisance or worse to
women around him. And for that reason, his nomination collapsed in 1989. You
don’t want to think that our moral standards have declined so much that you can
say: Let’s take all the drinking, all the sex-pesting, subtract any knowledge
of defense, subtract any leadership, and there is your next secretary of
defense for the 21st century.
I told this story in pungent terms. It’s cable TV, after
all. And I introduced the discussion with a joke: “If you’re too drunk for Fox
News, you’re very, very drunk indeed.”
At the next ad break, a producer spoke into my ear. He
objected to my comments about Fox and warned me not to repeat them. I said
something noncommittal and got another round of warning. After the break, I was
asked a follow-up question on a different topic, about President Joe Biden’s
pardon of his son. I did not revert to the earlier discussion, not because I
had been warned, but because I had said my piece. I was then told that I was
excused from the studio chair. Shortly afterward, co-host Mika Brzezinski read
an apology for my remarks.
A little bit earlier in this block there was a comment made
about Fox News, in our coverage about Pete Hegseth and the growing number of
allegations about his behavior over the years and possible addiction to alcohol
or issues with alcohol. The comment was a little too flippant for this moment
that we’re in. We just want to make that comment as well. We want to make that
clear. We have differences in coverage with Fox News, and that’s a good debate
that we should have often, but right now I just want to say there’s a lot of
good people who work at Fox News who care about Pete Hegseth, and we will want
to leave it at that.
After the Wednesday incident and the responses to it, two additional things have become known while one thing remains unknown, despite speculation.
David Frum has never understood that the modern Republican Party, which he abhors, did not come out of thin air and had its antecedents at least as far back as the Reagan presidency. However, he obviously has a great deal of integrity, as his Hedgeseth remark, his willingness to move past it, and his written explanation evince.
We still cannot be confident of the reason for the visit by the Scarboroughs to Mar-a-Lago. It has seemed to me and to most observers that they were caving to Trump because they fear being among those who will be prosecuted and persecuted after January 20 for exercising their First Amendment rights. However, on Wednesday, Joe stated "Let me tell you something: You can talk to anybody that’s
worked in the front office of NBC and MSNBC over the past 22 years, [they] will
tell you I am not fearful. You talk to anybody who has served with me in
Congress, they will tell you — not fearful of leadership.”
Times change, circumstances change, and people change and perhaps Joe and Mika- whatever Joe's past- are now scaredy cats, and justifiably so. Alternatively, they've read the tea leaves. Donald Trump is returning to the presidency, MSNBC is up for sale, and they may need an alternative in journalism or even a different career.
Currying favor with such a man, access journalism run amok, would be worse than merely acting out of fear. Interviewing Donald Trump on the latter's own turf, doing so without video, and choosing not to report the details of the chat are very bad indeed, made even worse when Brzezinski did Trump's bidding by claiming he was "cheerful, upbeat" and was "interested in finding common ground." Ms. Brzezinski is a fine stenographer but leaves unclear whether the President-elect played them or they're trying to play their viewers.
Yet, if their motive is not completely certain, the content of their character is. It's bad enough to suck up to Donald J. Trump. However, they exacerbated the situation when a flunky (with or without their direction) tells Frum not to repeat the comment. As requested, Frum avoids the subject, then is kicked out.
This is despicable behavior by the hosts and is making MSNBC look even worse than it has. And these days, that's difficult to do.
The announcement on Sunday of the decision of President Joe Biden to pardon son Hunter Biden was met with swift criticism.
Several members of Congress were upset.
Senators Peter Welch of Vermont labeled it "unwise" and Gary Peters of Michigan termed it "wrong." Representatives Gerry Connolly of Virginia admonished the President while,Jason Crow of Colorado said it was "a mistake," and Greg Stanton of Ohio remarked "... but I think he got this one wrong." Representative Greg Landsman of Arizon tweeted ".... but as someone who wants people to believe in public service again, it's a setback." Ro Khanna of California slammed it as a manifestation of "the archaic pardon power."
With, presumably, a straight face, centrist Marie Gluesenkamp of Washington State posted "no family should be above the law." (How is that two billion dollars Jared Kushner pocketed from the butchers of Riyadh figure in with that, Congresswoman?)
Michael Bennet of of Colorado contended the pardon puts "personal interest ahead of duty and further erodes Americans' faith that the justice system is fair and equal for all."
And these were Democrats.
(Bennet's concern that Americans trust the justice system to be "fair and equal for all" is particularly amusing. In the summer of 2020, Bennet was a full-throated supporter of the black lives matter movement, which strenuously argued that treatment of blacks by the police and criminal justice system is, well, unfair and unequal compared to the treatment other people receive. Presumably, after the end of those protesst, Bennet decided, until Sunday, that the justice system actually is fair and equal for all.)
