Folie à Millions-- Nearly Half The Voters Looked At The Last 4 Years And Decided They Want More Of The Same

 

The Sound Of Music Revisited by Nancy Ohanian

As Charlies Pierce noted in his Esquire column on Wednesday, "He Got More Votes Than Last Time. Almost half of the country looked at the way Donald Trump has functioned as president since 2017 and said, definitively, that they wanted four more years of it. Yesterday, while writing about Kushner and other predatory landlords working towards evicting hundreds of families in the middle of a pandemic, I stumbled across a horrifying pattern of statistics: Trump's support had grown over the last 4 years, at least in the 13 states with the worst COVID caseloads per capita.

This morning I decided to see if that was holding up in other states as well. Obviously, as the vote counting continues, there will be changes, especially since many of the votes coming in are absentee ballots that are overwhelmingly Democratic. Maybe we'll have to look at this again in a couple of weeks when the dust has settled. But here's what we have so far just as Biden is about to be named president-elect. (I'm only including states where at least three-quarters of the vote-- 75%-- is already counted, so no Alaska, Maryland or New Jersey).

• Alabama- 62.3%, down from 62.8%
• Arizona- 48.5%, down 48.7%
• Arkansas- 62.7%, up from 60.6%
• California- 33.0%, up from 31.6%
• Colorado- 42.2%, down from 43.2%
• Delaware- 39.8%, down from 41.7%
• Florida- 51.2%, up from 49.0%
• Georgia- 49.4%, down from 50.8%
• Hawaii- 34.3%, up from 30.0%
• Idaho- 63.7%, up from 59.3%
• Illinois- 43.0%, up from 38.8%
• Indiana- 57.0%, up from 56.8%
• Iowa- 53.1%, up from 51.1%
• Kansas- 56.7%, up from 56.6%
• Kentucky- 62.7%, up from 62.5%
• Louisiana- 58.5%, up from 58.1%
• Maine- 43.3%, down from 44.9%
• Massachusetts- 32.4%, down from 32.8%
• Michigan- 47.9%, up from 47.5%
• Minnesota- 45.4%, down from 44.9%
• Mississippi- 59.7%, up from 57.9%
• Missouri- 56.9%, up from 56.8%
• Montana- 56.7%, up from 56.2%
• Nebraska- 58.7%, same as 2016
• Nevada- 48.5%, up from 45.5%
• New Hampshire- 45.4%, down from 46.6%
• New Mexico- 43.6%, up from 40.0%
• New York- 40.4%, up from 36.5%
• North Carolina- 50.0%, up from 49.8%
• North Dakota- 65.0% up from 63.0%)
• Ohio- 53.3%, up from 51.7%
• Oklahoma- 65.4%, up from 65.3%
• Oregon- 40.3%, up from 39.1%
• Pennsylvania- 49.3%, up from 48.2%
• Rhode Island- 39.2%, up from 38.9%
• South Carolina- 55.1%, up from 54.9%
• South Dakota- 61.8%, up from 61.5%
• Tennessee- 60.7%, same as 2016
• Texas- 52.2%, same as 2016
• Utah- 58.5%, up from 45.5%
• Vermont- 31.7%, up from 30.3%
• Virginia- 44.5%, up from 44.4%
• Washington- 38.0%, up from 36.8%
• West Virginia- 68.6%, up from 68.5%
• Wisconsin- 48.8%, up from 47.2%
• Wyoming- 70.0%, up from 67.4%

Only 9 states saw Trump's proportion of the vote go down: Alabama, Arizona, Colorado, Delaware, Georgia, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota and New Hampshire. This is generally a function of less interest this year in third party candidates. But, look at Texas (where 97% of the votes are counted). Trump got 5,876,777 votes do far. His total in 2016 was 4,685,047. Or take Vermont, where 95% of the vote is counted. In 2016 Trump got 95,369 votes. This year he got 111,131 votes. Read 'em and weep.

Yesterday, John Pavlovitz spoke for many people when he wrote, "The fact that it was even close, the fact that more people voted for him a second time, the fact that a higher number of white women inexplicably affirmed him-- it is all confirmation that whether we remove the very visible, unsightly symptom or not, the pervasive disease is still horribly afflicting us... I was certain we were better than him, but we are not."

Numbed by a cocktail of optimism and ignorance, many of us imagined this was a sick, momentary aberration; a temporary glitch in the system that would surely be remedied: after so much ugliness, such open disregard for people of color, such inhumanity toward migrant children, such a sickening failure in the face of this pandemic-- sanity would surely come to the rescue.

We were certain that we would collectively course-correct; that the pendulum that had so wildly swung toward inhumanity would come roaring back to decency in these days; that we would presently be basking in the glory of a radiant dawn referendum on all this bloated bigotry.

We thought we would be dancing on the grave of fascism.

We thought, of course the good people of this nation would come to their collective senses, leaving behind political affiliations and superficial preferences and ceremonial ties, to rescue us from a malevolence that had proven itself unworthy of its position and toxic to its people.

We were certain there would be a mass repudiation of the racism that this man has revealed and the violence he’s nurtured, because for all its flaws we really believed America was better than this.

We were wrong.

...We believed the best about this nation and we were mistaken.

To many oppressed and vulnerable communities, to people who have long known the depth of America’s sickness because they have experienced it in traffic stops and workplace mistreatment and opportunity inequity and the bitter words of strangers-- this may be less shocking news than it is to those of us with greater privilege and more buffers to adversity and the luxury of naiveté.

But this is the sober spot in which we stand now: realizing that our optimism about the whole of this nation was misplaced,
our prayers for the better angels of so many white Christians were unanswered, our childish illusions that people were indeed basically good and decent, seared away in their reaffirmation of something that the rest of the watching world finds reprehensible.

Brandy X Lee is an author and psychiatrist working at Yale, a specialist in violence prevention. Yesterday, writing for Raw Story, she predicted that "The coming weeks and months will be the most dangerous period of this presidency" and noted that there's a sickness in America that goes beyond just Trump. "'What is wrong with 68 million Americans?' is a question many are asking the day after the election. Why should the race even be close? Why did 48% of voting adults choose to remain with a president who leaves a trail of hundreds of thousands of unnecessary deaths, the nation bankrupt, children in cages, and our natural habitat under existential threat? It makes no rational sense-- unless we correctly identify the problem. For almost four years, mental health professionals have been urging the nation to bring a mental health perspective to a mental health problem, instead of assuming that everything is political. All substitute approachess have failed, just as the best pandemic control comes from infectious disease specialists, not from a radiologist or economists. We have also anticipated the current situation as a product of having mental pathology in power for a prolonged period.

In mental pathology, where higher functions are impaired, an individual taps more easily into “the primitive brain,” which is irrational but very powerful, as it is survival-driven. Illegitimate power is like oxygen to the narcissistically- or sociopathically-disordered mind, and such a person would be driven to do anything-- including annihilate himself and the world-- for his psychic survival. Losing an election would, therefore, not at all be like a healthy person’s experience of defeat. In fact, we know how much Donald Trump fears it through his readiness to call others “losers” and “suckers”, in order to separate himself and to disavow qualities he cannot tolerate.

