Will RAGE Mean Anything To Trump Supporters?

I don't want to spoil it for anyone, but do Trump supporters read books? The release of Woodward's book, right on top of The Atlantic's revelations about what Trump thinks of American military servicemembers, should be the coup de grâce. But we've all lost track of the instances that were the straw that broken the camel's back. They never are and never will be. Not the stuff from Michael Cohen, from Trump's niece, from Michael Wolff, from Brandy Lee, from Amanda Carpenter, Tim Alberta, Arlie Russell Hochschild, Phil Rucker and Carol Leonid, Jonathan Karl, Doug Wead, Neal Katyal, Alan Grayson, John Lithgow, Sarah Kendzior... So, as much as I am looking forward to reading Rage, I don't expect the revelations-- which were all over the news yesterday-- are going to change the minds-- the lizard brains-- of the hardcore 38-40% of voters who are addicted.

However... with all the TV channels-- even Fox-- running the tapes, maybe some of the congressional Republicans will... nah. Carl Bernstein termed Trump's lies about the virus "homicidal negligence." Where does that leave knee-jerk Trumpist governors Ron DeSantis (R-FL), Greg Abbott (R-TX), Brian Kemp (R-GA), Bill Lee (R-TN), Henry McMaster (R-SC), Kristi Noem (R-SD), Doug Ducey (R-AZ), Kim Reynolds (R-IA), Kevin Stitt (R-OK), Tate Reeves (R-MS), Kay Ivey (R-AL), Doug Burgum (R-ND), Mike Parson (R-MO), Gary Herbert (R-UT), Chris Sununu (R-NH)...

Chris Cillizza tackled the question many of us are asking: Why, why, why would the President grant Woodward so much access? And why would the famously denial-prone Trump allow Woodward to tape the conversations so that there can be no doubt about a) their authenticity or b) what he actually said? Obviously, it's all wound up in the sick Trump psyche.

For all the attacks he lobs at the media, there is NO president who has more closely followed how he is covered and treated by the press than Trump. And it's not even close. He is a voracious consumer of cable news as well as print newspapers. Cable TV has long been the lens through which he views the world and, since being elected president, the way that he analyzes-- in real time-- how he thinks he is doing.

That obsession with perception has naturally lead Trump into forever hunting out ways to cement his legacy in office. Whether that's the almost farcical attempt to buy Greenland or his fascination with the possibility of his face being added to Mount Rushmore, Trump has shown a unbending focus on creating and preserving his legacy. (Trump thinks like a real estate developer; he goes big!)

Aside from those attempts to secure a legacy in stone-- literally!-- Trump regularly uses campaign rallies, supposed policy speeches and his Twitter feed to promote the idea that he really deserves to be considered as one of the best presidents ever.

"I've always said I can be more presidential than any president in history except for Honest Abe Lincoln, when he's wearing the hat," Trump said in 2019. In a speech at the United Nations in 2018, Trump said that "in less than two years my administration has accomplished more than almost any administration in the history of our country." (The audience laughed.)

...Woodward is writing the history of each president as it happens. He is the most recognizable and famous political journalist in the country. When Bob Woodward says he wants to write about you-- even if you are a billionaire businessman or the president of the United States-- you are flattered. And you see opportunity, because if you can convince Woodward that the coverage of you is unfair and biased and that you are really doing a great job, well, then, maybe history starts remembering you the way you want it to.

...Trump has two Achilles heels in politics and life. The first is that he cares so desperately about how people think of him and remember him that he is willing to do almost anything to impact his legacy. The second is that he believes far too much in his own ability to persuade. Woodward (and the book he has produced) cuts at both of the heels.

Which means that Trump was essentially poking at his own weakest spots with every single word he uttered to Woodward. And yet, he couldn't stop himself.

