S*** the President Says – 2/25/2019

“.@JussieSmollett – what about MAGA and the tens of millions of people you insulted with your racist and dangerous comments!? #MAGA” 2/21/2019 Trump tweet. We might as well start here. What Jussie Smollett did was awful, criminal, and unjustifiably disrespectful to President Trump and his supporters. Also, Donald Trump is the last person in politics that should criticize anyone else’s “racist and dangerous comments.” After all, it was Donald Trump that once took out full page ads in a bunch of New York City papers calling for the death penalty for five black kids whom DNA evidence later exonerated – and never apologized. It was Trump who launched his political career on the racist conspiracy theory that Barack Obama’s birth certificate was fake – and never apologized. It was Trump who campaigned on the idea of banning a religion, building a medieval wall on the southern border for reasons that never made any sense, telling his supporters to “knock the crap out of” protesters, and suggesting the election would be rigged against him. Donald Trump’s words and actions are the reason this farce was ever believable in the first place.

“The New York Times reporting is false. They are a true ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE!” 2/20/2019 Trump tweet. Speaking of dangerous comments, remember when Cesar Sayoc – the “MAGA bomber” – sent bombs to several CNN commentators and elected Democrats in a domestic terrorist plot just last year? President Trump called CNN an enemy of the people, and Sayoc believed it. Trump never apologized for that dangerous rhetoric, and he hasn’t stopped saying similar things since. You have to wonder how long it will be before another Cesar Sayoc comes along.

“I think it’s a shame. I think it’s a very sad thing when a thing like that happens.” 2/22/2019 at the White House. Oh, look, another Cesar Sayoc came along. Just this week, U.S. Coast Guard employee Christopher Hasson was arrested for plotting to kill liberal TV commentators and elected Democrats – upon which the president was commenting here. This guy was a white supremacist who just happened to believe a few conspiracy theories the president has been pushing the past few years. Notice the absence of capital letters and exclamation points in the president’s statement. There’s not even a denunciation of violence. It’s just “very sad,” like when your favorite contestant gets voted off of The Bachelor.

“No, I don’t. I think my language is very nice.” 2/22/2019 at the White House. This was President Trump’s response, asked whether he feels any responsibility to stop using such inflammatory language. Eric Levitz of the New York Magazine does a great job of putting all this in context. You basically have a president stating that illegal immigrants are invading our country with crime and drugs, that it’s a national emergency no one can find any evidence of because Democrats and the media are working to hide it, that these immigrants are also voting illegally for Democrats in massive numbers thus preserving the corrupt system whereby Democrats illegitimately retain power. If we are to believe all this, then democracy is indeed dead and taking matters into your own hands suddenly doesn’t sound quite so crazy. After all, they’re the “ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE!”, right? Are we supposed to just sit back and take it? Given this type of rhetoric, it’s a wonder there aren’t more crazy people hatching terrorist plots.

“Under my administration…[n]early one million African Americans have found new jobs. As a – really, and I think this – we can really attribute it to regulatory cuts or as a result of our tax cuts. The largest tax cuts in the history of our country.” 2/21/2019 African American History Month reception. Unless the economy slips between now and Nov. 2020, the economy is likely to be a cornerstone of the president’s re-election pitch. So it’s important to note that job gains, both generally and for African Americans specifically, have merely continued the trend Obama handed off to Trump. The tax cuts (which are not the largest ever, by the way) haven’t helped job growth, but have exploded the annual deficit to over $1 trillion. Republicans warned of a debt armageddon during the Obama years, leading Candidate Trump to promise a shrinking national debt. We’ve gotten the opposite, and Republicans no longer care.

“THE WALL IS UNDER CONSTRUCTION RIGHT NOW!” 2/21/2019 Trump tweet. The wall is not under construction right now. The president included a video along with this tweet that showed a fence being constructed. It was of a replacement fence, not new fence, and surely not the concrete wall for which he promised us Mexico would happily pay.

“Wow, so many lies by now disgraced acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe. He was fired for lying, and now his story gets even more deranged. He and Rod Rosenstein, who was hired by Jeff Sessions (another beauty), look like they were planning a very illegal act, and got caught…..” 2/18/2019 Trump tweet. Andrew McCabe, Jeff Sessions, and Rod Rosenstein were all either hired or left in place by Donald Trump: the certified Guy That Hires The Best People. The “very illegal act” they were allegedly planning was actually the perfectly legal process of removing a president under the constitution’s 25th Amendment. They didn’t even “get caught” planning it – McCabe admitted to this in his book. Maybe it’s this type of confusion that led some to try to remove him?

“ “The biggest abuse of power and corruption scandal in our history, and it’s much worse than we thought. Andrew McCabe (FBI) admitted to plotting a coup (government overthrow) when he was serving in the FBI, before he was fired for lying and leaking.” @seanhannity @FoxNews Treason!” 2/18/2019 Trump tweet. A coup?! That’s overstating it just a bit, isn’t it? This “plot” would’ve resulted in a President Mike Pence, anyway, not Hillary Clinton. Some government overthrow.

” “There’s not one shred of evidence that this president’s done anything Constitutionally (or anything else) wrong.” Graham Ledger. Thank you Graham, so true!” 2/23/2019 Trump tweet. Oh, but there are shreds of evidence. There are so many shreds. There are even literal shreds – papers that were shredded only to be put back together by FBI agents – showing evidence of Trump wrongdoing. Remember this story from when Trump’s personal attorney had his office raided?

“Great analysis by @foxandfriends!” 2/18/2019 Trump tweet. What was our president referring to here? I have no idea. He didn’t tell us. He just blurted his love for the Fox News infotainment program out of context. America!

That’s our report for this week. Be sure to click the links for more info on any particular topic and, as always, thanks for reading.