Many of his followers will equally experience his downfall as a life-or-death matter, since he has conditioned this into them. Their bond is pathological to start, based on developmental wounds or regression to an earlier stage of development under stress, which led them to seeking a parental figure. They are thus vulnerable to someone manipulative and exploitative enough to say he will take care of them and protect them in unrealistic ways that defy reality. And once they do,  they often give up their agency and rationality. Recent footage of his followers chanting, “Fire Fauci!” is disturbing in its depiction of their conformity, loss of personality, and alignment with Donald Trump’s thinking-- to suggest proactively that he remove the reminder of his unwanted reality: the pandemic. Delusions, paranoia, and violence-proneness are among the most contagious symptoms, and we see all these tendencies in his followers.

Under these emotional bonds, his followers will likely experience any threat to his position as an existential threat to themselves, which is why negative facts about him only activate defensive denial and disavowal, rather than abandonment. Abused children rather blame themselves than the parent as a survival impulse, for the parent is their lifeline, and it is easier to believe that he or she could never do wrong-- and the more untrue this belief, the more insistently they cling to it.

“Shared psychosis” or “folie à millions” (madness by the millions) has been well-documented by renowned mental health experts such as Carl Jung and Erich Fromm. This contagion of symptoms dissipates when exposure to the primary person is reduced, which is why Donald Trump holds rallies as if his life depended on them-- psychically, it does. It is also the reason why he cannot leave the presidency-- in addition to the possibility of prosecution.

Technically, The Move To End Women's Choice Is Bipartisan-- Thanks To Two DCCC Blue Dogs

Dan Lipinksi (IL) and Collin Peterson (MN), two of the scumbag Blue Dogs whose reelection protection Cheri Bustos has made her life’s work, joined over two hundred women-hating Republican fanatics-- 166 in the House and 39 senators-- in signing the amicus brief urging the Supreme Court to outlaw women’s Choice by overturning Roe v Wade. And you laughed when we pointed out that Lipinski could well be the next Blue Dog to join his pal Jeff Van Drew in leaving the Democratic Party for the GOP? Peterson has already announced he’s too old to switch parties in the twilight of his career, but Lipinski is evasive about his plans, especially if-- as many people think-- he’s beaten in the March primary by progressive activist Marie Newman.

On Thursday morning, Newman told Chicagoland voters that “Lipinski’s decision to sign this amicus brief asking the Supreme Court to reconsider Roe v. Wade is further proof of his willingness to pursue a distorted personal agenda and extreme views at the expense of his constituents’ health and best interests. My opponent does not trust women and he is not fit to represent us. Congressman Lipinski refuses to stand up for the values of our community and it is time that our district has real leadership.”

Lipinski, co-chair of the Congressional Pro-Life Caucus, has co-sponsored 54 bills attacking the right to choose, including bills sponsored by Mike Pence, Steve King, and Todd Akin. He co-sponsored legislation to require invasive ultrasounds before women receive an abortion and he voted against a measure to create an exemption to an abortion ban for when the life of the mother was at risk. Trump personally thanked him for his work supporting the movement to take away a woman’s right to choose at an anti-abortion dinner in 2018. The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in the case March 4, just 2 weeks before the Illinois primary.

The case will be the first anti-Choice attempt to overthrow Roe v Wade since Trump appointed two anti-Choice fanatics, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh-- to the Supreme Court. Charles Pierce, writing for Esquire Thursday, noted that this is a problem America has with Republicans, not just with Trump. “In case you were wondering,” wrote Pierce, “if simply replacing the president will be enough to wring the extremism out of the Republican Party, think again… This is going for broke. This is about tossing the privacy rights of 51 percent of the American people overboard. They want abortions made illegal, every one of them. Critical to their argument is the notion that the protocol set down in Roe is ‘unworkable.’ Of course, after doctors get shot, clinics get bombed, judicial vandalism, and SLAPP suits fall like iron rain, almost any system will be rendered ‘unworkable.’”

The Fifth Circuit labored to do the best it could with the vague and opaque “undue burden” standard on which the Court has relied since Casey. Amici respectfully suggest that the court’s struggle-- similar to dozens of other courts’ herculean struggles in this area-- illustrates the unworkability of the “right to abortion” found in Roe and the need for the Court to take up the issue of whether Roe and Casey should be reconsidered and, if appropriate, overruled.

“That’s been the whole point all along,” noted Pierce.

We Either Get Rid Of Iowa Fascist Steve King Now-- Or Acclimate Ourselves To Having Him Around Forever

Iowa is a swing state-- and it's about to swing way back in the other direction. Governor Kim Reynolds (R) has a one in six chance of being reelected. Right now, Iowa sends one Democrat and 3 Republicans to Congress. At worst, it appears that in 2019 Iowa will have 3 Democrats and one Republican in Congress. But at best... 4 Democrats and no Republicans. But that's going to take some work. First the good news: that 4th district pits far right bigot and neo-fascist Steve King against former baseball player, progressive Democrat J.D. Scholten.

Now the bad news: Iowa has a statewide PVI of R+3 and Trump's victory over Hillary in the state was 51.15% to 41.74%. But the 4th district, where Scholten is facing off against King, has a PVI of R+11. And in that district, Trump beat Hillary 60.9% to 33.5%. That's a tough district for a Democrat. In 2008 and 2012 Obama won statewide. But in 2008 McCain won IA-04 and in 2012 Romney took the district.

There are other Republicans who vote more frequently with Trump than King does-- but when King doesn't vote with Reump, it's because he's further right than Trump is! Yeah, this is a tough one. And... to put it mildly, the DCCC isn't helping. Quite the contrary of course. The DCCC hates progressives and they hate candidates from the working class. Scholten is both. The most recent poll of the state that includes House districts shows GOP incumbents David Young (IA-03) with a 47-31% lead over mediocre DCCC recruit Cindy Axne. She's just a garden variety Democrat who will never make any waves and will always do what the leadership tells her to do-- the kind of seat occupier the DCCC loves. And so far they've spent a gargantuan $1,733,633 against Young on her behalf (not counting the $906,085 that Pelosi's House Majority PAC has also spent against Young). So... over $2.6 million.

But in IA-04, King's district-- King is only supported by 41% of the likely voters-- so far fewer than Young's 47%. And, like Axne, Scholten had the support of 31% of likely voters in that poll. So it looks like Scholten has a better chance, right? Well, maybe... but... Scholten is a working class progressive and the DCCC don't want people like that busting into their elite little caucus. So how much have they spent on his race? ZERO, of course. Both Axne and Scholten have seriously out-raised their Republican opponents. Axne brought in $3,598,649 to Young's $2,526,493 and she has $1,239,498 left to spend compared to Young's $747,223. Scholten raised $1,434,486 to King's $671,818 and Scholten has $621,708 left to spend compared to King's $160,561. Axne has run a media race. Scholten has run the ultimate grassroots race and has been to every nook and cranny of the district and touched as many people as conceivable. One of the pastors on the Vote Common Good "Flip Congress" tour told me that Scholten was the best candidate they'd worked with and he was so good they set up an impromptu rally in another town the day after they did the scheduled event with him in Sioux City.