President Biden's action was condemned, as inevitable, by several Republicans. And the Hunter and Joe episode presents an opportunity for action in which Democrats concerned with gun safety and Republicans horrified by street crime can join together in an effective bipartisan manner.
Hunter Biden was convicted in June of three federal gun charges stemming from lying on an application for a gun license. As noted here, he lied on a federal screening form about his drug use, lied to a gun dealer, and possessed a firearm despite restrictions for people addicted to drugs. In September, he pled guilty to three felonies and six misdemeanors for failing to pay $1.4 million in federalt axes from 2016 to 2019. He already had paid the money back, plus penalties bit was to be sentenced on both cases in a few weeks.
Question 11e on Form 4473, the Firearms Transaction Record of the Justice Department's Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firears reads
Are you an unlawful user of, or addicted to, marijuana or any depressant, stimulant, narcotic drug, or any other controlled substance? Warning: The use or possession of marijuana remains unlawful under Federal law regardless of whether it has been legalized or decriminalized for medicinal or recreational purposes in the state where you reside.
As with virtually every other user or abuser of an illegal drug, Mr. Biden marked the "no" rather than the "yes" box. (Presumably, anyone checking "yes" would be denied a firearms license on the grounds of stupidity.) Drug addicts, and even users not addicted, are not partial to ratting themselves out to law enforcement authorities and have little incentive to be truthful because
The odds of being charged for lying on the form are
virtually nonexistent. In the 2019 fiscal year, when Hunter Biden purchased his
gun, federal prosecutors received 478 referrals for lying on Form 4473 — and
filed just 298 cases. The numbers were roughly similar for fiscal 2020. At
issue is when Biden answered “no” on the question that asks about unlawful drug
use and addiction when purchasing a gun. Biden had been discharged five years
earlier from the Navy Reserve for drug use and based on his 2021 memoir, he was
actively using crack cocaine in the year he bought the gun. The data do not
show how many people might have been prosecuted for falsely answering the
question about active drug use. A 1990 Justice Department study noted how
difficult it was to bring cases against people who falsely answer questions on
the form, especially because there is no paper trail for drug abusers like
there is for felons.
As Dan Abrams objectively explains in the transaction beginning at 10:38:
Nonetheless, lying on a form to obtain a firearm is a serious offense- or should be treated as such. Democrats could (would) call the GOP's bluff by proposing to congressional Republicans that prosecution be mandatory for lying on the ATF application for a gun license. Democrats are serious about gun safety laws (when race is not a direct or indirect factor) and Republicans are troubled about Hunter Biden and (during an election campaign) crime. Democrats might even suggest that lying on the drug use question (11e) prompt mandatory jail/prison time.
It's great occasion for that kind of approach, not only because of Hunter Biden. James Carville, James Clyburn, and others have slammed fellow Democrats for allegedly supporting "defund the police." Condemning the elder Biden, ihe leading Republican on Capitol Hill, House Speaker Mike Johnson, arged "real reform cannot begin soon enough."
So real reform might begin with an effort to keep firearms out of the hands of irresponsible or dangerous individuals. Just kidding! Johnson has no interest in gun safety, whatever it is he meant by "reform." Democrats are adjusting to the reality of being steamrolled next year by the Party of Trump, and the mass incarceration (especially of blacks) encouraged by President Clinton's 1994 anti-crime legislation has made them gunshy about mandatory prosecution, let alone imprisonment. And so this Biden tempest in a teapot will go on or with any luck, will not.
There are many things which will determine President Biden's legacy, including probably being the last President of our democratic republic (representative democracy, if you wish). This is the least of them:
Biden's pardon of his son erodes the rule of law, shrinks the distance between the Dems and the GOP, and objectively aids whatever nonsense Trump is about to do.
In this last year, he torched what might have been a decent legacy.
The distance between Democrats and Republicans on the rule of law now has shrunk by almost one millimeter.The distance remains as vast as the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, together. Nonetheless, as this is typed, the tweeter's notion is a popular one on Twitter. A political strategist and editor of The Bulwark a conservative, anti-Trump organ, takes the same position.when she tweets (quote marks hers)
“Pardoning Hunter, who has pleaded guilty, would persuade
those who still believe in impartial justice that it’s all a pretense—that
Democrats mouth the words about nobody being above the law but when it comes
down to it, they don’t believe it and they don’t act on it.”
Longwell has been listening too much to the lawyers, many of them former federal prosecutors, on cable news who have assurred us for several years that "no one is above the law." On this, at least, most Americans have been well ahead of the legal geniuses who either believe this or have been blowing smoke up our posterior.