Here are some reports of particularly damning revelations from the book, aside from the web of lies he wove about the coronavirus to deceive the public:

1- Dan Coats, a former very conservative Republican senator from Indiana who Trump hired and fired as director of national intelligence told Woodward that could not shake his "deep suspicions" that Putin "had something" on Señor Trumpanzee, seeing "no other explanation" for the president’s behavior. Coats and his staff examined the intelligence regarding Trump’s ties to Russia "as carefully as possible" and that he "still questions the relationship" between Trump and Putin despite the apparent absence of intelligence proof... "To him, a lie is not a lie. It's just what he thinks. He doesn't know the difference between the truth and a lie."

2- Trump spilled the beans to Woodward on a top secret new nuclear weapon, a very grave breach of national security. "I have built a nuclear-- a weapons system that nobody’s ever had in this country before. We have stuff that you haven’t even seen or heard about. We have stuff that Putin and Xi have never heard about before. There’s nobody-- what we have is incredible."

3- Former Defense Secretary James Mattis, who referred to Trump as "dangerous" and "unfit" with "no moral compass," told Woodward that Trump took foreign policy actions that showed adversaries "how to destroy America. That's what we're showing them. How to isolate us from all of our allies. How to take us down. And it's working very well."

4- Fauci was willing to go on record calling Trump's leadership on the virus "rudderless," saying his "sole purpose is to get reelected," and noting that "his attention span is like a minus number."

How Trump's Own Top Aides Became Convinced Trump "Posed A Danger To The National Security Of The United States" [Also: Trump's Phone Sex With Angela Merkel, Teresa May And Vlad Putin]

New polling across Europe shows that more than 60% of respondents in Germany, France, Spain, Denmark and Portugal said they had lost trust in the United States as a global leader. Negative attitudes of the US were most marked in Denmark (71%) Portugal (70%), France (68%), Germany (65%) and Spain (64%). "Trust in the US is 'broken' as a result of its handling of the health crisis and that support for the transatlantic alliance has been 'hollowed out.' Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, warned in an interview with The Guardian on Friday that the world could no longer take it for granted that America still aspires to be a global leader. The survey suggests that public opinion is already conscious of the shift." Three years of Trump and 200 years of American foreign policy objectives have been flushed down the toilet. If Putin didn't pay Trump for this directly, he was brilliant to figure out what a small investment in his "election" would result in.

I'll file Monday's blockbuster CNN report under the thick and growing file: Worst President In History. Celebrated author and America's most famous investigative journalist, Carl Bernstein, reported that Trump quickly lost the confidence of virtually every serious national security aide he hired-- from his chiefs of staff, secretaries of defense and state right on down the chain. This is how a country turns from a democratic republic to a kakastocracy. Patriots and competent serious advisors cannot last working for Trump... only caca can. One can't read Bernstein's report without coming away with the realization that Trump is entirely unfit to even be in a room where American national security was being discussed. Bernstein wrote that in hundreds of highly classified phone calls with foreign heads of state, "Trump was so consistently unprepared for discussion of serious issues, so often outplayed in his conversations with powerful leaders like Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish President Recep Erdogan, and so abusive to leaders of America's principal allies, that the calls helped convince some senior US officials-- including his former secretaries of state and defense, two national security advisers and his longest-serving chief of staff-- that the President himself posed a danger to the national security of the United States. The calls caused former top Trump deputies-- including national security advisers H.R. McMaster and John Bolton, Defense Secretary James Mattis, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, and White House chief of staff John Kelly, as well as intelligence officials-- to conclude that the President was often 'delusional,' as two sources put it, in his dealings with foreign leaders. The sources said there was little evidence that the President became more skillful or competent in his telephone conversations with most heads of state over time. Rather, he continued to believe that he could either charm, jawbone or bully almost any foreign leader into capitulating to his will, and often pursued goals more attuned to his own agenda than what many of his senior advisers considered the national interest."

