When Congressman Michael McCaul, a Texas Republican, announced that he would vote against President Trump’s second impeachment earlier this month, he hinted that he might someday regret it.
McCaul said he wanted more time to review “the facts and evidence” about the events that led to the Capitol riot. He said he is opposed to impeachment “at this time”, but added: “I really fear that there may be more facts that will surface in the future that will put me on the wrong side of this debate.”
That quote has been hammering in my brain all weekend. The public is learning new facts about three different topics under the Trump presidency: Trump’s latest coup attempt; the insurrection that triggered the impeachment; and its incorrect treatment of the pandemic.
“It was even worse than we imagined” is the lesson …
Dr. Deborah Birx speaks
Trump’s task force coordinator Covid-19, Dr. Deborah Birx, gave a detailed interview with Margaret Brennan of CBS. Parts aired on “Face the Nation” on Sunday morning, and the full 89-minute interview is now online in video and text. Among the many interesting parts: She says she almost never saw or spoke to Trump. She says he was getting a “parallel set of data and graphs” that she didn’t know about. Brennan asked if it was “misinformation”, but Birx did not answer.
Birx’s late confessions drew wide scrutiny on Sunday. Dr. Seema Yasmin’s reaction in Reliable: “It seems that now she is on a national apology trip, but where was her skepticism … when she was in administration and had the platform and position, potentially at least, to be honest with the public? ” Maggie Haberman also offered her vision on twitter: “Many reporters tried to speak to Birx while she was there. She was not interested. And when she spoke publicly at first, she appeared in sync” with Trump …
“The possum at the picnic”
I think we will continue to learn more and more about how Trump’s Covid denial has hurt the country.
Over the weekend, Donald G. McNeil Jr. of The NYT talked a lot with Dr. Anthony Fauci about life under Trump, and he said of Birx, “it was a much more painful situation for her” because she was so much more linked to WH. Fauci said that Trump sometimes called him to “express disappointment with me that I was not being more positive”, and Trump surrounded himself with “people saying things that made no scientific sense”, but he always thought it best to stay on instead of resigning. “I always thought that if I left, the picnic skunk wouldn’t be there anymore,” said Fauci. “Even though I wasn’t very effective at changing everyone’s minds, I thought it was important that they knew that nonsense could not be said without me rejecting it.” Read…
But are these revelations coming?
Thanks to the efforts of news outlets like the NYT, WSJ and CNN, we continue to find out more about the last gasps of Trump’s coup attempt.
We are also hearing more and more about the attack on the Capitol. I was impressed with the WaPo story the other day, entitled “Self-proclaimed militia members planned to invade the United States Capitol days before the January 6 attack, court documents say” because it cited messages from one of the accused gang leaders received during the riot. “When he posted a one-word message, ‘Inside’, he received exhortations and instructions describing tunnels, doors and corridors, said the FBI.” Whose directions? How? There is so much we still don’t know.
Likewise, this NYT story described how a Capitol Police lieutenant struggled to protect House legislators by stacking tables and chairs on an improvised barricade. “He had 31 cartridges as a service weapon and told others that he feared he needed all of them.” I can’t help wondering: is this new information appearing? Or have most people already decided about 1/6?
The view from NW PA
Maria, a regular viewer of “Trusted Sources”, sent me an email after Sunday’s program to say the following: “In my city of Trump in northwest Pennsylvania, it is as if the insurrection had not happened, Trump won the election, Trump was the most successful POTUS of all time, and Democrats are going to take away their freedoms, and it was ANTIFA, not MAGA that caused the violence, the insurrection. to Trump. “This is anecdotal, of course, but that’s exactly what I see on the right radio and TV …
“They don’t even share a vocabulary.” But…
Claire Galofaro and Juliet Linderman of the AP recorded a story about “eliminating the political divide” that dates back to Frederick, Maryland, right on Route 80, where I grew up. The story was ridiculed because of this tweeted summary: “She thinks the election was stolen from Donald Trump. He believes what dozens of courts and officials have found: that Joe Biden is the rightful winner. They are trying to find common ground, but wonder if they – and the nation – – can do that. “
I get all the criticism – namely, that she believes in fantasy and he believes in reality, and history should simply say so. But I would really like people to spend the tweet and read about the profile subjects. History can really make you more hopeful about our collective future. Yes, the profile subjects “don’t agree with the basic facts. They don’t even share a vocabulary. They use the same words – truth, proof, patriotism – but they don’t mean the same thing.” This is all true. But they are still friends. And it still matters. Read…
The impeachment will advance this week
Impeachment articles will be forwarded from the House to the Senate on Monday night. An impeachment process is likely to consume the month of February. But “what’s clear”, Manu Raju from CNN said Sunday, is that “following comments by Republican senators last week, there is virtually no way for 17 votes to condemn Trump – unless something changes at the trial or the party dynamics does.”
>> “Trump began to believe that there are fewer votes to condemn than there would have been if the vote had taken place almost immediately after January 6,” Haberman reported Sunday night, quoting people familiar with his thinking …
FOR REGISTRATION
– Margaret Hoover on CNN: “Let’s be clear, there was no better opportunity for the Republican party to divorce conspiracy theorists and crazy people than this approaching impeachment trial.” (Twitter)
– Speaking of conspiracy theorists, Maria Bartiromo will be the Fox presenter at 7pm this week …
– David Folkenflik on Fox’s strategy: “What they are doing is trying to find out what kind of public stance they can take to retain the greatest possible loyalty and the largest audience they can …” (NPR)
– Glenn Kessler and company. in the “final count of the Trump presidency: 30,573 false or misleading statements – with almost half arriving in their final year …” (WaPo)
– The “lost cause” of electoral fraud is alive and well on the radio, including Rudy Giuliani’s WABC radio show in New York, reports Azi Paybarah … (NYT)
– One more reminder that America is not really a 50/50 country: “In his first week in the Oval Office, President Biden obtained high approval ratings for his response to the coronavirus (69%) and confidence in his ability to unify of the country (57%), “for this new ABC / Ipsos survey … (ABC)
No president should be evaluated on a curve …
But in many ways, Trump was graduated in a curve during his presidency. Each period without a hateful tweet was noted. Every sign of a “new tone” was praised. The bar was low, too low for Trump. Now Biden’s team is willingly, with pleasure, raising the bar again. When WH team chief Ron Klain said on twitter over the weekend it was great to see Fauci at Rachel Maddow’s show – a place where Fauci was forbidden to go during Trump’s time in office – Klain said Fauci will now be seen “anywhere else he wants to say what he thinks” Maddow answered and thanked Klain and said, “I’m going to charge you.” That’s the really important part – the press now has to charge Biden’s team …