Soft Target

Anthony Scaramucci, who prior to the presidential election, was fairly confident that Kamala Harris would be elected, is making a prediction.

I predict Marco Rubio will become some sort of whistle blower. He has a Lion in him.

— Anthony Scaramucci (@Scaramucci) February 24, 2025

Last March, amid speculation that Marco Rubio would be considered Donald Trump's vice-presidential running mate, The Independent recalled

In September 2015, in an interview with “Kilmeade & Friends” on Fox News Radio, Mr Trump remarked after a GOP debate: “Marco Rubio, I’ve never seen anybody sweat like that and you know a lot of these guys are serious sweaters.”

Then Mr Trump attacked his record.

Mr Trump called the Florida Senator “Marco ‘amnesty’ Rubio” in a tweet, describing him as having the “worst voting record in [the] Senate.” Days later, the New York real estate magnate called him “just another all talk, no action, politician.”

He also called Mr Rubio a “lightweight” and “overly ambitious, too young” at a rally.

Then, Mr Trump went back to targeting the Florida lawmaker’s sweat.

“He sweats more than any young person I’ve ever seen in my life,” Mr Trump said that same month on MSNBC’s Morning Joe. “I’ve never seen a person sweat -- I’ve never seen a guy down water like he downs water. I’ve never seen -- they bring it in in buckets for this guy.”

In October, he even went so far as to send “Trump Ice Natural Spring Water” to his Republican rival along with the message: “Since you’re always sweating, we thought you could use some water. Enjoy!”

Rubio responded, ineffectually, and

By February 2016, the name-calling had escalated further.

Mr Trump tweeted about how the Florida Senator looked at a debate, “Lightweight choker Marco Rubio looks like a little boy on stage. Not presidential material!”

After the Florida senator lamely attacked Trump

Mr Trump had called Mr Rubio “little Marco,” prompting the Florida Senator to throw hands.

“He’s always calling me Little Marco. And I’ll admit he’s taller than me. He’s like 6’2, which is why I don’t understand why his hands are the size of someone who is 5’2,” Mr Rubio said at a Virginia rally. “And you know what they say about men with small hands? You can’t trust them.”

At the next debate in early March, Mr Trump tried to dispel any rumours linking hand size to the size of a reproductive body part: “I guarantee you there’s no problem. I guarantee it.”

Marco Rubio on his worst day has more integrity than does Donald Trump, probably more than does Chris Christie, and could not be a worse Secretary of State than Christie was a governor. Still, facts are facts, history is history, and this is how it went on February 6, 2016:

          

And this history is why former US Representative and Tea Party charter member turned Never Trump Republican is right.

No. No he doesn’t. Marco doesn’t have a “lion in him.” And if Marco ever did have a lion in him, that lion left Marco about 7 or 8 yrs ago. https://t.co/4UozBohVXs

— Joe Walsh (@WalshFreedom) February 25, 2025

 

Share |

Barring Death, It's Trump

Asked by Vanity Fair whether there is a chance President Trump will drop out of the 2016 race, Anthony Scaramucci replies

Yes. He’s gonna drop out of the race because it’s gonna become very clear. Okay, it’ll be March of 2020. He’ll likely drop out by March of 2020. It’s gonna become very clear that it’s impossible for him to win. And is this the kind of guy that’s gonna want to be that humiliated and lose as a sitting president? He’s got the self-worth in terms of his self-esteem of a small pigeon. It’s a very small pigeon. Okay. And so you think this guy’s gonna look at those poll numbers and say—he’s not gonna be able to handle that humiliation. And by the way, he is smart enough to know that that entire Congress hates his guts.

Scaramucci deserves credit for making a bold, unpopular prediction. It also is inaccurate.

It doesn't matter that the entire Congress hates Donald Trump. He hates the members of Congress, too, just as he dislikes, or has contempt for, immigrants, blacks, veterans, evangelicals, and women (unless they spell their name "I-v-a-n-k-a.")

Donald Russia won't drop out because if he does, he's likely to be prosecuted. He almost certainly will if he is succeeded by a Democrat, a likelihood if he doesn't run. A Republican president might pardon him, but can do so only for federal crimes, and would face the near-certainty that his political future would die with its issuance.

He won't drop out because if he loses, he will blame the defeat on a) the Electoral College (whatever the margin of defeat there or in the popular vote); b) "fake news"; c) voter suppression (irony notwithstanding); d) voter "fraud"; e) foreign interference (irony notwithstanding, again); f) Hillary Clinton.   (I know what you're thinking: what would Hillary Clinton have to do with it? Answer: "Clinton."); g) any combination of the preceding.