Trump, he wrote "regularly bullied and demeaned the leaders of America's principal allies, especially two women: telling Prime Minister Theresa May of the United Kingdom she was weak and lacked courage; and telling German Chancellor Angela Merkel that she was 'stupid.' Trump incessantly boasted to his fellow heads of state, including Saudi Arabia's autocratic royal heir Mohammed bin Salman and North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, about his own wealth, genius, 'great' accomplishments as President, and the 'idiocy' of his Oval Office predecessors. In his conversations with both Putin and Erdogan, Trump took special delight in trashing former Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama and suggested that dealing directly with him-- Trump-- would be far more fruitful than during previous administrations. 'They didn't know BS,' he said of Bush and Obama-- one of several derisive tropes the sources said he favored when discussing his predecessors with the Turkish and Russian leaders. [He] seemed to continually conflate his own personal interests-- especially for purposes of re-election and revenge against perceived critics and political enemies-- with the national interest... One person familiar with almost all the conversations with the leaders of Russia, Turkey, Canada, Australia and western Europe described the calls cumulatively as 'abominations' so grievous to US national security interests that if members of Congress heard from witnesses to the actual conversations or read the texts and contemporaneous notes, even many senior Republican members would no longer be able to retain confidence in the President."

The insidious effect of the conversations comes from Trump's tone, his raging outbursts at allies while fawning over authoritarian strongmen, his ignorance of history and lack of preparation as much as it does from the troubling substance, according to the sources. While in office, then- Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats expressed worry to subordinates that Trump's telephone discussions were undermining the coherent conduct of foreign relations and American objectives around the globe, one of CNN's sources said. And in recent weeks, former chief of staff Kelly has mentioned the damaging impact of the President's calls on US national security to several individuals in private.

Two sources compared many of the President's conversations with foreign leaders to Trump's recent press "briefings" on the coronavirus pandemic: free form, fact-deficient stream-of-consciousness ramblings, full of fantasy and off-the-wall pronouncements based on his intuitions, guesswork, the opinions of Fox News TV hosts and social media misinformation.

In addition to Merkel and May, the sources said, Trump regularly bullied and disparaged other leaders of the western alliance during his phone conversations-- including French President Emmanuel Macron, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, and Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison-- in the same hostile and aggressive way he discussed the coronavirus with some of America's governors.

...[H]is most vicious attacks, said the sources, were aimed at women heads of state. In conversations with both May and Merkel, the President demeaned and denigrated them in diatribes described as "near-sadistic" by one of the sources and confirmed by others. "Some of the things he said to Angela Merkel are just unbelievable: he called her 'stupid,' and accused her of being in the pocket of the Russians ... He's toughest [in the phone calls] with those he looks at as weaklings and weakest with the ones he ought to be tough with."

The calls with Putin and Erdogan were particularly egregious in terms of Trump almost never being prepared substantively and thus leaving him susceptible to being taken advantage of in various ways, according to the sources-- in part because those conversations (as with most heads of state), were almost certainly recorded by the security services and other agencies of their countries.

In his phone exchanges with Putin, the sources reported, the President talked mostly about himself, frequently in over-the-top, self-aggrandizing terms: touting his "unprecedented" success in building the US economy; asserting in derisive language how much smarter and "stronger" he is than "the imbeciles" and "weaklings" who came before him in the presidency (especially Obama); reveling in his experience running the Miss Universe Pageant in Moscow, and obsequiously courting Putin's admiration and approval. Putin "just outplays" him, said a high-level administration official-- comparing the Russian leader to a chess grandmaster and Trump to an occasional player of checkers. While Putin "destabilizes the West," said this source, the President of the United States "sits there and thinks he can build himself up enough as a businessman and tough guy that Putin will respect him." (At times, the Putin-Trump conversations sounded like "two guys in a steam bath," a source added.)

In numerous calls with Putin that were described to CNN, Trump left top national security aides and his chiefs of staff flabbergasted, less because of specific concessions he made than because of his manner-- inordinately solicitous of Putin's admiration and seemingly seeking his approval-- while usually ignoring substantive policy expertise and important matters on the standing bilateral agenda, including human rights; and an arms control agreement, which never got dealt with in a way that advanced shared Russian and American goals that both Putin and Trump professed to favor, CNN's sources said.