And speaking of Sioux City, the daily newspaper there-- which has endorsed King every single time King has run, did something no one ever expected to see: they just endorsed J.D. on Friday! Today, the editors wrote, The Journal "endorses the candidacy of Democratic challenger J.D. Scholten over incumbent Republican Steve King in the race for the U.S. House seat in Iowa's 4th District. Those were not easy words for us to write," they admitted.

In prior endorsements of King, an eight-term representative, we laid out what we respect and admire about our congressman. He is an honest, principled family man who we acknowledge reflects in his votes the positions of many, if not most 4th District constituents.

In spite of the criticisms we also shared in those endorsements, we believed King's strengths were enough to make him a better choice for this district than the Democratic challengers he faced in past elections.

In Scholten, however, King runs against an opponent with many strengths of his own.

Bright, articulate, personable, possessed of deep roots in this district, informed about issues important to the 4th like agriculture, and armed with a willingness to consider all sides of complex issues such as illegal immigration and work across the aisle to identify solutions to problems, Scholten offers appeal for not only Democrats, but independents and Republicans, as well, we believe.

With a candidate of Scholten's caliber on the ballot, we decided we wouldn't overlook, again, the concerns we have shared about King in the past in making an endorsement in this race this year.

We say nothing about King today we haven't said before. Time and again in this space, we have criticized him for what we view as inflammatory or questionable comments and expressed concern about the impact of those comments on our district. Each time King immerses himself in controversy, he holds up this district to ridicule and marginalizes himself within the legislative body he serves, neither of which provides benefit to Iowans who live and work here.

For example, King earlier this month put himself-- and, by extension, the rest of the district-- in an unflattering spotlight with a tweet in support of a candidate for mayor of Toronto described in published reports as a "white nationalist" or "white supremacist." That wasn't the first time King was tied, by his words or actions, to such intolerant ugliness.

In addition, we don't view King as someone who is at all interested in reaching across the aisle to find common ground on immensely complex issues, like illegal immigration. (We want border security too, for example, but we do not believe it is either possible or practical to identify, locate and arrest or deport every individual who entered this country illegally, many of whom hold jobs important to our domestic economy.) Our point is this: We believe compromise achieved by listening and talking to one another is the only way we as a nation will effectively navigate the multiple challenges of illegal immigration.

As we have said before, we would prefer King spend less time trying to "save" Western civilization and making a national name for himself as a conservative leader trying to move the nation to the political right. We would rather he commit to becoming, say, a more influential congressional leader in agriculture.

Finally, we have used this space on multiple occasions to criticize King for not debating opponents and not hosting more public town halls, both of which speak to constituent accountability, but we have seen little to no inclination on his part during this campaign to change.

We aren't suggesting Scholten is a perfect candidate with whom we have no disagreements, but we believe the job of U.S. representative is more than casting votes. As a congressman, we believe Scholten would choose his words carefully, create no national controversies, bring no embarrassment to the district, seek to unite and not divide, focus his time and energy almost exclusively on issues directly impacting the lives and livelihoods of constituents, and hold regular town halls with the public. He represents changes we believe speak to the best interests of this congressional district as a whole.

King is the favorite and ahead in polls. If he wins re-election, we hope he considers the words we have written today.

If underdog Scholten springs an upset, we hope he remembers this remains largely a conservative, Republican district and we urge him to take accordingly moderate positions on issues of the day. Bottom line: We are ready and willing to give him the opportunity to show all of us in the 4th what he can do.

You won't be surprised to read that Charles Pierce took a somewhat different tone towards King, reminding Esquire readers that "the American Republic requires his defeat. Come on, Iowa." Pierce likes what J.D. has to offer the voters, but pointed out that "even if he weren't qualified, even if he were a snaggle-toothed sub-literate employed in a fish house, he would deserve any thinking person's support because J. D. Scholten is not Steve King." What's wrong with a fish house? Pierce just doesn't like fascists. He'd better keep away from Trump rallies. Oh, and by the way, since the DCCC is refusing to put a nickel towards ridding the country of King-- he's good for their fundraising efforts-- please consider helping J.D. with his Get Out The Vote ground game by clicking on the ActBlue thermometer on the right. This is winnable-- not easy-- but possible. Better to be on that winning team than on the DCCC team of mediocrities and GOP-lite candidates.

Ryan, McConnell, Grassley-- Enablers For Sure... But Criminally So?

Charles Pierce shook Esquire readers over the weekend by growling about Paul Ryan, who many of them have probably never heard of. His post, You're Not NeverTrump Unless You're NeverRyan and NeverMcConnell, makes the point that the GOP’s “brain disease has seized full control” and refuse to do anything about a “president” who is “a half-senile old fool whose own people don’t think is up to the job of selling apples from a steam-grate, let alone running the Executive branch of an established democracy.” The GOP, he wrote, in a dereliction of duty, “would rather destroy the lives of the poor and unfortunate than undertake their constitutional duty of reining in a White House gone completely mad.” Sounds about right. It’s certainly how Yale psychiatrist Brandy Lee sees it. “It is Trump in the office of the presidency that poses a danger,” she wrote. “Why? Past violence is the best predictor of future violence, and he has shown: verbal aggressiveness, boasting about sexual assaults, inciting violence in others, an attraction to violence and powerful weapons and the continual taunting of a hostile nation with nuclear power. Specific traits that are highly associated with violence include: impulsivity, recklessness, paranoia, a loose grip on reality with a poor understanding of consequences, rage reactions, a lack of empathy, belligerence towards others and a constant need to demonstrate power. There is another pattern by which he is dangerous. His cognitive function, or his ability to process knowledge and thoughts, has begun to be widely questioned. Many have noted a distinct decline in his outward ability to form complete sentences, to stay with a thought, to use complex words and not to make loose associations. This is dangerous because of the critical importance of decision-making capacity in the office that he holds. Cognitive decline can result from any number of causes – psychiatric, neurological, medical, or medication-induced – and therefore needs to be investigated. Likewise, we do not know whether psychiatric symptoms are due to a mental disorder, medication, or a physical condition, which only a thorough examination can reveal.”

Shouldn’t Ryan and McConnell see this? They surely do… and they’re playing with fire, ignoring the danger Trump poses to the United States. Pierce:

Now, it appears, the Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee are so dedicated to protecting a dangerously incompetent president that they’re willing to do almost anything. Grassley is just an old crank having fun in his legislative dotage, but the conversion of Lindsey Graham into a Southern-fried Lewandowski has been a dark wonder to behold. I’m not an adherent to conspiracies about kompromat but, Jesus H. Christ on a covert wiretap, this transformation cannot be explained by conventional political science.

