Totally appropriate
An unrepentant Donald Trump has denied inciting an insurrection at the US Capitol last week, claiming his speech before the violence was “totally appropriate”.
So he’s saying it’s totally appropriate that five people were killed.
“So if you read my speech, and many people have done it, and I’ve seen it both in the papers and in the media, on television, it’s been analysed, and people thought that what I said was totally appropriate,” Trump insisted at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland, ahead of a trip to Texas.
No, “people” didn’t. A small minority of Trump fans may think that, but generic “people” do not.
Shortly before noon last Wednesday, the president gave an incendiary speech to thousands of supporters, insisting his election defeat by Joe Biden could be overturned and urging them to march to the Capitol and “fight much harder” against “bad people”.
He said: “You’ll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength.”
Democrats have directly linked the speech, and previous Trump comments, to the carnage that unfolded when rioters, some carrying Confederate flags, fought with police and looted congressional offices.
…and were only just barely prevented from murdering legislators.
Behind the scenes, the president has reportedly continued his retreat into paranoia and unreality, repeating in a conversation with the House majority leader, Kevin McCarthy, the outlandish lie that so-called “antifa” leftwing activists, not his supporters, were responsible for death and destruction inside the Capitol.
“It’s not Antifa,” McCarthy reportedly replied. “It’s Maga. I know. I was there.”
So even McCarthy isn’t one of those “people” Trump cited.
A House vote to impeach Trump on one article, for incitement of insurrection, is expected on Wednesday. The timetable for an ensuing Senate trial was uncertain. If Trump is convicted after he leaves power, he will be disqualified from running for office again.
I didn’t know the Senate trial could happen after the end of this term. Good to know.
He will probably use this border visit to do more inciting, because he hasn’t done nearly enough yet.
Multiple outlets confirmed an ABC News report that the FBI expects armed pro-Trump protests in all 50 state capitals and Washington DC before inauguration day.
Explanations for why Trump himself could not be reached as the Capitol was attacked continued to emerge. According to the Washington Post, quoting an unnamed close adviser, the president was “hard to reach … because it was live TV”.
“If it’s TiVo, he just hits pause and takes the calls,” the adviser said. “If it’s live TV, he watches it, and he was just watching it all unfold.”
He was too busy watching it to do his job helping to terminate it.
Former federal cybersecurity chief Chris Krebs, who Trump fired for saying the election was secure, told CNN: “This is the equivalent of ignoring that pain in your chest for a couple weeks and then all of a sudden you have a catastrophic heart attack.
“We are on the verge of what I fear to be a pretty significant breakdown in democracy and civil society here.”
Eight days.
The senate trial can happen as early as the 19th. I’ll be ok with Pence being president for a few hours.
Of course Trump is remorseless, he’s far too stupid to know what he did, and if he does realize what he did he’ll deny it. This is who the stupid asshole is, nothing has changed.
The trial isn’t going to take a single day, and if Pence is president for a few hours he can give Trump that pardon; I’m not ok with that. Anyway it can’t happen that early if McConnell still refuses to call the Senate back into session.
Pence pardoning Trump would be a disaster, I hadn’t considered that. :( He still needs to be impeached and convicted, I hope they get it done.
Ya they were talking about it on MSNBC last night, explaining how they might work the con. Hideous prospect.
Of course, since he didn’t want to terminate it, he wouldn’t have anyway. What a monstrosity.
Pence being president even for an hour would mean I wasted my money on my husband’s 46 t-shirt, because he would never wear a shirt that even appeared to support Pence (and for that, I appreciate him).
He said this morning that when I retire and we move, it will be impossible to persuade him to ever register Republican again. He held the registration for a long time, even while always voting Democrat, because at one time he had some small idea that he might be able to have an impact on local primary elections. That hasn’t proven the case, so he’s ready to drop the R and embrace the D.
I try to look at in terms of how much better Pence is than Trump (it isn’t a high bar), but then I forget how complicit Pence has been in the Trump horror show. Better they all go down on the same ship.
Ikn, the bitter animosity of the R’s and D’s against each other makes me want to register Indy. Pretty sick of the whole political shitshow to be honest.
*not the Independent party, to be clear, just independent, as in unaffiliated. ;)
twiliter, I was registered independent for a while, but returned to the Ds so I could vote for Hillary in the primary in 2016. Don’t know if I’ll stick around.
iknklast, you are aware that the phrase ’embrace the D’ has a somewhat non-political meaning? It’s certainly not something I’d want my wife to be saying out loud to anybody about me :-o
No, AoS, I had no idea of that. What does it mean? I may be naive.
Erm… well, the D rhymes with nick!
In that case…he just plans to re-register. Good for him. (He says I’ve improved his politics. I’ll take credit, but I think a lot of it belongs to the steady stream of incompetent, malicious candidates the GOP has been backing for years…and their refusal to accept global warming, the right of women to choose abortion, and the need to wear masks in a global pandemic.)
Ikn, that’s my hesitation too, I voted for Hillary in the ’08 primary as well as the ’16.
AoS, whereabouts do you live? I’ve hung around with a lot of vulgar dudes in my time, in a lot of different places, and I’ve never heard that particular phrase. Must be a regional thing.
So Pence theoretically could invoke the 25th, declare himself president, and still pardon Trump. What a thought. Trump knows Pence though, he said he lacked the courage to reject the election results, but Pence also lacks the courage to invoke the 25th, so Trump’s shitty VP choice come back to bite him in the ass. :P
I’m not sure what’s in it for Pence to participate in some arrangement to pardon Trump. (I’m assuming that Pence has no principles relevant to this decision, and will act purely on self-interest.)
The only thing left for Pence is the possibility of become president some day (for longer than a week, I mean). And while originally his plan was “be Trump’s loyal VP, inherit Trump’s base in 2024 or 2028,” he has to see how dubious that is now. If Trump doesn’t run himself, he’ll put his support behind one of his kids, or else he’ll play coy and withhold his endorsement as long as possible to make everyone in the primary field kiss his ring. More to the point, by now much of Trump’s base has turned on Pence, so it’s not clear that he’ll have any advantage over Cruz or Hawley any of the other ass-kissers — in fact, those guys have a leg up with the base for having done their part to oppose the certification of Biden’s win.
I suppose Pence might hope that a pardon would lead to Trump “pardoning” Pence for his “betrayal,” but even Pence has to realize that isn’t how Trump operates. Trump would act like the pardon was something he was entitled to, and still grumble about Pence’s disloyalty.
To the extent Pence has any shot at a future nomination, he’s got to try to sell himself as “I was with Trump 95% of the way, but when I was asked to betray the Constitution I couldn’t go along. And that’s what you’ll get from me — a more principled and stable version of Trump.” Not at all clear that’s what Trump’s base would want, mind you.
I wrote on FB, where are the adults? He’s getting his jollies watching insurrection on live TV? So what? Interrupt the bastard and turn off the TV. Tell him there are much more important things to do here than watch TV.
twiliter, ‘the D’ has been a common slang term for the penis for a long time among the millenials of both sexes. Embracing the D is simply being enthusiastic about sex with males.
Back to the biggest D of them all (couldn’t resist that segue, sorry all), if he really wanted to see it all as it happened he could have got off his fat arse and gone to see it in person, but of course (and I apologise in advance for this groaner) the wannabe dictator is also an inveterate coward, which I guess makes him a….Chicken Caesar.
I’m fine with Trump being impeached but not on trial in time to put Pence in charge. That means the historic precedent is set, trial can proceed after the senate has changed hands, and with no risk of Pence getting his hands on the presidency.