Throughout his presidency, Trump has touted the theme of "America First" as his north star in foreign policy, advancing the view that America's allies and adversaries have taken economic advantage of US goodwill in trade. And that America's closest allies need to increase their share of collective defense spending. He frequently justifies his seeming deference to Putin by arguing that Russia is a major world player and that it is in the United States' interest to have a constructive and friendly relationship-- requiring a reset with Moscow through his personal dialogue with Putin.





In separate interviews, two high-level administration officials familiar with most of the Trump-Putin calls said the President naively elevated Russia-- a second-rate totalitarian state with less than 4% of the world's GDP-- and its authoritarian leader almost to parity with the United States and its President by undermining the tougher, more realistic view of Russia expressed by the US Congress, American intelligence agencies and the long-standing post-war policy consensus of the US and its European allies. "He [Trump] gives away the advantage that was hard won in the Cold War," said one of the officials-- in part by "giving Putin and Russia a legitimacy they never had," the official said. "He's given Russia a lifeline-- because there is no doubt that they're a declining power ... He's playing with something he doesn't understand and he's giving them power that they would use [aggressively]."

Both officials cited Trump's decision to pull US troops out of Syria-- a move that benefited Turkey as well as Russia-- as perhaps the most grievous example. "He gave away the store," one of them said.

The frequency of the calls with Erdogan-- in which the Turkish president continually pressed Trump for policy concessions and other favors-- was especially worrisome to McMaster, Bolton and Kelly, the more so because of the ease with which Erdogan bypassed normal National Security Council protocols and procedures to reach the President, said two of the sources.

...The common, overwhelming dynamic that characterizes Trump's conversations with both authoritarian dictators and leaders of the world's greatest democracies is his consistent assertion of himself as the defining subject and subtext of the calls-- almost never the United States and its historic place and leadership in the world, according to sources intimately familiar with the calls.

In numerous calls with the leaders of the UK, France, Germany, Australia and Canada-- America's closest allies of the past 75 years, the whole postwar era-- Trump typically established a grievance almost as a default or leitmotif of the conversation, whatever the supposed agenda, according to those sources.

"Everything was always personalized, with everybody doing terrible things to rip us off-- which meant ripping 'me'-- Trump-- off. He couldn't-- or wouldn't-- see or focus on the larger picture," said one US official.

The source cited a conspicuously demonstrable instance in which Trump resisted asking Angela Merkel (at the UK's urging) to publicly hold Russia accountable for the so-called 'Salisbury' radioactive poisonings of a former Russian spy and his daughter, in which Putin had denied any Russian involvement despite voluminous evidence to the contrary. "It took a lot of effort" to get Trump to bring up the subject, said one source. Instead of addressing Russia's responsibility for the poisonings and holding it to international account, Trump made the focus of the call-- in personally demeaning terms-- Germany's and Merkel's supposedly deadbeat approach to allied burden-sharing. Eventually, said the sources, as urged by his NSC staff, Trump at last addressed the matter of the poisonings, almost grudgingly.

"With almost every problem, all it takes [in his phone calls] is someone asking him to do something as President on behalf of the United States and he doesn't see it that way; he goes to being ripped off; he's not interested in cooperative issues or working on them together; instead he's deflecting things or pushing real issues off into a corner," said a US official.

"There was no sense of 'Team America' in the conversations," or of the United States as an historic force with certain democratic principles and leadership of the free world, said the official. "The opposite. It was like the United States had disappeared. It was always 'Just me'."

Not a mention of any of the many Trump-Netanyahu discussions. Who's covering that up... and why?

We Have A Traitor In The White House... And Then There's The NRA, A Russian Front Operation!

In the interview above on CNN, you can watch Carl Bernstein explaining why Trump is "unravelling both factually and also temperamentally... [Trump] recognizes that there is, in this whistleblower's documents terrible evidence of the president's corruption, of his willingness to undermine the free electoral system in this country, to involve foreign powers in our election..."