Mr. Grassley’s decision to recommend criminal charges appeared likely to be based on reports of Mr. Steele’s meetings with the F.B.I., which were provided to the committee by the Justice Department in recent weeks.

Or on something some staffer’s grandmother emailed after having a hot dream about Sean Hannity dipped in butter. Who the hell knows at this point?

It was not clear why, if a crime is apparent in the F.B.I. reports that were reviewed by the Judiciary Committee, the Justice Department had not moved to charge Mr. Steele already. The circumstances under which Mr. Steele is alleged to have lied were unclear, as much of the referral was classified.

They aren’t going to pull back. They aren’t going to stop. They aren’t going to do their jobs. Their patriotism extends only as far as a donor’s wallet and their devotion to the Constitution can be measured with an eyedropper. Nobody truly can be said to be NeverTrump anymore who is not also NeverMcConnell, NeverRyan, and, frankly, NeverGOP, at least in its current manifestation. The prion disease has triumphed completely. The patient is brain-dead, but still deadly in its contagion.

This should work out splendidly. From Politico:

With rumors swirling that Jeff Sessions could depart the administration and two members of the House Freedom Caucus calling on the former Alabama senator to resign, Pruitt is quietly positioning himself as a possible candidate for the job. “Pruitt is very interested,” a person close to him said. “He has expressed that on a number of occasions.” It’s unclear whether Pruitt would be on the shortlist for the position, but people close to the president said Trump has grown to like him. Pruitt has emerged as the face of Trump’s deregulatory agenda, taking steps to overturn former President Barack Obama’s climate change regulations. He was also a leading advocate for pulling out of the Paris agreement on climate change.

You can do worse in this administration than position yourself as the ‘president*’s favorite vandal. Or so says Politico, anyway, and Pruitt has more than qualified on that score. Most recently, the administration* announced that it’s all hands on deck for offshore drilling, including in and around the Gulf of Mexico, as well as in the Arctic waters around Alaska. (Even Governor Bat Boy in Florida thinks this is a terrible idea, and environmental protection groups are predictably agog.) Pruitt’s work at the EPA is probably done and I have no doubt that this administration* will find someone worse than him if and when he ascends to the top spot in the Department of Justice. There’s never been a better time in history to fail upwards in high office.

Back to Dr. Brandy Lee:

Trump became more paranoid, espousing once again conspiracy theories that he had let go of for a while. He seemed further to lose his grip on reality by denying his own voice on the Access Hollywood tapes. Also, the sheer frequency of his tweets seemed to reflect an agitated state of mind, and his retweeting some violent anti-Muslim videos showed his tendency to resort to violence when under pressure.

Trump views violence as a solution when he is stressed and desires to re-establish his power. Paranoia and overwhelming feelings of weakness and inadequacy make violence very attractive, and powerful weapons very tempting to use – all the more so for their power. His contest with the North Korean leader about the size of their nuclear buttons is an example of that and points to the possibility of great danger by virtue of the power of his position.

It does not take a mental health professional to see that a person of Trump’s impairments, in the office of the presidency, is a danger to us all. What mental health experts can offer is affirmation that these signs are real, that they may be worse than the untrained person suspects, and that there are more productive ways of handling them than deflection or denial.

Screening for risk of harm is a routine part of mental health practice, and there are steps that we follow when someone poses a risk of danger: containment, removal from access to weapons and an urgent evaluation. When danger is involved, it is an emergency, where an established patient-provider relationship is not necessary, nor is consent; our ethical code mandates that we treat the person as our patient.

The NY Times Interview Proved It: A Mentally Deformed Trump Is Beyond Treatment

All over the world today, people are reading that NY Times Trump interview and concluding the U.S. is being led by someone severely mentally ill. How many times did he use the phrase “no collusion?” How many people haven’t figured out his techniques for trying to distort reality? How low of an IQ does someone have to have to still be suckered by this jackass? Welcome to the Grill Room-- which serves crappy overpriced food at Mar-a-Lago-- and a gaggle of Trumpanzee amigos sitting around while the orangatang-in-chief granted an interview to Michael Schmidt. It was so noisy that much of the interview was inaudible. No doubt it was planned that way.

Trumpanzee was still bitching about Jeff Sessions not protecting him. Discussing Sessions’ recusal, the orange ape said “I thought it was a terrible thing he did. [Inaudible.] I thought it was certainly unnecessary, I thought it was a terrible thing. But I think it’s all worked out because frankly there is absolutely no collusion, that’s been proven by every Democrat is saying it…Virtually every Democrat has said there is no collusion. There is no collusion. And even these committees that have been set up. If you look at what’s going on-- and in fact, what it’s done is, it’s really angered the base and made the base stronger. My base is stronger than it’s ever been. Great congressmen, in particular, some of the congressmen have been unbelievable in pointing out what a witch hunt the whole thing is. So, I think it’s been proven that there is no collusion. And by the way, I didn’t deal with Russia… I can only tell you that there is absolutely no collusion. Everybody knows it. And you know who knows it better than anybody? The Democrats. They walk around blinking at each other… There’s been no collusion… Everybody knows the answer already. There was no collusion. None whatsoever… I think that Bob Mueller will be fair, and everybody knows that there was no collusion. I saw Dianne Feinstein the other day on television saying there is no collusion. She’s the head of the committee. The Republicans, in terms of the House committees, they come out, they’re so angry because there is no collusion. So, I actually think that it’s turning out-- I actually think it’s turning to the Democrats because there was collusion on behalf of the Democrats. There was collusion with the Russians and the Democrats. A lot of collusion… There was tremendous collusion on behalf of the Russians and the Democrats. There was no collusion with respect to my campaign. I think I’ll be treated fairly.”

That quote was a compilation of Trump responses to 4 questions. To another, he added “I think it’s bad for the country. The only thing that bothers me about timing, I think it’s a very bad thing for the country. Because it makes the country look bad, it makes the country look very bad, and it puts the country in a very bad position. So the sooner it’s worked out, the better it is for the country… But there is tremendous collusion with the Russians and with the Democratic Party. Including all of the stuff with the-- and then whatever happened to the Pakistani guy, that had the two, you know, whatever happened to this Pakistani guy who worked with the D.N.C.?” And then a cockamamie threat: “I have absolute right to do what I want to do with the Justice Department. But for purposes of hopefully thinking I’m going to be treated fairly, I’ve stayed uninvolved with this particular matter.” And he was off and running about his collusion obsession: “For purposes of the Justice Department, I watched Alan Dershowitz the other day, who by the way, says I, says this is a ridiculous… He’s been amazing. And he’s a liberal Democrat. I don’t know him. He’s a liberal Democrat. I watched Alan Dershowitz the other day, he said, No. 1, there is no collusion, No. 2, collusion is not a crime, but even if it was a crime, there was no collusion. And he said that very strongly. He said there was no collusion. And he has studied this thing very closely. I’ve seen him a number of times. There is no collusion, and even if there was, it’s not a crime. But there’s no collusion. I don’t even say [inaudible]. I don’t even go that far.”

