If Week #61 teaches us anything, it is that the unthinkable is now the norm.
Once we absorbed the insane incessant lying, the childish boasts, the complete ignorance of important issues and world affairs, the vicious bullying attacks on fellow Americans, the open racism, a hundred documented liaisons between Trump officials and Russian operatives designed to steal an American election, praising (and hiring!) Nazis and White Supremacists, the unhinged nuclear war fear mongering, 17 allegations of sexual crimes, $130,000 hush money to a porn star to hide their love affair, that $25 million fraud settlement for Trump University and making pollution cool again, this week becomes something almost acceptable, just middling crazy.
But crazy enough to remind us that shit like this has never happened before, not here or in any serious country, and any of these antics would have caused a global panic if shown by any previous American president. This is the most bizarre Era in American history, the first Slapstickocracy.
This week the Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, returning from Africa where he was repairing the extensive damage done by Trump’s outrageous “shithole countries” statement, found out he was fired only via Twitter.
Trump announced his plan in a Tweet to promote CIA Director Mike Pompeo to Secretary of State, and replace him at the CIA with his chief deputy, a person who, if approved by the Senate, would make history twice; as the first woman CIA Director, and the first one to have openly run a torture chamber.
The president was acting especially unhinged and hyperactive this week, even for him, so of course everyone knew that Robert Mueller was due to turn up the heat on his Russia collusion investigation.
Sure enough, when the smoke cleared of Trump’s bizarre antics, Mueller had subpoenaed Trump’s business files and financial transactions, demanding any and all information on Russian contacts, business interests, investments and creditors from The Trump Organization, crossing Trump’s “Red Line” for the allowable scope Mueller’s investigation.
While it appeared at first that Attorney General Sessions or Treasury Secretary Mnuchin would be fired soon after Tillerson, it now appears that it is his National Security Advisor, General H.R. McMasters who will be fired next. In a way guaranteed to humiliate McMasters and generate headlines saying “Trump is firing McMasters,” Trump leaked the information that he (!) “did not want to embarrass the general.”
The plan is to promote him to a 4-Star General in order to pretend that not everyone touched by Trump gets ruined (winky-winky!). Tell that to Donald Trump, Jr., whose wife Vanessa just filed for divorce, the first of the immediate Trump family to bail out of this flaming jet.
None of which has lessened the sense of havoc and dread for White House staffers wondering what the hell will happen next with this crazy bastard, will they be fired, or have their Security clearances revoked.
Even household names like Cabinet Secretaries and top appointed officials come to work every day wondering if this will still be their office at lunchtime, the Celebrity Apprentice Show come to life. In loose chronological order, these other things also happened this week:
On Saturday Trump made a disgraceful speech in Pennsylvania, visiting there ostensibly to campaign for the GOP candidate in a special Congressional election, Rick Saccone. Trump mentioned Mr. Saccone’s name exactly once, then went off on one of his patented insane rants all about himself, calling for the death penalty for drug dealers like his new bestie Rodrigo Duterte, fantasizing about beating Oprah in the 2020 election in some warped Showdown of Reality TV Stars (finally beating her in the ratings!), lying about his party’s record in recent special elections, telling Pennsylvanians “your steel is back” (it’s not) and claiming (!) the Winter Olympics were a success only thanks to him.
The district in contention is one of the most gerrymandered Congressional Districts in the country and considered an untouchable “safe seat” by the GOP, a place Trump won by 20 points in 2016. The president’s appearance was meant to make sure it stayed that way.
Turns out it didn’t, and the Democrat Conor Lamb won on Tuesday, prompting Trump to say that Lamb won because “he was just like me,” (he’s not) which probably made Rick Saccone feel all warm and fuzzy inside.
Turns out Trump’s lawyer Michael Cohen is as dumb and crooked as the rest of the administration when it was revealed that he used the official Trump Organization email address to pay off porn star Stormy Daniels for her silence. Ms. Daniels, however, is a woman and a story that won’t go away, like the Mueller investigation, and the fact finally dawning on most Americans that the NRA is the most powerful political force in the country, even taming the volatile Donald Trump.
His Chief of Staff John Kelly wishes Trump listened to his advice half as much as he obeys the NRA. Trump reversed all his previous suggestions for gun control, and so did Republicans in Congress, whose only response to latest school massacre was passing a law that does nothing at all to address gun violence. Trump even backed off having the Feds help to arm schoolteachers, leaving that crazy option “up to the communities.”
Then there was Trump and Pompeo’s initial reluctance to join the entire world in pointing out the obvious about the poisoning of former Russian spies in London. Only after 4 days of international outcry did they admit that the Kremlin was indeed the culprit and agreed to enforce the sanctions on Russia that Trump was already legally obliged to do by a law he had refused to implement until events forced his hand.
One of those events was that, for the first time officially, the US government revealed that America’s power grid has been under cyberattack by Russia for years, and American Intelligence agencies have been obliged to warn every power plant operator that they need to defend these crucial facilities.
On Monday Trump got some some good news when the Republicans running the House Intelligence Committee abruptly shut down their Russian Collusion investigation and declared that Trump did not collude with the Russians. Oddly enough, the 165 page report of this 14 month-long investigation was already completed before most committee members knew the investigation was over. Can you say “the fix is in,” boys and girls?
This gave Trump a little spring in his step as he flew to California to inspect border wall prototypes, but he disappointed all the bidders when he complained you could not see through any of their walls. This left engineers and designers wondering if he wants to build a Border Window instead of a wall, or if he was just messing with their heads.
In still more Trump news, another White House aide was fired and escorted off the White House grounds by armed guards, this time for being under investigation by the Secret Service for “serious financial crimes.” Naturally he was hired immediately by The Trump 2020 Campaign as “Senior Advisor” for $15,000 a month, not wanting to waste that sort of financial talent.
Speaking of Trump Campaign executives (and when aren’t we?), Paul Manifort was placed under House Arrest as a flight risk before his lawyers asked a Federal Court to dismiss all the charges against him, not because he didn’t do the crimes, but because (!) most of them were committed before he worked for Donald Trump.
Trump also appointed Larry Kudlow to replace Chief Financial Advisor Gary Cohn. By all accounts Kudlow is a hapless tool who has been dead wrong about every major economic development for decades, so it is expected he will fit right in.
Trump’s recent revitalization of Africa’s Poaching Industry was explained the it was revealed that his Wildlife Protection Board is loaded with trophy hunters who fully supported repealing Obama’s ban on the importation of the body parts of endangered species.
Last but not least, in the latest illustration of Trump having no mechanism for separating “inside thoughts” from recorded statements, he candidly admitted he made up a bunch of lies off the top of his head when talking with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau about a nonexistent trade deficit with Canada, and how proud of himself he was that he doubled down on the lies when Trudeau gently corrected him.
And so we enter Week #62 wondering if H.R. McMasters, Jeff Sessions or Steve Mnuchin get fired first, if John Kelly beats them all to it and resigns in disgust, or Robert Mueller cancels the show.