The Washington Post reported that over 300 former national security and foreign policy officials have signed a statement warning that President Trump’s actions regarding Ukraine are a profound national security concern. They served both Democratic and Republican administrations and all support an impeachment inquiry by Congress to determine the facts. "To be clear, we do not wish to prejudge the totality of the facts or Congress' deliberative process. At the same time, there is no escaping that what we already know is serious enough to merit impeachment proceedings."

Trump may have changed his endless screeches of "No Collusion! No Collusion!" to "No Pressure! No Pressure!" but his NRA allies are drowning in collusion, as Mark Maremont and Julie Bykowicz of the Wall Street Journal pointed out yesterday. First off, the NRA "paid for lodging and travel of Russian nationals throughout 2015 and 2016, as part of a relationship that allowed foreign actors looking to influence the U.S. election, including now-convicted Maria Butina, to infiltrate the gun-rights group." Secondly, "NRA leaders traveled to Moscow in December 2015 partly on the NRA’s dime, even though some went there to pursue their own personal business opportunities. This raises questions... about whether they violated laws on how nonprofit funds can be used. The trip to Moscow gave Russians an opening to the organization as the election was ramping up, as well as access to other events involving Republican party leaders."

All this comes from a well-documented, 76-page report published by Senate Finance Committee Democrats, led by Ron Wyden (D-OR).

Looking At Gun Legislation by Nancy Ohanian

The Democrats’ report also documents a parallel effort by then-Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak to build relationships with NRA officers. It says the NRA delegation in Moscow met with more senior officials than previously known, including multiple oligarchs close to President Vladimir Putin, two sanctioned individuals, and a person Ms. Butina claimed was Mr. Putin’s campaign manager.

Ms. Butina, a Russian gun enthusiast, was sentenced to prison in April after pleading guilty to conspiring to influence U.S. politics. She and a Russian official named Alexander Torshin helped organize the 2015 Moscow trip and developed close relationships with NRA leaders, the report says.

As a nonprofit organization, the NRA is not supposed to use its funds for insiders’ personal benefit. The NRA already is being buffeted by allegations of spending abuses and cozy vendor dealings that have benefited CEO Wayne LaPierre and other top officials or their family members.

The Moscow travel “was an official trip undertaken so NRA insiders could get rich-- a clear violation of the principle that tax-exempt resources should not be used for personal benefit,” said Sen. Ron Wyden, of Oregon, one of the Democrats who has been probing the NRA’s ties to Moscow.

The report calls on Congress to “explore options to reform tax-exempt laws to protect against foreign threats,” but it is unlikely to provoke any immediate legislative impact. Republicans hold a majority of Senate seats, and the party has expressed its continued support of the NRA and has shown little interest in tightening restrictions on tax-exempt organizations.

The Democrats’ report includes new details about the relationship between the NRA and the Russian nationals, pushing back on the gun group’s early assertions that it was not working with them in an official way. The report documents formal communications with the Russian nationals and details how NRA funds ended up in a shell company set up by Ms. Butina to reimburse her for costs associated with the 2015 Moscow trip.

The gun group’s leaders introduced the Russian nationals to Republican Party leaders at its annual meetings and board meetings and helped them gain access to other conservatives at events such as the National Prayer Breakfast, the report says.

“NRA resources appear to have been used to pay for membership and registration fees to third-party events for the Russian nationals as well as to arrange for transit to and lodging for many of those events throughout 2015 and 2016,” the report says.

The report suggests at least somebody associated with the NRA had misgivings about Ms. Butina. After she was introduced to Donald Trump Jr. at the 2016 NRA annual meeting, this person texted the younger Mr. Trump: “I understand that someone introduced a Russian gal to you this week. I’ll fill you in this week but I would steer clear if she tries to reach out to you.”

The previously undisclosed text message was provided by the NRA, the report says, adding that the group didn’t identify the sender or respond to other questions about the message.

A spokesman for Donald Trump Jr. declined to comment.

The new report digs into the origins of the December 2015 NRA trip to Moscow, and what happened afterward. Although the NRA has claimed the members who traveled to Russia were not authorized to do so in an official capacity, the Democrats’ report provides evidence to the contrary.