Finally, he found something else to bitch about: Joe Manchin. “We started taxes. And we don’t hear from the Democrats. You know, we hear bullshit from the Democrats. Like Joe Manchin. Joe’s a nice guy. But he talks. But he doesn’t do anything. He doesn’t do. “Hey, let’s get together, let’s do bipartisan.” I say, “Good, let’s go.” Then you don’t hear from him again. I like Joe. You know, it’s like he’s the great centrist. But he’s really not a centrist. And I think the people of West Virginia will see that. He not a centrist... I’m the one that saved coal. I’m the one that created jobs. You know West Virginia is doing fantastically now.”

And then his delusions about Alabama-- and the now fearful ‘Trump Kiss of Death’-- out of nowhere, “Just so you understand, Alabama.… I wasn’t for him. I was for Strange… and I brought Strange up 20 points. Just so you understand. When I endorsed him, he was in fifth place. He went way up. Almost 20 points. But he fell a little short. But I knew what I was doing. Because I thought that... If you look at my rhetoric, I said the problem with Roy Moore is that he will lose the election. I called it. But as the head of the party, I have a choice: Do I endorse him or not? I don’t know. Um… And by the way, when I endorsed him, he went up. It was a much closer race... I feel that I have to endorse Republicans as the head of the party. So, I endorsed him. It became a much closer race because of my endorsement. People don’t say that. They say, Oh, Donald Trump lost. I didn’t lose, I brought him up a lot. He was not the candidate that I thought was going to win. If you look at my statements, you’ve seen them, I said, ‘Look, I’m for Luther Strange because I like him, but I’m also for Luther Strange because he’s going to win the election.’ There wouldn’t have been an election. He would have won by 25 points... The problem with Roy Moore, and I said this, is that he’s going to lose the election. I hope you can straighten that out. Luther Strange was brought way up after my endorsement and he almost won. But... Almost won... He lost by 7 points, 7 or 8 points. And he was way behind. Because of two things, you know, what happened… But I never thought Roy was going to win the election, but I felt… I never thought he was going to win the election, but I felt... And I said that very clearly… And I wish you would cover that, because frankly, I said, if Luther doesn’t win, Roy is going to lose the election. I always felt Roy was going to lose the election. But I endorsed him because I feel it’s my obligation as the head of the Republican Party to endorse him. And you see how tight it was even to get a popular... In Republican circles, to get a very popular tax cut approved, actually reform. Two votes. Now we have one vote, all right?”

Ah, yes, Trump’s Tax Scam. Here’s his excuses for raising taxes on the middle class:

TRUMP: And if I did bipartisan, I would have done something with SALT [the state and local tax deduction]. With that being said, you look back, Ronald Reagan wanted to take deductibility away from states. Ronald Reagan, years ago, and he couldn’t do it. Because New York had a very powerful group of people. Which they don’t have today. Today, they don’t have the same representatives. You know, in those days they had Lew Rudin and me... I fought like hell for that. They had a lot of very good guys. Lew Rudin was very effective. He worked hard for New York. And we had some very good senators... You know, we had a lot of people who fought very hard against, let’s call it SALT. Had they come to me and said, look, we’ll do this, this, this, we’ll do [inaudible]. I could have done something with SALT. Or made it less severe. But they were very ineffective. They were very, very ineffective. You understand what I mean. Had they come to me for a bipartisan tax bill, I would have gone to Mitch, and I would have gone to the other Republicans, and we could have worked something out bipartisan. And that could’ve been either a change to SALT or knockout of SALT.

...I know the details of taxes better than anybody. Better than the greatest C.P.A. I know the details of health care better than most, better than most. And if I didn’t, I couldn’t have talked all these people into doing ultimately only to be rejected...

But, just so you understand, Ronald Reagan wanted to take deductibility away and he was unable to do it. Ronald Reagan wanted to have ANWR approved 40 years ago and he was unable to do it. Think of that. And the individual mandate is the most unpopular thing in Obamacare, and I got rid of it. You know, we gained with the individual... You know the individual mandate, Michael, means you take money and you give it to the government for the privilege of not having to pay more money to have health insurance you don’t want. There are people who had very good health insurance that now are paying not to have health insurance. That’s what the individual mandate... They’re not going to have to pay anymore. So when people think that will be unpopular... It’s going to be very popular. It’s going to be very popular.

Now, in my opinion, they should come to me on infrastructure. They should come to me, which they have come to me, on DACA. We are working... We’re trying to something about it. And they should definitely come to me on health care. Because we can do bipartisan health care. We can do bipartisan infrastructure. And we can do bipartisan DACA… We can do a great infrastructure plan through bipartisanship. And we can do on immigration, and DACA in particular, we can do something that’s terrific through bipartisanship.

Within hours he was explaining his ideas of bipartisan DACA: no wall and he sends all the Dreamers back to where they were born.

At the end Schmidt asked him to explain his latest crackpot tweet about North Korea— “the caught red handed one,” which China disputes. “Which one?” Said the monkey-man in a suit.

“I like very much President Xi. He treated me better than anybody’s ever been treated in the history of China. You know that. The presentations... One of the great two days of anybody’s life and memory having to do with China. He’s a friend of mine, he likes me, I like him, we have a great chemistry together. He’s [inaudible] of the United States. …[Inaudible.] China’s hurting us very badly on trade, but I have been soft on China because the only thing more important to me than trade is war. O.K.?

SCHMIDT: Can you finish your thought on North Korea. What’s going on with China?

TRUMP: I’m disappointed. You know that they found oil going into...

SCHMIDT: But how recently?

TRUMP: It was very recently. In fact, I hate to say, it was reported this morning, and it was reported on Fox. Oil is going into North Korea. That wasn’t my deal!

SCHMIDT: What was the deal?

TRUMP: My deal was that, we’ve got to treat them rough. They’re a nuclear menace so we have to be very tough.

RUDDY: Mr. President, was that a picture from recent or was that months ago? I don’t know...

TRUMP: Oil is going into North Korea, I know. Oil is going into North Korea. So I’m not happy about it.

SCHMIDT: So what are you going to do?

TRUMP: We’ll see. That I can’t tell you, Michael. But we’ll see. I can tell you one thing: This is a problem that should have been handled for the last 25 years. This is a problem, North Korea. That should have been handled for 25, 30 years, not by me. This should have been handled long before me. Long before this guy has whatever he has.

SCHMIDT: Do you think we’ve been too soft on China on North Korea?

TRUMP: No, look, I like China, and I like him a lot. But, as you know, when I campaigned, I was very tough on China in terms of trade. They made-- last year, we had a trade deficit with China of $350 billion, minimum. That doesn’t include the theft of intellectual property, O.K., which is another $300 billion. So, China-- and you know, somebody said, oh, currency manipulation. If they’re helping me with North Korea, I can look at trade a little bit differently, at least for a period of time. And that’s what I’ve been doing. But when oil is going in, I’m not happy about that. I think I expressed that in probably [inaudible].

