Trump 40: Donald Trump and the Chamber of Incompetence

[GreyhoundFan]

 

[Cartmann99]

On 4/13/2019 at 8:42 AM, Howl said:

Back in the day, I could just go to the vet and ask for kitty tranquilizers when I needed to travel with kitty, or get a supply for several trips. It was no big deal.  My sense is that it's much more tightly regulated now

Thinking back, I don't believe I've given tranquilizers to a cat since 1999 or so. The group of kitties we had at that time eventually got to the place where they would raise six kinds of hell for a while in the backseat, but then they would all settle down in their carriers and try to sleep. The old lady of that group eventually moved seven times with us, and we took one of her daughters on the  "Let's drive to New Mexico to see your mama, and do stupid touristy shit all the way there and back!" roadtrip extravaganza that clocked in at just under 3000 miles. After our cat figured out that we weren't taking her to the vet's office, and that she didn't have to share us with the other cats, she was okay with the situation.

I really miss those three furry little gals.

Our current group of kitties all came to us after we bought this house, so they have zero moving experience among them. We don't plan on moving again until after my husband retires, but you know what they say about best laid plans....

 

[PsyD2013]

I cannot travel without tranquilizers for the kitties.  I have two Siamese and unless they are drugged into a stupor, they will scold  me  in their loudest, raspiest  Meezer voices how hellish it is to be in a pet carrier and how evil I am for zipping them into said carrier.   However I would rather listen to them scream at me than listen to the Mango Idiot speak for more than 10 seconds.

Edited April 14, 2019 by PsyD2013
spelling and usage

[onekidanddone]

Loving the thread drift. Discussing drugging our fur babies so much more pleasant than the orange shit stain.

[Cartmann99]

2 hours ago, PsyD2013 said:

I cannot travel without tranquilizers for the kitties.  I have two Siamese and unless they are drugged into a stupor, they will scold  me  in their loudest, raspiest  Meezer voices how hellish it is to be in a pet carrier and how evil I am for zipping them into said carrier.   However I would rather listen to them scream at me than listen to the Mango Idiot speak for more than 10 seconds.

If we end up doing another medium or long distance move, I know I'll have to use drugs again. I'll hate it, but a couple of my current gang would probably hurt themselves in their panic to try and escape their carriers.

[GreyhoundFan]

 

[GreyhoundFan]

Good grief

 

[GreyhoundFan]

 

[AnywhereButHere]

http://www.msn.com/en-us/travel/news/president-trump-says-boeing-should-rebrand-the-737-max-after-fatal-crashes/ar-BBVXiqp?ocid=ientp

Quote

President Donald Trump said Monday that Boeing should “rebrand” its 737 Max airplane, which has been taken out of passenger service worldwide following two high-profile fatal crashes in recent months.

“What do I know about branding, maybe nothing (but I did become President!),” Trump tweeted at 6.29 a.m. ET. “But if I were Boeing, I would FIX the Boeing 737 MAX, add some additional great features, & REBRAND the plane with a new name. No product has suffered like this one. But again, what the hell do I know?”

Hey, he got it right! He knows nothing! And I thought, according to him, that he was the product that has suffered like no other. Is he ceding that crown? Can the dementia be leading to introspection?  - Nah... No such luck.

[Audrey2]

1 hour ago, GreyhoundFan said:

Good grief

 

Trump is a Christian like Hannibal Lector is a chef!

[apple1]

2 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

Good grief

 

This is not current (although for some reason it has been pulled out now by someone... It is a statement he made in February 2016 - before the 2016 primary. Instead of it going (apparently) undiscussed - keeping mind mind that he was one of a large field of candidates for the Republican nomination - perhaps the first question out of the reporters' mouths should have been "On what basis do you make this statement?" followed by "##% of Americans are professing Christians, yet only #% are audited. There must be another factor involved."

[Dandruff]

Have any of his relatively recent returns eluded or completed audit?  Also, can or does the IRS share their audit info with other entities who are investigating his financial dealings?

[Alisamer]

3 hours ago, apple1 said:

This is not current (although for some reason it has been pulled out now by someone... It is a statement he made in February 2016 - before the 2016 primary. Instead of it going (apparently) undiscussed - keeping mind mind that he was one of a large field of candidates for the Republican nomination - perhaps the first question out of the reporters' mouths should have been "On what basis do you make this statement?" followed by "##% of Americans are professing Christians, yet only #% are audited. There must be another factor involved."