The report says NRA then-President Allan Cors withdrew from the trip, but wrote Mr. Torshin, the Russian official, on his NRA letterhead designating others as representing “the NRA and our five million members.”

After the Treasury Department cautioned then-NRA Vice President Pete Brownell against meeting with U.S.-sanctioned Russians while abroad, the compliance director of Mr. Brownell’s private company assured him such meetings would be permissible because “he planned to do so as part of a cultural exchange in his official capacity as a member of the NRA’s delegation.”

Mr. Brownell agreed to go on the trip only because his gun-retail operation, Brownells Inc., had business interests in Russia, the report alleges. “I am not interested in attending if just an nra trip,” Mr. Brownell wrote his compliance director, saying the trip was “an opportunity to be hosted in Russia to broaden our business opportunities.”

A representative of Mr. Brownell didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Mr. Brownell and Ms. Butina traveled around Russia together for three days to explore business opportunities before the rest of the NRA delegation arrived in Moscow, the report says.

The Republican rebuttal says Mr. Brownell’s dual-purpose trip “appears to be entirely normal behavior for a CEO of a major firearms retailer, as the facts show Mr. Brownell started his December 2015 trip to Russia for this personal-professional purpose and then concluded it with an NRA-focused goodwill purpose.”

Mr. Brownell initially picked up some of the trip costs, including a $6,000 payment to Ms. Butina’s shell company, and shortly afterward was reimbursed by the NRA, the report says. When the trip came under scrutiny in early 2018, Mr. Brownell repaid $17,000 to the NRA as a way of “getting the trip off the NRA’s books,” Mr. Brownell’s counsel told investigators.

Michael Cohen: "I Fear That If He Loses The Election In 2020 There Will Never Be A Peaceful Transition Of Power"

On Saturday, while Bernie was kicking off his 2020 campaign with a speech of substance, hope and love in Brooklyn, Trump was delivering a hateful scorched-earth address to the far right radical fringe of American politics, "calling the Russia investigation 'bullshit,' adopting a southern accent to mock his former attorney general, and asserting that some members of Congress 'hate our country.'"

The rollicking two-hour-plus appearance at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference in Maryland offered the president a brief respite from an otherwise miserable week in which his much-touted summit with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un ended in failure and his former personal lawyer delivered explosive testimony to Congress.

A new HarrisX poll for The Hill showed mixed results regarding Michael Cohen's testimony to the House Oversight Committee last week. Survey registered voters, 39% of respondents had no opinion, 37% found his testimony credible and 25% said they did not find him credible. It doesn't matter that much that 58% of Democrats found him credible but that only 15% of Republicans did. What is important is that self-identified independent voters-- most of whom (48%) were unsure-- were significantly more likely to believe Cohen (35%) than to dismiss his testimony as not credible (just 18%).

Yesterday, the NY Times published an interesting piece of the evolving historical record, an OpEd by John Dean: I Testified Against Nixon. Here's My Advice For Michael Cohen. He noted that both Cohen and himself "found ourselves speaking before Congress, in multiple open and closed venues, about criminal conduct of a sitting president of the United States. This is not a pleasant place to be, particularly given the presidents involved.

Polls varied widely after my testimony. One said 50 percent of Americans believed me, 30 percent did not, and 20 percent were not sure. Another poll had 38 percent believing the president, who denied my statement, and 37 percent believing me. The instant polls on Mr. Cohen’s testimony vary by party affiliation, as was the case with my polls. But 35 percent found him credible. I believe that number will grow.

While my testimony was eventually corroborated by secret recordings of our conversations made by Mr. Nixon, before that it was other witnesses who made the difference. I was surprised by the number of people who surfaced to support my account. The same, I suspect, will happen for Michael Cohen. The Mafia’s code of omertà has no force in public service. I have heard no one other than Roger Stone say he will go to jail for Donald Trump.

Mr. Cohen should understand that if Mr. Trump is removed from office, or defeated in 2020, in part because of his testimony, he will be reminded of it for the rest of his life. He will be blamed by Republicans but appreciated by Democrats. If he achieves anything short of discovering the cure for cancer, he will always live in this pigeonhole. How do I know this? I am still dealing with it.