TRUMP, as aides walk by: And, by the way, it’s not a tweet. It’s social media, and it gets out in the world, and the reason I do well is that I can be treated unfairly and very dishonestly by CNN, and, you know, I have-- what do have now, John, 158 million, including Facebook, including Twitter, including Instagram, including every form, I have a 158 million people. Reporting just this morning, they said 158 million. So if they a do a story that’s false, I can do something— otherwise, Andy, otherwise you just sort of walk around saying what can I do? What, am I going to have a press conference every time somebody, every time Michael writes something wrong?

So, China on trade has ripped off this country more than any other element of the world in history has ripped off anything. But I can be different if they’re helping us with North Korea. If they don’t help us with North Korea, then I do what I’ve always said I want to do. China can help us much more, and they have to help us much more. And they have to help us much more. We have a nuclear menace out there, which is no good for China, and it’s not good for Russia. It’s no good for anybody. Does that make sense?... The only thing that supersedes trade to me-- because I’m the big trade guy, I got elected to a certain extent on trade. You see, I’m renegotiating Nafta, or I’ll terminate it. If I don’t make the right deal, I’ll terminate Nafta in two seconds. But we’re doing pretty good. You know, it’s easier to renegotiate it if we make it a fair deal because Nafta was a terrible deal for us. We lost $71 billion a year with Mexico, can you believe it? $17 billion with Canada-- Canada says we broke even. But they don’t include lumber and they don’t include oil. Oh, that’s not... [Inaudible,]... My friend Justin he says, “No, no, we break even.” I said, ‘Yeah, but you’re not including oil, and you’re not including lumber.” When you do, you lose $17 billion, and with the other one, we’re losing $71 billion. So the only thing that supersedes trade to me is war. If we can solve the North Korea problem. China cannot… China has a tremendous power over North Korea. Far greater than anyone knows.

Charles Pierce said what much of the world was thinking: “I don’t care whether Michael Schmidt was tough enough. We’ve got bigger problems.” He acknowledged post-publication “criticism of Schmidt for having not pushed back sufficiently against some of the more obvious barefaced non-facts presented by the ‘president’ in their chat. Some critics have been unkind enough to point out that Schmidt was the conveyor belt for some of the worst attacks on Hillary Rodham Clinton emanating from both the New York FBI office and the various congressional committees staffed by people in kangaroo suits.” But Pierce called the interview a portrait of a man in cognitive decline-- in other words, proof that Trump’s senility is getting worse. At this point few journalists are willing to go there, but by next year no one will be able to avoid the topic.

Over the past 30 years, I’ve seen my father and all of his siblings slide into the shadows and fog of Alzheimer’s Disease. (the president's father developed Alzheimer's in his 80s.) In 1984, Ronald Reagan debated Walter Mondale in Louisville and plainly had no idea where he was. (Would that someone on the panel had asked him. He’d have been stumped.) Not long afterwards, I was interviewing a prominent Alzheimer’s researcher for a book I was doing, and he said, “I saw the look on his face that I see every day in my clinic.” In the transcript of this interview, I hear in the ‘president’s’ words my late aunt’s story about how we all walked home from church in the snow one Christmas morning, an event I don’t recall, but that she remembered so vividly that she told the story every time I saw her for the last three years of her life.

In this interview, the ‘president’ is only intermittently coherent. He talks in semi-sentences and is always groping for something that sounds familiar, even if it makes no sense whatsoever and even if it blatantly contradicts something he said two minutes earlier. To my ears, anyway, this is more than the ‘president’s’ well-known allergy to the truth. This is a classic coping mechanism employed when language skills are coming apart. (My father used to give a thumbs up when someone asked him a question. That was one of the strategies he used to make sense of a world that was becoming quite foreign to him.) My guess? That’s part of the reason why it’s always “the failing New York Times,” and his 2016 opponent is “Crooked Hillary.”

In addition, the ‘president’ exhibits the kind of stubbornness you see in patients when you try to relieve them of their car keys— or, as one social worker in rural North Carolina told me, their shotguns. For example, a discussion on health-care goes completely off the rails when the ‘president’ suddenly recalls that there is a widely held opinion that he knows very little about the issues confronting the nation. So we get this.

But Michael, I know the details of taxes better than anybody. Better than the greatest C.P.A. I know the details of health care better than most, better than most. And if I didn’t, I couldn’t have talked all these people into doing ultimately only to be rejected.

This is more than simple grandiosity. This is someone fighting something happening to him that he is losing the capacity to understand. So is this.

We’re going to win another four years for a lot of reasons, most importantly because our country is starting to do well again and we’re being respected again. But another reason that I’m going to win another four years is because newspapers, television, all forms of media will tank if I’m not there because without me, their ratings are going down the tubes. Without me, the New York Times will indeed be not the failing New York Times, but the failed New York Times. So they basically have to let me win. And eventually, probably six months before the election, they’ll be loving me because they’re saying, “Please, please, don’t lose Donald Trump.” O.K.

In Ronald Reagan’s second term, we ducked a bullet. I’ve always suspected he was propped up by a lot of people who a) didn’t trust vice-president George H.W. Bush, b) found it convenient to have a forgetful president when the subpoenas began to fly, and c) found it helpful to have a “detached” president when they started running their own agendas— like, say, selling missiles to mullahs. You’re seeing much the same thing with the congressional Republicans. They’re operating an ongoing smash-and-grab on all the policy wishes they’ve fondly cultivated since 1981. Having a ‘president’ who may not be all there and, as such, is susceptible to flattery because it reassures him that he actually is makes the heist that much easier.

So, no, I don’t particularly care whether Michael Schmidt was tough enough, or asked enough follow-up questions. I care about this.

I’m always moving. I’m moving in both directions. We have to get rid of chainlike immigration, we have to get rid of the chain. The chain is the last guy that killed... [Talking with guests.]... The last guy that killed the eight people... [Inaudible.]… So badly wounded people... Twenty-two people came in through chain migration. Chain migration and the lottery system. They have a lottery in these countries. They take the worst people in the country, they put ‘em into the lottery, then they have a handful of bad, worse ones, and they put them out. ‘Oh, these are the people the United States...” We’re gonna get rid of the lottery, and by the way, the Democrats agree with me on that. On chain migration, they pretty much agree with me.

We’ve got bigger problems.

He appears encased in a Fox and Friends bubble that no one penetrates with the exception of shameless sycophants and hideous opportunists, while the ‘president’ of the United States is utterly-- and increasingly-- out of touch with reality. How far back in history do you have to look for a national leader as out of his mind and dangerous to his country as Trump? Ludwig II? George III? Ivan the Terrible? Nero? Caligula? Don't forget Charles Le Fou of France (who ruled from 1380 to 1422). Or maybe Señor Trumpanzee is just setting up a future insanity plea. We'll soon see.

UPDATE: Nearly One Lie Per Minute

Daniel Dale, the Toronto Star DC bureau chief, counted 25 lies during the 30 minute interview. Michael Schmidt didn’t correct Trump once, just kissed his fat ass through the whole interview and agreed with every nonsensical thing he said. If it’s not getting too tedious for you, here are all 25 lies (although a couple might be more delusion that actual lies per se):

1) “But I think it’s all worked out because frankly there is absolutely no collusion, that’s been proven by every Democrat is saying it... Virtually every Democrat has said there is no collusion. There is no collusion.”