Left, right, or center, people without a law degree- without a stake in vouching for the credibility of the legal system- have recognized that some people are above the law. At the least, this always has applied to the wealthy. And then five months ago- that would be five months before President Joe Biden pardoned his son Hunter- the Supreme Court told us so when in Trump v. United States it ruled
that former President Trump is at least presumptively immune
from criminal liability for his official acts, and is absolutely immune for
some “core” of them — including his attempts to use the Justice Department to
obstruct the results of the election. With respect to Trump’s other actions,
the court left to the lower courts much of the work required to determine which
are immune and which are not. At bottom, though, the court’s 6-3 majority freed
presidents to use their official powers to engage in criminal acts
substantially free of accountability.
Six days ago, exasperated by the request by Special Prosecutor Jack Smith for Judge Chutkan to dismiss (without prejudice) the January 6 case against Donald Trump, Charlie Pierce wrote in part
Of course, Smith’s case against the two Mar-a-Lago orcs who
did (literally) the heavy lifting in the Pool Shed Papers Case will go forward
because, as we know, No Scrub Is Above the Law. Comin’ soon to the ID Network:
Walt Nauta: Threat of Menace? This is nothing short of pathetic. In fact, it’s
well past pathetic.
Oh, just shut up and go away, will you? Tell me no more lies
about the rule of law and about how no man is above it.... Let the chroniclers write that the
only people who did not lie to us about all that star-spangled folderol were
local prosecutors in Manhattan and Atlanta, and a New York jury. In the name of
God, go, all of you. Leave us to learn how to live under the crumb-scattering
oligarchy that you have done so much to spawn. That will be the order of the
American idea probably for the rest of my lifetime, and the only thing we can
hope for is that it won’t always be run by a vengeful, lunatic crook. That
seems to be the consensus of my fellow citizens, as expressed by the recent
election results. The one thing that Trump voters and nonvoters alike have in
common is that participatory democracy is just too...damn...hard. Here we are
now, entertain us.
That rant applies also to the hand-wringing over the HB pardon. The idea that "no one is above the law" had been in hospice care for a very long time. Donald Trump put it onto life support and the United States Supreme Court killed it on July 1, 2024. President Joe Biden's decision about a family member will not change that.
James Carville has spent the better part of the last few weeks arguing "woke" was responsible for the resounding defeat of the Democratic Party in this election cycle. In one instance
Carville said what "killed" the Democrats in these
elections was a "sense of dishonor" among the electorate, part of
which, he said, "was the unfortunate events of what I would refer to as
the woke era."
"We got beyond it," he said. "But the image
stuck in people's minds that the Democrats wanted to defund the police, wanted
to empty prisons...it created a sense of dishonor."
In another, in which Carville delivered a similar message, the veteran party strategist denounced Jon Stewart's take on the election. In turn, Kyle Kulinski noted
So in other words- in other words- Kamlala and other Democrats ran the platonic ideal of the non-woke Democrat campaign. But yet, they're still saying that wokeness is the problem. It's not- kamala, as I pointed out a thousand times- Kamala nevr mentioned race, Kamala never mentioned gender, Kamala never mentined LatinX or trans people or political correctness or cancel culture. She didn't mention any of that. She ran on freedom, she ran on patriotism, she repeatedly stressed that she'd represent all Americans. She ran right-wing on the border. So in ther words, the Democrats do exacctly what people like James Carville wanted them to do and then he's like "well, you should have somehow done it more like I wanted you to do it even though you did it exactly like I wanted you to do it."
Kulinski emphasizes that Kamala Harris ran it their way. As with most other Democrats, she did not run a Frank Sinatra "I did it my way" campaign. She ran as the ex-prosecutor who would blow away anyone who broke into her home and would "focus... on porotecting women and children from violent crime." . As "the president for all Americans, she would usher in an "opportunity society" available to Democrats, Republicans, independents, and everyone who admires the post-partisan patriotism of a Liz Cheney
The sitting vice president didn't run a "woke" campaign, nor did more than one or two Democrats outside of a very fewin extremely safe congressional districts. (Think a Rashid Tlaib-like district.). Regrettably- and unfortunately, understandably- neither Kulinski nor Carville acknowledges that the Vice President did not need to run a "woke" campaign.
Harris became the vice presidential nominee, thereafter vice president-elect, in 2020 because she is a black woman. In 2024 she was elevated suddenly and swiftly, though with concern from Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, and a few other leaders- to the top of the ticket. She is a black woman who, deservedly or otherwise, became the party's nominee without any potential candidate opposing her. She was the embodiment of the possibility of overcoming racial and sexual (or gender, if you prefer) obstacles to achieve a position and status few others, and no black women, have.