I'm beginning to think that he doesn't actually know what "Christian" means. He knows those brown people are "Muslim", and the guys he wants counting his money are "Jewish", the other brown people coming through the border are largely "Catholic", and since he's a white guy who gets dragged to a church service once a year by his wife, that must mean he is "Christian". Considering that he is supported by so many professing evangelicals I'm not surprised he's confused. 

I'd love to hear him try to witness to somebody.

[Dandruff]

2 hours ago, Alisamer said:

I'd love to hear him try to witness to somebody.

Two seconds and I'm sure he'd be back talking about himself.

[Audrey2]

34 minutes ago, Dandruff said:

Two seconds and I'm sure he'd be back talking about himself.

I can hear it now... "Socialist Jesus was a loser because he let himself get crucified. Had it been me I never would have been crucified."

I could hear him talk about the Cross Hanging Christ, too.

Actually, I think that Trump's favorite character in The Christmas story is King Herod!

[onekidanddone]

Oh for fucks sake. That is it for tonight folks I'm done with humanity for today.... See you all on the flip side.

Trump says Tiger Woods to get Presidential Medal of Freedom

Quote

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump says he will present Tiger Woods with the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Woods won his fifth Masters title Sunday, overcoming personal and professional adversity to once more claim the green jacket.

Trump tweeted Monday that he spoke to Woods and congratulated him on “the great victory” and “to inform him that because of his incredible Success & Comeback in Sports (Golf) and, more importantly, LIFE, I will be presenting him with the PRESIDENTIAL MEDAL OF FREEDOM!”

Trump didn’t say when a ceremony will be held. The medal is the nation’s highest honor for a civilian.

The president is an avid golfer who played a round with Woods at Trump’s golf club in Jupiter, Florida, in February. He watched the Masters from his Virginia golf club on Sunday.

 

[apple1]

I am glad for Tiger Woods (as for anyone who might overcome) for apparently overcoming (?) a substance abuse problem, and while I am not a golfer, congrats for his achievement.

But a medal of freedom for playing GOLF? REALLY?

I think I could make a list of at least a hundred things that deserve kudos more than playing golf - even at Master's level.

[Dandruff]

1 hour ago, apple1 said:

But a medal of freedom for playing GOLF? REALLY?

I suspect someone is going to have to let someone else win (at golf) soon.

[CTRLZero]

I am not even sure what the Medal of Freedom is, but it looks like tons of them are given out.  Here is a link to Wikipedia.  I'm hoping it takes you to the sports category, but you may have to scroll:

Medal of Freedom Recipients - sports

[GreyhoundFan]

"A Survival Guide for the Trump White House"

Spoiler

All the White House comings and goings raise a question: What does it take to remain in President Donald Trump’s favor and keep your job? If the show were called Survivor: White House Edition (and with the former Apprentice host as president, the conceit feels apt), what sorts of skills does one need to avoid the ax?

No president in recent memory has churned through senior aides and Cabinet officials at a faster clip than Trump, with turnover accelerating as he fumes over his administration’s struggle to curb migration at the southern border.

Last week, Trump began clearing out the upper echelon of the Homeland Security department. First, he tweeted the ouster of the department’s secretary, Kirstjen Nielsen, then followed by removing Secret Service Director Randolph “Tex” Alles. More firings loom as Trump loses patience with officials who can’t create the impregnable border he demands.

Nielsen’s is the 15th Cabinet-level departure since Trump took office a little more than two years ago, Kathryn Dunn Tenpas of the Brookings Institution told me. By comparison, after three full years in office, Barack Obama presided over seven Cabinet-level departures; George W. Bush, four.

“It’s not just higher” under Trump, Tenpas said. “It’s off the charts.”

Not all that many high-ranking aides remain from the day Trump gave his inaugural address. Two-thirds of Trump’s most senior aides have left or been promoted, more than every president going back to Ronald Reagan in the 1980s, Tenpas’s research shows. But there are a few survivors. Amid all the tumult, some have even flourished. The keys: praising Trump, mastering skills that he values, and forging alliances in a rivalrous West Wing.

If none of that works, plant yourself in front of a TV camera and impress the boss.