Democratic members of Congress have not said en masse that they are convinced that there was no collusion between Trump’s campaign and Russia. Some have acknowledged that they have not seen evidence of collusion, but they have pointed out that the investigation is ongoing.

2) “And you’re talking about what Paul (Manafort) was many years ago before I ever heard of him. He worked for me for-- what was it, three and a half months? ... Three and a half months.”

Manafort worked for the Trump campaign for just under five months, from March 28, 2016 to his resignation on August 19, 2016.

3) “I saw (Democratic Sen.) Dianne Feinstein the other day on television saying there is no collusion.”

Trump appeared to be referring, as he has in the past, to a November CNN interview with Feinstein-- in which she did not declare that there is no collusion. Feinstein was specifically asked if she had seen evidence that the Trump campaign was given Democratic emails hacked by Russia. “Not so far,” she responded. She was not asked about collusion more broadly, and her specific answer made clear that she was referring only to evidence she has personally seen to date, not issuing a sweeping final judgment.

4) “She’s (Feinstein) the head of the committee.”

Feinstein, a Democrat, is not the head of any committee: Republicans control Congress and thus lead the committees. She is the ranking member-- the top Democrat-- on the Senate Judiciary Committee.

5) “So, I actually think that it’s turning out-- I actually think it’s turning to the Democrats because there was collusion on behalf of the Democrats. There was collusion with the Russians and the Democrats. A lot of collusion … starting with the dossier.”

The word “collusion”-- in common language, a “secret agreement or co-operation especially for an illegal or deceitful purpose”-- simply does not apply to the dossier produced by a former British spy about alleged ties between Trump’s campaign and Russia. Trump’s administration, seeking to turn the “collusion” allegation around on its opponents, has argued that the dossier, which was funded in part by the Clinton campaign, amounts to the “Clinton campaign colluding with Russian intelligence.” This is absurd on its face. Russian intelligence favoured Trump and tried to damage Clinton, U.S. intelligence agencies say; the British ex-spy was simply using Russian sources-- who have not been identified-- to attempt to figure out how Trump’s campaign was linked to the Russian government. Such research is not illegal or deceitful, and it does not come close to qualifying as the type of possible “collusion” investigators are probing with regard to the Trump campaign: coordination with the Russian government’s efforts to interfere with the election.

6) “... it’s very hard for a Republican to win the Electoral College. O.K.? You start off with New York, California and Illinois against you. That means you have to run the East Coast, which I did, and everything else. Which I did and then won Wisconsin and Michigan. (Inaudible.) So the Democrats... (Inaudible.) … They thought there was no way for a Republican, not me, a Republican, to win the Electoral College... The Electoral College is so much better suited to the Democrats (inaudible).”

This claim that the Electoral College is tilted in favour of Democrats-- and that “they” think it is impossible for a Republican to win the election in 2016-- is obvious nonsense. Six of the last nine presidents, all of whom except for Gerald Ford had to win an Electoral College election, have been Republicans.

7) “They made the Russian story up as a hoax, as a ruse, as an excuse for losing an election that in theory Democrats should always win with the Electoral College.”

Democrats, of course, did not invent the “Russian story” for electoral purposes, nor is it a “hoax.” U.S. intelligence agencies say that the Russian government interfered in the election for the purpose of helping Trump win; that Russian interference was the original story, and Democrats were talking about it well before Election Day. Perhaps Trump is correct that there was no illegal collusion between his campaign and the Russians, but this matter is being investigated by a special prosecutor appointed by his own deputy attorney general, not “Democrats,” and many senior Republicans believe the investigation has merit.

8) “They (Democrats) thought it would be a one-day story, an excuse, and it just kept going and going and going.”

This is simple nonsense. Democrats did not think that the question of Russian interference in the election on behalf of Trump, or the question of the Trump campaign’s relationship with those efforts, would be a “one-day story.”

9) “Just so you understand. When I endorsed him (Alabama Senate candidate Luther Strange), he was in fifth place. He went way up.”

Strange was in second place in both polls taken in the week prior to Trump’s endorsement, according to RealClearPolitcs’s poll tracker. Strange was in first place in the poll prior to that.

10) “I was for Strange, and I brought Strange up 20 points… almost 20 points.”

Not even close. Here’s what happened. Strange was in the middle of the Republican primary’s five-candidate first round when Trump endorsed him. In the last poll taken before Trump’s endorsement, Strange was down by eight points to Roy Moore. In the first poll after the endorsement, Strange was up three. So, even though the polls were taken by different firms, Trump can arguably claim credit for a temporary 11-point bump. However, Strange immediately fell back down big, and he ended up losing the first round by six. So, at best, Trump brought Strange up two points, from down eight to down six. If you look solely at polls of the head-to-head Moore-Strange matchup, the story is even worse for Trump: Strange was down two points in the last preendorsement poll, then down 19 points in the first post-endorsement poll. He ended up losing by 9.

11) “Luther Strange was brought way up after my endorsement and he almost won.”

We’ve already addressed the falseness of Trump’s claim that Strange was “brought way up after my endorsement.” It’s also false that Strange “almost won.” Strange lost the runoff by 9.2 percentage points, 54.6 per cent to 45.4 per cent.

12) “Almost won. … He (Alabama Senate candidate Luther Strange) lost by 7 points, 7 or 8 points.”

Strange lost by 9.2 percentage points.

13) “I feel that I have to endorse Republicans as the head of the party. So, I endorsed him (Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore). It became a much closer race because of my endorsement. People don’t say that. They say, ‘Oh, Donald Trump lost.’ I didn’t lose, I brought him up a lot.”

There is no evidence at all that Trump brought Moore “up by a lot.” Moore led Democratic candidate Doug Jones in four of the six polls taken in the week before Trump’s endorsement. He ended up losing.

14) “The problem with Roy Moore, and I said this, is that he’s going to lose the election... And I wish you would cover that, because frankly, I said, ‘If Luther doesn’t win, Roy is going to lose the election.’”

Trump never declared that Moore was “going to lose the election.” His actual statement was not nearly so definitive: “Roy has a very good chance of not winning.”

15) “Michael, we have spent, as of about a month ago, $7 trillion in the Middle East. And the Middle East is worse than it was 17 years ago... (Inaudible.) Seven trillion.”

There is no basis for the “$7 trillion” figure. During the 2016, Trump cited a $6 trillion estimate that appeared to be taken from a 2013 report from Brown University’s Costs of War Project; that report estimated $2 trillion in costs up to that point but said the total could rise $4 trillion by 2053. Trump, however, used the $6 trillion as if it was a current 2016 figure. He later explained that since additional time has elapsed since the campaign, he believes the total is now $7 trillion. That is incorrect. The latest Brown report, issued a month before Trump made this remark, put the current total at $4.3 trillion, and the total including estimated future costs at $5.6 trillion.