He won't drop out because it's never "gonna become very clear that it's impossible for him to win." The low-hanging fruit explanation: nearly everyone counted him out in 2016, from announcement of his candidacy till Election Eve, and he still won.  The politically incorrect explanation: if the economy tanks, pundits everywhere will maintain that he cannot win and will be wrong.

Approval of Donald Trump's performance would be enhanced by a strong economy in the fall of 2016. However, his popularity depends less on the state of the economy than would the approval of any other President. He was elected even though the economy- at least by traditional and conventional standards- was fairly strong in November 2016.  His ceiling always low, his cellar remains unusually high.

There were many reasons Donald Russia captured the nation's zeitgeist three years ago.  It was primarily the veneer of authenticity as he expressed the hostility, bitterness,and rage of whites- especially but not exclusively male- toward any one of a number of groups of Americans.  (Look angry, bluster, yell loudly, swear a little for extra points, and you must be sincere.)

We haven't yet hit the bottom of that well of resentment, and might not until and unless voters believe their financial situation is so endangered that they are even more vulnerable than at present to targeting of scapegoats. And there is no one who can fill that need better than Donald J. Trump.

Share |

Spicer, Compared To The Others

Politico's Jack Shafer believes we should waste no energy sympathizing with Sean outgoing presidential press secretary Sean Spicer because

we find no Trump transgression so foul that Spicer would not grovel before it. When Trump praised North Korea’s Kim Jong Un and invited thuggish Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte to the White House, Spicer dispensed sympathy and understanding upon the despots. No Trump mistake was too mundane for him to correct: He insisted that the word “covfefe,” which appeared in a late-night Trump tweet, wasn’t a typo. When Trump alluded to secret Trump-Comey audio recordings, Spicer dodged all questions about their existence. After the president claimed Obama had tapped his phones at Trump Tower, Spicer created a diplomatic incident by falsely accusing British intelligence of doing the snooping.

Spicer got off  to a bad start with

that first press briefing, in which he took no questions and made his ridiculous claims about the inauguration crowd size. Those claims, which we can assume were forced on him by the president, set him on a trajectory he never reversed.

Anthony Scaramucci, the incoming White House communications director, got off to a splendid start. Well-dressed, exquisitely polished, endlessly charming, with pitch-perfect delivery, Scaramucci declared in his first news conference

But here's what I tell you about the president: He's the most competitive person I've ever met. OK -- I've seen this guy throw a dead spiral through a tire. I've seen him at Madison Square Garden with a topcoat on, he's standing in the key, and he's hitting foul shots and he's swishing them, OK? He sinks three-foot putts.

Obviously there's a lot of incoming that comes into the White House. But the president's a winner, OK? And what we're going to do is we're going to do a lot of winning.

He's the most competitive person I've ever met. OK -- I've seen this guy throw a dead spiral through a tire. I've seen him at Madison Square Garden with a topcoat on, he's standing in the key, and he's hitting foul shots and he's swishing them, OK? He sinks three-foot putts.






But the fellow who now swears the President is an uncommon mix of Stephen Curry, Mike Trout, and Dustin Johnson had once referred to Trump as an "odd guy," his campaign as a "spectacle," and Hillary Clinton as "incredibly competent."  So with an Alice In Wonderland quality, he tweeted "Full transparency: I'm deleting old tweets. Past views evolved & shouldn't be a distraction. I serve @POTUS agenda & that's all that matters,."

In the interest of "full transparency," he is erasing his past. The guy who is erasing past tweets also commented on Twitter "the politics of gotcha are over. I have a thick skin and we're moving on to @POTUS agenda & that's all that matters." He left out only "I have the thickest skin God ever created."  But in his news conference he had declared "the president's a winner, OK? And what we're going to do is we're going to do a lot of winning," and Donald Trump swooned.

We need not cry over Sean Spicer's demise. But Spicer has done what Attorney General Jeff Sessions, whom Trump publicly has regretted hiring, has not. He has done what Alternative Facts Conway, inventor of the Bowling Green massacre, has not. He has done what his colleague, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who "heard from a large number of individuals that work at the F.B.I." that they're happy James Comey was fired, has not done.  And he was never the complete and utter bootlicker Scaramucci obviously is.

He has quit. That's not much, and for all we know, he may turn into President Trump's greatest defender when he actually leaves the Administration. But probably not. And little as it is, a resignation is thus far one of the most courageous and sensible acts anyone in this regime has taken.





Share |