She didn't have to go "woke" and didn't, and neither did virtually any other Democrat who lost. Kulinski understands the theme a Democratic presidential candidate (and ones down-ballot) could have struck when he explains
So in other words, you need to counter the immigrants and trans people are the problem with "no, it's the financial elites, it's Wall Street, it's the billionaires. They're the problem. They've bought the government, they've rigged the government. That's why it doesn't represent you anymore. That's why we don't have a higher minimum wage. That's why we don't have the PRO Act. That's why we don't have higher taxes on the wealthy. That's why we don't have universal health care." That's the argument.
Voters are justifiably disgruntled and believe the deck is stacked against them, rigged in favor of some groups at their expense. The key for Democrats is to give voters an alternative narrative without undermining their own support among the groups essential to the Democratic coalition. They include ; the black community; the LGBTQIA community, the de jure boogeyman of conservatives; and legal immigrants, whom many people believe are taking jobs others should have, benefits they don't deserve, or are diluting their own vote. Or all of that.
The Democratic Party is identified in the public mind with these groups. Yet, without their support, the Party is dead in the water. Democrats must identify with widespread dissatisfaction with the status quo across ethnic, sexual, economic, and geographic lines. Otherwise, voters will continue to respond to Republicans who want them to punch down at ethnic minorities, the poor, or even other middle-class which many are wont to do. If Democrats can focus on those financial elite-, on Wall Street, in Silicon Valley, and elsewhere- they'll be on the right track while on the left track.
I hate to agree with a journalist so anti-Israel that on Twitter he occasionally veers into anti-Semitism. However, Mehdi Hasan has heard enough of an emerging narrative and has no more- well, you know- to give. He remarks
Donald Trump winning the election was bad enough. But Democrats and much of our "liberal media" are now trying to blame their defeat on "the left, on prossives, on wokeness is just doing my head in. "Harris defeat is a stining defeatt for the left" was the hadline in the Post. "When will the Democrats learn to say no?" was the headline in the Times. A former Hillary Clinton advisor popped up on CNN to say the Democratic Party is being held hostage by the "far left." That's the new narrative- progressives lost Democrats the White House; Kamala Harris' losing campaign was a left-wing campaign. Are you fucking kidding me? This is gaslighting of Trumpian proportions. There was nothing left-wing about Harris.
Actually, there was one thing left-wing about Harris, who maintained amidst shifting positions that her principles had not changed.. It was her and most resoundingly not her campaign. Hasan continues
I mean, the centrists literally got the presidential candidate they wanted- a tough on crime prosecutor who bragged about owning a gun and spoke about her love for a "lethal" military. A candidate who famously told migrants "don't come" to this country and during the one and only presidential debate, attacked Trump for not backing a biparisan and very draconian border security bill. The idea that progressives got the campaign they wanted and then lost and so the left is now discredited is so ridiculous, so dtached from reality, so demonstrably and obviously false that Ican't believe I'm even having to sit here and rebut it.
The Democratic nominee ran commercials touting her experience as a prosecutor.
So I'm the only person on this stage who has prosecuted transnational criminal organizations for the trafficking of guns, drugs, and human beings. And let me say that the United States Congress, including some of the most conservative members of the United States Senate, came up with a border security bill which I supported (but) Donald Trump got on the phone, called up some folks in Congress, and said kill the bill.
And in her closing statement, Harris stated that she was committed to "sustaining America's standing in the world and ensuring we have the respect that we so rightly deserve, including respecting our military and ensuring we have the most lethal fighting force in the world."
Hasan continued with
"It was the wokeness and it was the cultural stuff." No. Harris barely sid anything about transgender rights. She didn't utter the term "Latinx" during the campaign, either, nor did she ever mention the words" defund the police." Stop lying. And oh, by the way, the year when people were talking about defunding the police was 2020, not 2024, and Democrats won in 2020, just saying.
Even in 2020, very few Democratic officials or politicians uttered the phrase "defund the police," though in the years following, many Democrats (most notably James Carville) would use the term to denounce unnamed Democrats who allegedly had advocated it. Further, criticism of police by the left- and by the center, which joined in- focused on harsher treatment by police of blacks than of whites. And I would bet that at the time- before the pro-police backlash against the left, very few of these currently disparaging "defund the police" progressives even questioned the prevailing narrative that blacks were getting a raw deal.
But times have changed and it's now open season on the progressives whom others, who at the time were on board, claim were all in "defund the police." Finger in the air, anyone?
The "cultural stuff," writ large, did play a role in the outcome of the campaign. However, it is impossible to determine to what extent it mattered, especially because that door swings both ways. Moreover, it was intrinsic to handing the nomination to Kamala Harris, who had the upper hand in getting the party's nod because she had been vice president but faced zero public opposition because had she been elected, she would have "made history" as the first black female president.