Consider Stephen Miller, the 33-year-old who started during the campaign. Miller’s portfolio is expanding. In recent weeks, Trump has given him a lead role on Miller’s pet issue—immigration policy. Trump told him: “Whatever you need, you’re empowered in this space; get it done,” a White House aide says.

Miller has long wanted tougher measures to control migration to the U.S. In that respect, he’s in sync with Trump’s core voters—part of his value to the president. “He’s a policy adviser who has the pulse of the president’s base,” a former White House official says. “And like the president, he’s skeptical of the standard Washington playbook on trade and immigration.”

Miller is a curious case in that Trump often prizes aides who perform well on cable TV, whose coverage he devours. Over the past two years, Miller has had some epic appearances on the small screen. In a cool medium, he runs hot. But he’s defended Trump to the point that he’s nearly gotten himself thrown off the set. And make no mistake: For a White House aide, the defense, promotion, and celebration of Trump is a durable survival strategy.

In an appearance last year on CNN (arguably Trump’s least favorite news outlet), Miller denounced “24 hours of negative anti-Trump hysterical coverage on this network.” As Miller attempted to drown out the host with stories about Trump’s virtues, Jake Tapper observed that he was really addressing an audience of one.

Aides say that Miller is a popular figure inside the building, though, bringing in bagels for the staff. At a birthday party for Miller and a couple of other aides on the chief of staff’s patio, Trump made a surprise appearance.

An undeniable asset is his speechwriting skills, past and present White House aides say. He has a feel for Trump’s voice—a skill that Trump believes “he can’t live without,” one former aide says.

Miller has also been nimble when it comes to internal White House politics. He was first thought to be an acolyte of the former chief strategist, Steve Bannon. Both touted economic nationalism, putting them at odds with a globalist faction led by the former economic adviser Gary Cohn and the president’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner. But Miller made certain not to alienate the globalists nor to make Bannon’s mistake of antagonizing Trump’s family.

In his book, Team of Vipers, the former White House aide Cliff Sims wrote that he once overheard a conversation between Miller and the president. Walking outside the White House together, Miller told Trump that his poll numbers would be even higher if Bannon would just stop leaking to the press. Knife stuck inside the unsuspecting Bannon, Miller “twisted it with relish,” Sims wrote.

Bannon was gone after seven months.

“There’s a reason Miller outlasted so many in the West Wing,” Sims wrote.

No one risks getting fired for being too effusive in praise of Trump. A few who took a more jaundiced view are out. Former White House Counsel Don McGahn privately referred to Trump as “King Kong,” people familiar with the matter said. Ex–Secretary of State Rex Tillerson called Trump a “moron.”

Perhaps the most obsequious of all the president’s men and women is his No. 2, present and past White House staff members say.

In public, Vice President Mike Pence has likened Trump to towering historical figures. “From King David’s time to our own, President Trump has now etched his name into the ineffaceable story of Jerusalem,” Pence said in a speech last year at the Israeli embassy in Washington.

Behind closed doors he is no less gushing, taking pains to ensure that Trump has no cause to turn on him, people familiar with the matter said. “I’d like my wife to look at me just for one day the way Mike Pence looks at President Trump every day they’re together. That would be special,” Kenneth Adelman, an official in Reagan’s administration, told me.

Under the Constitution, Trump can’t fire Pence. Yet he could rid himself of the vice president by dropping him from the 2020 ticket. Or he could use his Twitter feed to marginalize and humiliate Pence. That’s been known to happen. But Pence never seems to run afoul of Trump. Some of it may be his hardwiring: He has an innate deference to power, people who have worked with him say.

“Submit yourselves to the authorities placed above you,” Pence told graduates at the Coast Guard Academy commencement ceremony last year. “Trust your superiors.”

His superior seems pleased. Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s lawyer and confidant, told me that the president once said to him that making Pence his running mate was “probably the best choice I made—and I made a few bad ones.”

Pence rarely disagrees with Trump in staff meetings, a practice that has irritated some White House aides who wish he’d take a bolder stand. Cohn might have found himself among them. Working in his West Wing office in the summer of 2017, Cohn looked up to find an unexpected visitor at his door: the vice president.

Both men had just been in a tense meeting in the Oval Office, during which Cohn told Trump that he might have to quit coming off a news conference in which the president said there were “some very fine people” among the white supremacists who marched in Charlottesville, Virginia.