Just as Mr. Nixon had his admirers and apologists, so it is with Mr. Trump. Some of these people will forever be rewriting history, and they will try to rewrite it at Mr. Cohen’s expense. They will put words in his mouth that he never spoke. They will place him at events at which he wasn’t present and locations where he has never been. Some have tried rewriting my life, and they will rewrite his, too.

I am thinking of people like Mr. Stone, the longtime Trump associate who worked on the 1972 Nixon campaign and so admires the former president that he has a tattoo of the man’s likeness between his shoulder blades. Mr. Stone, whom I never met while at the White House, has been indicted as part of the inquiry by the special counsel, Robert Mueller, on charges of lying to Congress about his efforts to contact WikiLeaks during the 2016 presidential campaign.

He prides himself as a political dirty trickster, and he has never met a conspiracy theory he did not believe. Mr. Cohen can be sure that Mr. Stone will promote new conspiracy theories to defend Mr. Trump and himself, even if it means rewriting history. Presidential scandals tend to attract a remarkable number of dishonest “historians.”

There is one overarching similarity that Mr. Cohen and I share. He came to understand and reject Mr. Trump as I did Mr. Nixon.



Mr. Nixon first called on me regarding Watergate some eight months after the arrests of his re-election committee operatives at the Watergate. We had 37 conversations, and when I felt I had his confidence, I tried but failed to get him to end the cover-up. The day I told Mr. Nixon there was a cancer on his presidency was the day I met the real Nixon. I knew I had to break rank.

Mr. Cohen has likewise come to see Mr. Trump for his true nature. At the very end of his testimony before the House Oversight Committee, he sought permission to read a closing statement.

He thanked the members, and again accepted responsibility for his bad behavior. He then told the legislators, “Given my experience working for Mr. Trump, I fear that if he loses the election in 2020 that there will never be a peaceful transition of power, and this is why I agreed to appear before you today.” This was the most troubling-- actually, chilling-- thing he said in his five hours before the committee.

Since Mr. Cohen’s warning came in his closing words, there was no opportunity for committee members to ask follow-up questions. So I double-checked with his lawyer, Lanny Davis, if I had understood Mr. Cohen’s testimony correctly. Mr. Davis responded, “He was referring to Trump’s authoritarian mind-set, and lack of respect for democracy and democratic institutions.”

Indeed, what is most similar about my and Mr. Cohen’s testimony is that we both challenged authoritarian presidents of the United States by revealing their lies and abuses of power. Mr. Trump is the first authoritarian president since Mr. Nixon, and neither he nor his supporters will play fair. Mr. Cohen will be dealing with these people the rest of his life.

In fact, all Americans are affected by the growing authoritarianism that made Mr. Trump president. These people who facilitated his rise will remain long after Mr. Trump is gone. We need to pay more attention.

Who's To Blame When Parties Really Get Out Of Hand?

This morning, ABC News and the Washington Post released a new national poll that should serve as a warning for congressional Republicans: voters blame them (and Trump of course) for the shutdown and are very much not buying the national emergency bullshit. And by a wide enough margin to signal it could be electorally relevant. In short, "53% say Trump and the Republicans are mainly at fault, and 29% blame the Democrats in Congress. Thirteen percent say both sides bear equal responsibility for the shutdown."

Electorally, what is most significant is that 53% of independents blame Trump and his congressional enablers, while only 23% of independents blame congressional Democrats. (17% of independents blame both parties equally.) Since most Democrats will vote for Democratic candidates and most Republicans will vote for Republican candidate, it will be these independent or swing voters who will make a difference in 2020. Although, it's also worth keeping mind that though responsibility is assigned largely along party lines, 85% of Democrats mainly blame Trump and the GOP for the government shutdown, fewer Republicans (68%) mainly blame the Democrats in Congress. And even a third of self-identified conservatives say Trump and the congressional Republicans are at fault.