After Biden's withdrawal from the race- but before Harris was nominated- the vice-president skipped the speech to Congress of Israeli prime minster Benjamin Netanyahu to address the national convention of Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, Inc., a member of the "Divine Nine." Harris herself is a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, also an historically black (and apparently currently segregated) sorority. However, this event took place after President Biden had announced that he would not seek another term but before Harris was nominated, thus avoiding most backlash while reinforcing her base. It was a shrewd move by a politician emphasizing her roots in the black community while maintaining a distance from the militaristic and failed Prime Minister.
Yet, Hasan is correct that Harris de-emphasized that cultural stuff There was very little from the campaign about transgenderism, about the candidate's gender or ethnic background, or a general defense of equity or diversity. Nor did many- if any- of the suddent, convenient critics of wokeism suggest in 2020 that perhaps designating Kamala Harris as the vice presidential nominee, likely to become almost the heir apparent to Joe Biden, on the basis of her race or sex was unwise.
Harris, female and black or bi-racial, was the living embodiment of wokeism the critics attack. However, that was Kamala Harris, who is what she is. It was not her campaign, which was pro-institutional, emphasized bipartisanship, and eschewed ideological radicalism.
Hasan continued
Look, it's as clear as day. Harris did not run a left-wing campaign. Shje didn't run on Medicare for All. She did not run on student debt relief. She didn't run on a Green New Deal. And she didn't break with Joe Biden on Gaza.
At the debate, the Vice President declared "well, first of all, I absolutely support and over the last four years as vice president private health care options. But what we need to do is maintain and grow the Affordable Care Act." She commented "and the plan has to be to strengthen the Affordable Care Act, not get rid of it." That's not such a bold stance in favor of a program which as of March was approved by over 60% of the public. If we were hoping that would be coupled with denunciation of a system in which health care- thus health- is up to the discretion of private insurance companies, well, that would have been a little progressive. Can'thave that.
And Democrats, most notably its recent presidential nominee, no longer utter the term "Green New Deal." That is so 2019, and reference to it is even more uncommon than to "justice," hardly mentioned since the heady days of 2019-2020.
Hasan added
So when you sy she ran left, what on earth are you talking about? This is a presidential candidate swho campaigned way more with Liz Cheney and Mark Cuban than with AOC and Shawn Fain, who listened more to her mother-in-law, the chief legal adviser of Uber, than to Bernie Sanders. The truth is, in 2016 and again in 2020, the Democratic establishment wanted to block Bernie Saners, an actual leftist, from becoming their nominee. And in 2024, due to Joe Biden's stubbornness, they didn't even have a contest- just a coronation. So look, the centrists, the moderates, got their candidate in every election in which the Republicans nominated Donald Trump: 2016 Hillary Clinton, 2020 Joe Biden, 2024 Kamala Harris. And they lost to Tump two of three times. And now they're going to blame the left for that? No fucking way."
Harris promised to appoint a Republican to the Cabinet and form a bipartisan council of advisors on policy. This should be the most enduring representation of the campaign (well, along with this and this). Whatever its net effect (to be determined), this may have been less the Harris-Walz campaign than the Harris-Cheney campaign.
Clinton was more moderate than Sanders, Biden more moderate than Sanders (or Warren), and Harris more moderate than- whom? The Party establishment, as Hasan noted, prefers the moderate candidate. However, even more so, it prefers the establishment candidate. Clinton and Biden were establishment- and so was Harris, loyal vice president to the President, even to the extent of defending Biden, his cognitive ability and overall health when most of the country had serious doubts.
There was another factor, one ignored by everyone, but most significantly by vilifiers of the woke, who would strengthen their case if they didn't elide it. In our more liberal/progressive days labeled "America's original sin," it is now avoided like the plague. Nominees Kamala Harris is a black woman; Joe Biden, pushed forward by Representative James Clyburn; Hillary Clinton, spouse of the individual once only half-jokingly referred to as "the first black President." (The word "black," recognized a s a color,was not capitalized in those largely pre-politically correct days.)
And the presidential race of 2016. Initially, Hillary Clinto was supported for the nomination by more black Democrats than was Barack Obama. Once Obama won the Iowa primary- thus proving that whites woould vote for a black man for President- the Illinoisan emerged as the favorite candidate of blacks. The rest, as is often said, is history.