In front of the president, Pence said nothing to back up Cohn. After the meeting broke up, he climbed the flight of stairs to Cohn’s office and told him he’d been right, people familiar with the matter said. “I’m proud of you,” he told Cohn—a declaration that might have had more meaning had it been made in Trump’s presence.

People close to Pence have said that he didn’t recall the conversation with Cohn and that he had no need to speak up in the Oval Office that day, because he had already made clear his objections to white supremacists during a prior news conference in South America. They’ve also insisted that he speaks candidly with Trump.

In the president’s first year, he called a meeting in the Oval Office to tell aides he was pulling out of the NAFTA free-trade accord. He wanted the paperwork drawn up immediately. In Congress, Pence had voted repeatedly for free-trade deals. Speaking on the House floor in 2001, Pence touted NAFTA and the benefits it brings to Indiana farmers. “As the nation’s sixth-largest corn producer, Indiana benefited directly under” NAFTA, he said.

Aides were hopeful that Pence, given his history, would speak out and dissuade the president from abruptly scuttling NAFTA. Instead, at the Oval Office meeting, he told Trump he was “a strong leader” and said that pulling out of NAFTA would “send a powerful message,” people familiar with the matter said.

Mr. Trump would later retreat from the brink, choosing instead to renegotiate the NAFTA accord with Mexico and Canada.

Some past vice presidents saw their role differently. Before taking office, Jimmy Carter’s vice president, Walter Mondale, wrote a memo to Carter saying he wanted to be a source of unvarnished advice. “The biggest single problem of our recent administrations has been the failure of the President to be exposed to independent analysis not conditioned by what it is thought he wants to hear or often what others want him to hear. I hope to offer impartial advice and help assure that you are not shielded from points of view that you should hear,” Mondale wrote. He meant it.

Two years later, he sent Carter another memo describing the president’s speeches as “fairly heavy and incomprehensible, lacking the eloquence and persuasiveness that a Presidential address should possess.”

It’s tough to imagine Pence composing such a memo, and even tougher to see Trump taking it well. For decades, presidents and vice presidents have held regular one-on-one lunches with no aides present. The ritual helps build trust and, because only two people are at the table, prevents leaks, veterans of past White Houses said.

Trump ditched that tradition. Instead he has invited to the lunches both his and Pence’s top aides. At the meals in the small dining room off the Oval Office, Trump keeps a big-screen TV tuned to cable news. Aides who have walked in have seen Trump yelling at the TV as he sits with Pence and their deputies over plates of chicken and cheeseburgers. When he sees something on the screen that he dislikes, Trump on occasion will interrupt the lunch and summon aides to discuss a response, people familiar with the lunches said.

Trump has made clear that Pence is in his debt. When he put Pence on the ticket in 2016, Trump spared him a difficult reelection bid in the Indiana governor’s race. At a dinner in the White House’s Blue Room in 2017, Trump told supporters how he had wanted Pence’s endorsement in the Indiana primary, but didn’t get it. Pence instead endorsed Senator Ted Cruz of Texas.

So Trump instead sought and received an endorsement from the former Indiana University basketball coach Bobby Knight. “I had the most valuable endorsement: Bobby Knight,” Trump said, according to a person in the room. “I won the primary.”

“And now look where you are, Mike.”

In a good place, that’s where. Three years ago, Pence was fighting to keep his job as Indiana’s governor. Now he’s a heartbeat from the presidency. Once Trump leaves the scene, Pence will look to inherit Trump’s base should he seek the Republican presidential nomination.

While the roots of Pence’s staying power are immediately obvious, Kellyanne Conway’s longevity has left some White House alumni flummoxed. Aides have long suspected her of leaking to the press. Her husband, George Conway, repeatedly swats at Trump on Twitter. Yet she endures.

TV is one reason. More than anyone not named Trump, Conway is the White House’s public face.

“One thing that will never go out of style in the Trump White House is someone who is willing to go on TV and defend the president, no matter what is going on,” Sims said in an interview. “Kellyanne has proven she’s willing to do that anytime and anywhere. Love Kellyanne or hate her, she is generally good at arguing with people on television.”

She has another advantage. With a fluid portfolio, she doesn’t have the clear, direct responsibility for a controversial policy area that Trump cares about. That’s what sunk Nielsen, who had command of border security and immigration issues, which are Trump’s constant focus.