CNN put a poll of their own out this morning too-- same kind of results. 55% blame Trump and the GOP for the shutdown and 32% blame congressional Democrats. 56% oppose a wall, while just 39% favor it. Worst of all for the GOP, Trump's approval rating took a big hit. Only 37% of voters approve of him, while 57% disapprove-- a 5 point higher disapproval in a month.

Laughably, the always-wrong-'til-the-day-after Cook Report predicts only 4 vulnerable House Republicans in 2020. Put a pin in that. We're looking closely at these 50 for starters:

• KS-02- Steve Watkins- 48.1%
• TX-23- Will Hurd- 49.2%
• NY-27- Chris Collins- 49.4%
• GA-07- Rob Woodall- 50.1%
• MI-06- Fred Upton- 50.2%
• MN-01- Jim Hagedorn- 50.2%
• TX-21- Chip Roy- 50.2%
• IA-04- Steve King- 50.4%
• IL-13- Rodney Davis- 50.5%
• TX-31- John Carter- 50.6%
• TX-24- Kenny Marchant- 50.6%
• MN-08- Peter Stauber- 50.8%
• TX-10- Michael McCaul- 50.9%
• Montana- Greg Gianforte- 50.9%
• NE-02- Don Bacon- 51.0%
• KY-06- Andy Barr- 51.0%
• PA-01- Brian Fitzpatrick- 51.3%
• MO-02- Ann Wagner- 51.3%
• NC-02- George Holding- 51.4%
• TX-22- Pete Olson- 51.4%
• PA-10- Scott Perry- 51.4%
• PA-16- Mike Kelly- 51.5%
• NC-13- Ted Budd- 51.6%
• OH-12- Troy Balderson- 51.6%
• CO-03- Scott Tipton- 51.7%
• CA-50- Duncan Hunter- 51.7%
• IL-12- Mike Bost- 51.8%
• OH-01- Steve Chabot- 51.8%
• AR-02- French Hill- 52.1%
• NY-01- Lee Zeldin- 52.5%
• CA-22- Devin Nunes- 52.7%
• TX-02- Dan Crenshaw- 52.8%
• WA-03- Jaime Herrera Beutler- 52.9%
• FL-15- Ross Spano- 53.0%
• NY-24- John Katko- 53.1%
• TX-06- Ron Wright- 53.1%
• NY-02- Peter King- 53.3%
• Alaska- Don Young- 53.3%
• VA-05- Denver Riggleman- 53.3%
• TX-25- Roger Williams- 53.5%
• MI-07- Tim Walberg- 53.8%
• CA-04- Tom McClintock-54.1%
• FL-18- Brian Mast- 54.3%
• TX-03- Van Taylor- 54.3%
• MI-03- Justin Amash- 54.4%
• WI-01- Bryan Steil- 54.6%
• FL-16- Vern Buchanan- 54.6%
• IN-02- Jackie Walorski- 54.8%
• CA-01- Doug LaMalfa- 54.9%

And we've already endorsed several declared progressive candidates in some of these races. Please take look and consider signing up for a monthly contribution to any who strike your fancy. Never too early to get started and build a grassroots network and campaign from the ground up or-- as in the case of Kara Eastman, Mike Siegel and Audrey Denney-- continue building a grassroots network and campaign.

Who's to blame when parties really get out of hand?
Who's to blame when they get poorly planned?
Who's to blame?
Can you pull it back in line?
Can you salvage it in time?
What can you do to save a party?
Who's to blame when situations degenerate?
Disgusting things you'd never anticipate?
People get sick, they play the wrong games
You know, it could ruin your name
Crashers gettin' bombed
Who's to blame?
Can you pull it back in line?
Can you salvage it in time?

It shouldn't be difficult!
Try not to condemn!
Okay, who ordered pizza?
I'll be tactful when making the rounds
Be tactful when making the rounds and maybe
You can save a party gone out of bounds (party gone out of bounds)
Party gone out of bounds (gone out of bounds)
Party gone out of bounds
Gone out of bounds