That may seem off the point, but isn't. (Classic John Oliver: "The point is....") The soul-searching goes on, with "progressives" and "progressivism" taking incoming fire. Kamala Harris did not run a progressive campaign, and had she won, her detractors from the right would have rightly denied that she had. If their beef with the left is that she was defeated because of the identification among voter of the Democratic Party as "woke," then they need to step up and be more specific. That they fail to do so, and refuse to acknowledge that the nominee herself was a bad choice, indicates that Mehdi Hasan is not only right about the nature of the presidential campaign but that the critics will offer no alternative..
"The ‘moderates’ got *their* candidate in every single election in which the Republicans nominated Trump: 2016 Clinton, 2020 Biden, 2024 Harris… and they lost to Trump two out of three times. And now they’re going to blame *the left* for that? No f*cking way."
Well, of course Bill Maher's comment, uttered during the main segment of Friday's Real Time with Bill Maher, doesn't make sense. Whites didn't want to sit next to blacks because of race or color and in some cases believed they were superior. Some liberals don't want to sit next to Trump voters because of a difference in values, a lesser number believing the vote a reflection of a deficit of character. Significant difference.
This week Bill Maher likened liberals not wanting to sit with the Trumpers in their family at Thanksgiving to "not letting certain people sit next to you on the bus" and showed a picture of Rosa Parks and the more I think about it, the whole comparison makes no sense.
Sometime during a meandering convesation which began at 2:14 of the Overtimesegment, Donna Brazile stated "it's time folks, We know how to lead. We can build a future for everybody."
Who is "we?" "We" was not a choice on the general election ballot. It was the nominee herself, and therein lay the problem. Andrew Sullivan, who does not like Kamala Harris, nevertheless endorsed her in what he called "an anguished but emphatic endorsement" (free subscription required). In the exchange which began at 4:05, Sullivan (mirroring James Carville, by the way) stated
Next time, you have an active primary where a candidate can prove her worth and not just be stuck in and nominated at the very last minute because you have a dotard running you wouldn't fess up to.
The choice of noun, as Maher recognized, was "unfair" but Sullivan at least was making better sense than Brazile who, trying to get a word in edgewise within the crosstalk, responded.
Well, first of all, first of all, first of all, we had a primary, Kamala and Joe. Joe and Kamala did win enough delegates. Fourteen million people participated in it. And we should not disenfranchise those Americans. So-
Officially, Joe and "Kamala" won the delegates. However, "Kamala" won none as the presidential candidate. Rather, Ms. Harris became the nominee only after, and only because, Mr. Biden dropped out. Relatively few people are persuaded to vote for the presidential candidate because of the running mate.
Nonetheless, Brazile- without cracking a smile at her reasonably good attempt at humor- actually maintained "she was a good, strong candidate" and "I can put my glasses on and I can still tell you, I can see a leader when I see a leader."
That would be her imagination. Though Kamala Harris may have been a good President, she struck too few people as a leader. Maher stated "well, I think people think that a woman leader has to overcompensate a little toward strength and people are drawn to strength. Look at Clowny- I mean Trump." "Secretary Clinton" does not project strength; neither did "Kamala."
Brazile suggested that "one hundred seven days" is insufficient time for a presidential nominee. Justifiably, Maher responded "one hundred seven days was more than enough time. That's a stupid excuse in my view, that it wasn't enough time... She was actually doing fine after the first few months."
Better than fine, even. Harris' campaign was inspiring and impressive. The candidate, though, left a lot to be desired and in the end, "Clowny" convinced enough voters that four years with Kamala would be even worse than four years with himself. As Maher and Sullivan understand, that should be sobering
a fitted (as by training or experience) for a given purpose
: competent
b having complied with the specific requirements or
precedent conditions (as for an office or employment) : eligible
By that definition, Pam Bondi certainly is qualified to be Attorney General.
CNN Legal Analyst Elie Honig: "Pam Bondi is, without a question, qualified to be Attorney General. She's been a prosecutor for 20 years in Florida. For 8 of those, she was the Attorney General of the state. That's a very big, very complicated job‚ and that level of experience is… pic.twitter.com/61T4wEhCol
The otherwise sane, sensible, and somewhat shrewd (alliteration day!) Honig added
If we compare her to Matt Gaetz, she exceeds him on every level by far. But if we go back to sort of a normal curve, I think it's a closer call. One person who I thinkis an interesting historical comparison for Pam Bondi is Janet Reno. Now, I'm not saying P:am Bondi will be Janet Reno but Janet Reno had a similar background. She had been a state level prosecutor in Florida for about 15 years at the time when Bill Clinton nominated her to become attorney general.
Maybe it's just me, but I don't think this sounds anything like Janet Reno:
In March 2016, CREW discovered that the Trump Foundation had
broken the law by giving an illegal $25,000 contribution to a political group
supporting Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi. Charitable foundations like the
Trump Foundation are not allowed to engage in politics. Even more problematic
was the fact that the contribution was given as Bondi’s office was deciding
whether to take legal action related to Trump University.