Beyond that, the cost of jettisoning Conway may be too high. Were she to lose her job and turn on Trump, she’d be a tough adversary. “He doesn’t want her on the outside looking in,” said one former administration official.

 

[laPapessaGiovanna]

12 hours ago, CTRLZero said:

I am not even sure what the Medal of Freedom is, but it looks like tons of them are given out.  Here is a link to Wikipedia.  I'm hoping it takes you to the sports category, but you may have to scroll:

Medal of Freedom Recipients - sports

To me it doesn't seem a long list at all, it's a very high honour. Way too male, not a single woman got it for sports. Recipients are usually retired when they are awarded it though. If Tiger Woods earned it then Lindsey Vonn is owed one now.

Edited April 16, 2019 by laPapessaGiovanna
Clarification

[CTRLZero]

2 hours ago, laPapessaGiovanna said:

To me it doesn't seem a long list at all, it's a very high honour.

It will get a bit longer when all the Trump family members receive the same medal.   ?

[Howl]

On 4/15/2019 at 10:06 AM, Audrey2 said:

Trump is a Christian like Hannibal Lector is a chef!

Yup, you nailed it.   Trump didn't think that up.  I can promise you that a deeply "Christian" Trump aide is flogging that line. WTAF, how cynical can you get? And why am I even asking this question (!), because their cynicism has no bottom! 

Shifting gears, Bill Weld, the Republican former governor of Massachusetts, has announced his run for the presidency. 

I hope Trump is sh*tting in his ample trousers over a primary opponent who seems, from a cursory hearing on the news this morning, to be a viable possibility, rational, relate-able and presenting himself as a Big Tent Republican. 

His first ad also features Trump's very worst moments.  So think about that, because Trump has been generating awful moments for over two years!  Here's youtube of his first ad; head directly to the 2:13 spot

Watching those clips of Trump, I still cringe. 

Republicans ignore fellow Republicans disgusted with Trump, especially women, at their peril. 
OTOH, Republicans seem ready for a fight to the death for Trump. Good times, good times. 

Edited April 17, 2019 by Howl

[onekidanddone]

37 minutes ago, Howl said:

Yup, you nailed it.   Trump didn't think that up.  I can promise you that a deeply "Christian" Trump aide is flogging that line. WTAF, how cynical can you get? And why am I even asking this question (!), because their cynicism has no bottom! 

Shifting gears, Bill Weld, the Republican former governor of Massachusetts, has announced his run for the presidency. 

I hope Trump is sh*tting in his ample trousers over a primary opponent who seems, from a cursory hearing on the news this morning, to be a viable possibility, rational, relate-able and presenting himself as a Big Tent Republican. 

His first ad also features Trump's very worst moments.  So think about that, because Trump has been generating awful moments for over two years!  Here's youtube of his first ad; head directly to the 2:13 spot

Watching those clips of Trump, I still cringe. 

Republicans ignore fellow Republicans disgusted with Trump, especially women, at their peril. 
OTOH, Republicans seem ready for a fight to the death for Trump. Good times, good times. 

There have been whispers about Gov. Larry Hogan (R-MD) running against Trump in the primary. Hogan won handily in 2014 and 2018 and is for the most part popular here. Only don't get me started on his veto of the minimum wage bill or his brew ha ha on Maryland schools opening after labor day.

He hasn't spoken much that I know of against Trump specifically, but he has openly refused to follow Trump's policies.  Hogan pulled Maryland National Guard out of the Mexican boarder, spoken publicly against arming teachers, and kept birth control covered under state run insurance plans.

I don't know if his winning both elections has to do with  his strength or his Democrat opponents weakness, but I do know for a solid blue state, he continues to have support

[GreyhoundFan]

"Trump is betting that the electoral college — and the courts — will save him"

Spoiler

It’s a pathology of this presidency that continues to go under-examined: Donald Trump simply does not recognize that his role as president confers on him any institutional obligation toward the American people of any kind.

This is the through line that runs through the biggest stories of the moment: Trump’s demonization of Rep. Ilhan Omar; his unhinged policies and lawlessness toward the humanitarian crisis at the border; and his effort to prevent the voters from gaining a full accounting of his finances, and, by extension, of his corruption.

That through line also explains the need for his survival strategy over the long term, which rests on a backup plan that banks on salvation at the hands of the electoral college, or the courts, or perhaps both.