In the little bit less corrupt category, Democracy Docket notes
In the aftermath of the 2020 election, Bondi was one of
several Trump lawyers who was spreading voting conspiracy theories and false
allegations of election fraud. She was part of the Trump campaign’s legal
effort to challenge ballots in Pennsylvania in 2020 and went on to spread false
allegations of election cheating in the Keystone State.
“All the good residents who are all supporting us in
Pennsylvania, their votes don’t count by these fake ballots that are coming in
late,” she said on Fox News. “And they are not letting us watch the process.”
Retired offensive tackle understands
She also ran around w nut job Guiliani spreading conspiracies & lies undermining democracy and cornerstone institution of America. Helped erode America's faith in elections. Pathetic https://t.co/NFwUdDLlzO
It shouldn't be too much to expect of an Attorney General that she accept the results of an election, at least to the point of not spreading scurrilous lies. Having done so, though, Bondi ought at a minimum to concede that she was wrong and that Joe Biden has been the legitimate President from January 20, 2021 through January 19, 2025.
This is setting the bar very low- necessary but not sufficient. If qualifications themselves were enough to catapult someone into an important government position, an individual who had served as District Attorney of a major city, Attorney General of our largest state, United States Senator, and vice president of the USA deserved to be annointed as President of the nation.
It's ironic, then, that the individual who defeated that candidate is now appointing to the most important position in the entire Cabinet a person whose chief qualification is that she has served in a similar, lesser, position. This year, the bar was set low for a Democratic nominee for President, and infinitely lower for her opponent. And now that President-elect, eager for a Justice Department to prosecute his political and personal enemies, is determined to set the bar as low as possible.
There is an excellent point US Representative Summer Lee of Pennsylvania makes here. However, as in the tweet below, it will be lost in Lee's racial blindness.
Lee: When Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson was up for confirmation or when VP Harris was added to the ticket, they called them DEI hires. They want you to believe that Harvard graduate with over 20 years of experience is not qualified but Fox personality is qualified to run the DOD pic.twitter.com/Q1MTAfS1aK
When Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson was up for confirmation and when Vice President Harris was added to the ticket, they called them DEI hires. They want you to believe that a Harvard graduate with over 20 years experience- who happens to be a black woman- is not qualified but a Fox News personality is qualified to run the Department of Defense and a WWE executive is qualified to run the Department of Education.
Let's be real. There is attempt to create a direct correlation between our race, being a black person, and our qualifications so muc to say there is no way to be a black woman, there is no resume that a black person cold have that could qualify them unless that black person is a Republican. And there is a quota there.
So, let's be real. Of course, Republicans don't believe a black female Democrat is qualified, because she is a Democrat. And as Lee seems to understand, if a black person is a Republican, he or she instantly becomes qualified because he/she is a Republican.
And also to be celebrated as being not a black male. Representative Byron Donalds, a black Floridian who reportedly was on Donald Trump's long list as a running mate, appeared on CNN on Wednesday night defending as to diversity President-elect Trump's choices for his Cabinet. He cited the nominatiosn of Suzie Wiles as Chief of Staff, Marco Rubio as Secretary of State, and Elise Stefanik as Ambassador to the United Nations. There are a few other picks who also are not white males. When a black person is nominated, Republicans will own it like Donald Trump hugs the American flag or Republican honchos chant "USA! USA!" Anything that sells.
They won't admit it but the DEI game is one Republicans can play almost as well as Democrats. It's a grand old tradition for the Grand Old Party, which exploits it effectively. The primary difference is that Republicans usually pretend their quota is not a quota, as when President George HW Bush ludicrously referred to Clarence Thomas as "the best person for this position" of Associate Justice of the Supreme Court. By contrast, Democrats typically do little to disabuse voters that a selection has been made for demographic reasons.
While I've been studying candidates' background and writings, I've made no decision except one: the person I nominate will be someone with extraorinary qualifications, character, experience, and integrity- and that person will be the first black woman ever nominated to the United States Supreme court. It's long overdue, in my view.
At the time, the percentage of federal judges both female and black was somewhere between 9.5 and 11.8, inclusive. That Biden's selection, of Judge Brown, has proven to be an excellent one is remarkable given that by his specifications, he narrowed the universe of acceptable candidates by approximately 90%.
The short list of running mates being considered by presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden in July of 2020 included probably five black women and possibly one white woman (Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer). Representative Jim Clyburn of South Carolina, whose influence was influential in anointment of the nominee, had told Biden (probably months earlier) that the selection should be a black woman.