Trump’s disregard of the institutional obligations attendant to his role as president is the subject of a good piece by Peter Baker of the New York Times, who frames the point in a more restrained way. As Baker notes, Trump’s latest actions demonstrate that he’s dispensed with even the “pretense” of pretending to be “the leader of all the people,” and instead is functioning as only the leader of his people.

Trump has repeatedly called Democrats “treasonous” and has threatened to dump migrants into their districts (as someone remarked on Twitter, it’s as if they are bearing smallpox blankets), because they won’t give him the changes to immigration law he wants.

What’s more, even as Trump is ostensibly demanding that Democrats engage with him constructively on the asylum crisis — he just tweeted as much again — he is threatening to shut down the border and is reportedly pressuring officials to break the law by banning asylum seekers entirely.

This idea — that Democrats can be bulldozed into doing his bidding even as he carries out an unchecked, destructive and lawless rampage — is itself a display of deep, seething contempt for the opposition party and its voters.

The big-picture strategy

Baker summarizes Trump’s big-picture strategy this way:

His social media advertising is aimed disproportionately at older Americans who were the superstructure of his victory in the Electoral College in 2016. His messaging is permeated with divisive language that galvanizes core supporters more than it persuades anyone on the fence, much less on the other side.

That social media advertising aimed at older voters heavily emphasizes nativist themes. And indeed, the key to all this is how that plays into the electoral college.

Even some Republicans admit to this. Several of them recently told the Washington Examiner that they fully expect Trump to lose the popular vote but are banking on him winning via the electoral college.

An electoral college win is a win, of course, but what’s notable about all this is that, in Trump’s apparent view (whether by instinct or design is hard to say), it requires telegraphing to his base that he’s essentially not functioning as president for other groups.

Take Trump’s ongoing attacks on Omar. He remains unrepentant about the fact that his monumentally dishonest video on her 9/11 remarks — which was plainly intended to foment hate against Muslims — appears to have inspired death threats against her. Asked recently whether those threats had given him “second thoughts” about the video, Trump replied: “No, not at all.”

On display here again is Trump’s utter refusal to accept any institutional obligation to use his bully pulpit to calm his supporters down about Omar, if only to reassure U.S. Muslims. We saw the same after the Charlottesville violence: Trump refused to unambiguously condemn white supremacy, disregarding any obligation to speak to the whole country in a unifying way.

Again and again and again, reporting has confirmed that Trump has conceived of his most widely hated and polarizing policies as gestures his base will love, whether it’s the horrific family separations, pardoning racist Joe Arpaio or attacking African American football players.

Trump would perhaps prefer to win a popular majority outright — and he still very well might — but it’s obvious the campaign sees an electoral college win amid a popular-vote loss as its most likely path to victory. As Joshua Green and Sahil Kapur report, such a win runs through incredibly juiced-up energy among non-college-educated whites in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan. Given Trump’s travails (in part due to trade) in those states, cranking up the anti-immigrant energy is the way to make it happen.

Trump will fight to keep tax returns secret

On another front, The Post reports this about Trump:

He is particularly angry about the efforts by the Ways and Means Committee to obtain his tax returns, telling aides he will fight that demand all the way to the Supreme Court and adding that, by then, the 2020 election will be over.

The case for getting Trump’s tax returns should be a legal slam dunk, but Trump’s allies have not even remotely given up on the possibility that the Supreme Court could rule that the law empowering Congress to do this is unconstitutional. Trump is either hoping for that, or hoping the courts string this along until after his reelection.

Once again, what’s crucial here is that Trump recognizes no institutional obligation of any kind to disclose his tax returns as a gesture of transparency to the American people that they are entitled to from their public officials — an obligation recognized by previous presidents for decades.

Similarly, it’s perfectly plausible that Trump’s handpicked attorney general, William P. Barr, could fight Democratic efforts to get the full Mueller report all the way to the Supreme Court. We don’t know if that’ll work, but at a minimum Trump is plainly betting that a sustained court battle will dissipate the ultimate impact of the full findings. Yet again, there’s zero sense that the American people might be entitled to a full report on a foreign attack on our democracy.

Trump’s voters don’t care if those things never come to light. And that’s all that matters. Indeed, fighting the release of those things, it is said, will energize them. It’s often observed that Trump is a minority president. But it’s worse: Deliberately functioning as a minority president is itself the long-term survival strategy.