Obviously, that choice did not work out so well. Biden very likely would have won the 2020 election if his running mate were someone else. As vice-president, Harris was the simple, albeit unfortuante, choice as the party's presidential nominee in 2024. She lost an extremely winnable race, lipstick on a pig and all that.
Of course, Pete Hegseth is not qualified to become Secretary of Defense and Ketanji Brown Jackson was well qualified to be a Supreme Cour justice. And though I had serious doubts that Kamala Harris would have been a good President, she was clearly well qualified for the position. However, both Jackson for the High Court and Harris for the presidence were DEI hires, or there is no such thing as a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusiveness movement.
According to British tabloid The Mirror, Alyssa Farrah-Griffin said
So, I actually think it was the right
thing to do and I've hard a lot of folks on the left coming after Joe and Mika
saying, 'Don't normalize him.' Well, 75 million plus voters normalized Donald
Trump by making him President-elect Donald Trump ... They met with him for over
90 minutes. They both raised very valid concerns. They both see themselves as
opinion journalists who want to actually be able to engage the person they talk
about every day, actually be able to raise issues with them when they're concerned
Not quite as idiotically, Sara Haines remarked
I absolutely think it was the right decision and I think it's good they work on MSNBC. I don't want only FOX people going to see them. That was some of the problem that I think everyone can agree, maybe even people who voted for Trump can agree, that the things they were watching on FOX are wrong. That's the only network that's had to pay billions of dollars because they got it wrong....
I don't need to know [Joe and MIka's]
motivation. I just know you get nowhere in silence. Conversations had to be had
... I would absolutely sit down and always have a conversation because I'm
confident enough to sit down at a table in contrast and disagree when I
disagree. I'm not scared. I'm not afraid. You have the conversations or nothing
happens.
Those opinions were expressed on Monday morning, soon after Scarborough and Brzezinski broke the news of their November 15 chat at Mar-a-Lago with President-elect Donald J. Trump. It's onfounding that Haines would be unconcerned about motivation, which does not appear to be something other than having a civil conversation with a disagreeable person in order to open lines of communication. On Tuesday morning, CNN reported
In private conversations, Scarborough argued that having face time with a world leader is a no-brainer. Some of his MSNBC colleagues agreed, but there was more to the Mar-a-Lago meeting.
According to two sources with direct knowledge of the matter, Scarborough and Brzezinski were credibly concerned that they could face governmental and legal harassment from the incoming Trump administration.
Scarborough claimed that the duo did not intend to "defend or normalize" Mr. Trump. Yet, Brezinski described the the incoming President, an accomplished actor, as "cheeful" and "upbeat." She also cotended that he appeared "interested in finding common ground with Democrats on some of the most divisive issues," whicht he shrewdly aimed to have Brzezinski deliver to the MSNBC audience.
Other journalists face the possibility of retribution but didn't immediately cave. Jennifer Rubin has not. Neither has Will Bunch, who noted
it was more than a little shocking Monday morning when Scarborough and Brzezinski revealed their unorthodox way of dealing with a “fascist” president — that they’d gone to Mar-a-Lago Friday to meet with the president-elect, presumably on bended knee. It certainly can’t be called an act of journalism, because there were no cameras present. “Don’t be mistaken: We are not here to defend or normalize Donald Trump,” Scarborough — a firebrand conservative GOP congressman in the 1990s who now is an independent — told his presumably shocked viewers. “We are here to report on him and to hopefully provide you insights that are going to better equip all of us in understanding these deeply unsettling times.” But the MSNBC star also claimed that an “upbeat” Trump “seemed interested in finding common ground with Democrats on some of the most divisive issues.”
Brzezinski, for her part, answered her own question of how could they meet with Trump by asking, “How could we not?” A better question and answer would have been the one way the MSNBC stars could have gone to Mar-a-Lago while retaining their integrity, and even performing a public service: by demanding that Trump only agree to speak to them on camera, unedited, with no subject restrictions, and to ask some of the tough questions that the president has avoided, like his wackadoodle cabinet picks or his plans to use the military for mass deportations.
Joe Rogan very likely would have bagged an interview with candidate shortly before the presidential election. However, he justifiably insisted that the meeting would take place in his studio in Austin, Texas.As Bunch argues, the Scarboroughs should have demanded that Trump speak to them- unedited- on camera and with no restrictions. Conducting the interview or having the chat at Mar-a-Lago also does the public a disservice compared to an exchange at a neutral site.
.
Honest and professional journalists who do not want to ennnoble President Trump or facilitate his effort to accrue absolute, unquestioned power face rough sledding over the next 4+ years. Their response to the imperial presidency is crucial, and Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski appear headed in the wrong direction.