16) “I know more about the big bills... (Inaudible.)... Than any president that’s ever been in office. Whether it’s health care and taxes.”

There is no way to conclusively demonstrate that this false, but it’s so ridiculous that we are going to take a rare liberty and declare it false anyway. Trump has consistently misstated the details of major bills, spoken only in generalities about the health bill (“fantastic health-care”), and brushed off almost all specific questions. Whatever one thinks of Obamacare, Barack Obama demonstrated a vastly greater understanding of the nuances of his bill than Trump did about any version of the Republicans’ proposed replacement bills.

17) “I believe we can do health care in a bipartisan way, because now we’ve essentially gutted and ended Obamacare.”

Gutted? Perhaps. Trump repealed a central pillar of Obamacare: the “individual mandate,” a requirement that Americans obtain health insurance or pay a financial penalty. The law might now experience new problems. But Trump is wrong, again, to claim that he has already “ended” Obamacare. The individual mandate is a key part of Obamacare, but it is far from the entire thing. Trump did not touch Obamacare’s expansion of the Medicaid insurance program for low-income people, the federal and state Obamacare marketplaces that allow other uninsured people to buy insurance, and the subsidies that help many of them make the purchases. Nor did he touch various Obamacare rules for the insurance market, like its prohibition on insurers denying coverage to people with pre-existing conditions. The very day after the tax law passed, the government announced that 8.8 million people had signed up for coverage through the federal marketplace, down by only 0.4 million from last year despite Trump’s efforts to dissuade people from signing up.

18) “Now here’s the good news. We’ve created associations, millions of people are joining associations. Millions. That were formerly in Obamacare or didn’t have insurance. Or didn’t have health care. Millions of people.”

This has not happened. Trump issued an executive order on Oct. 12 to ask his Secretary of Labor to propose regulations to allow more employers to make use of “association health plans.” But the actual change has not actually been made yet, noted Timothy Jost, an expert on health law as an emeritus professor at Washington and Lee University-- so even if millions of people will eventually use these plans, they have, obviously, not been able to do so yet.

19) “We’ve created associations, millions of people are joining associations. Millions. That were formerly in Obamacare or didn’t have insurance. Or didn’t have health care. Millions of people. That’s gonna be a big bill, you watch.”

The move toward association health plans is not going to be a bill at all, let alone a “big bill.” This “would be a change in regulation or guidance,” not legislation, Jost noted.

20) “Chain migration and the lottery system. They have a lottery in these countries. They take the worst people in the country, they put ‘em into the lottery, then they have a handful of bad, worse ones, and they put them out. ‘Oh, these are the people the United States...’”

This is, as always, an inaccurate description of Diversity Visa Lottery program. First, the lottery is run by the State Department, not conducted in foreign countries. Second, foreign governments do not toss their worst citizens into the lottery to try to dump them on the United States: would-be immigrants sign up on their own, as individuals, of their own free will.

21) “Last year, we had a trade deficit with China of $350 billion, minimum.”

Trump would have been correct if he had said “$350 billion, maximum,” and specified he was talking about trade in goods alone, but not when he simply says “$350 billion, minimum”: the actual U.S. deficit with China was $347 billion if you exclude trade in services, $310 billion all things considered, according to the U.S. government’s own Office of the U.S. Trade Representative.

22) “...and, you know, I have-- what do have now, John, 158 million, including Facebook, including Twitter, including Instagram, including every form, I have a 158 million people.”

Even if you’re counting generously, Trump does not have that many followers on social media. Adding up his Twitter account (45 million followers), his Facebook account (23 million followers), the White House Facebook account (8 million followers), his Instagram account (8 million followers), the White House Instagram account (4 million followers), the official “POTUS” Twitter account (22 million followers), and the official “POTUS” Facebook account (2 million followers), Trump is at 112 million followers. Since many of these people undoubtedly follow him on more than one platform, the total number of actual humans is even further below 158 million.

23) “You know, it’s easier to renegotiate it if we make it a fair deal because NAFTA was a terrible deal for us. We lost $71 billion a year with Mexico, can you believe it?”

Even if you only count trade in goods alone, the U.S. trade deficit with Mexico is not that large: it was $64 billion in 2016, $60 billion in 2015, $55 billion in 2014 and $54 billion in 2013, according to the U.S. government’s own Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, and it has not exceeded $67 billion since 2007. Further, when trade in services is included, the 2016 deficit was $56 billion.

24) “Seventeen billion (trade deficit) with Canada-- Canada says we broke even. But they don’t include lumber and they don’t include oil. Oh, that’s not... (Inaudible) ...My friend Justin he says, “No, no, we break even.” I said, ‘Yeah, but you’re not including oil, and you’re not including lumber.” When you do, you lose $17 billion.”

According to the U.S. government’s own Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, the U.S. had a trade surplus of $12.5 billion with Canada last year when services trade was included. Even counting goods trade alone, the Trade Representative says the deficit was $12.1 billion, not $17 billion.

25) “I’m the one that saved coal.”

The coal industry has not been “saved,” and to the extent it rebounded modestly in 2017, market forces, not Trump, were the main reason. As Reuters explained in a comprehensive story in November, “U.S. utilities are shutting coal-fired power plants at a rapid pace and shifting to cheap natural gas, along with wind and solar power.” Reuters wrote: “A year after Donald Trump was elected president on a promise to revive the ailing U.S. coal industry, the sector’s long-term prospects for growth and hiring remain as bleak as ever. A Reuters review of mining data shows an industry that has seen only modest gains in jobs and production this year-- much of it from a temporary uptick in foreign demand for U.S. coal rather than presidential policy changes.” Trump can applaud a slight increase in the employment of people employed in coal mining: it stood at 51,200 in November, 1,500 higher than the number upon Trump’s election a year prior. But this was still down more than a third even from its levels in 2012, it can hardly be counted as “saving” the industry, and its connection to Trump is tenuous at best.

There was an 8 per cent increase in U.S. coal production this year. Analysts said this increase had little or nothing to do with Trump; James Stevenson, a coal analyst at IHS Markit, told Reuters it was “largely attributable to demand for U.S. coal from Asian steel mills after temporary outages from their usual suppliers in Australia.”

Ryan And Trump Pick Winners And Losers With Their Very Flawed Tax Proposal

The nonpartisan ethics watchdogs, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), was blunter than most when it came to defining the Trump/Ryan tax plan: it was designed lower Señor Trumpanzee's taxes. The Alternative Minimum Tax, which Ryan wants to eliminate entirely, cost Trump $31 million in 2005, the one year people got to examine part of Trump's returns. That tax was designed to get something out of crooked millionaires and billionaires who game the system to avoid taxes-- like Trump. But that's not all that's wrong with this corrupt tax plan for the rich.

Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal, who represents Seattle called it "nothing but a dream come true for the biggest corporations. It will further destroy the middle class by giving huge tax breaks to wealthy Americans on the backs of working people. Corporate profits currently sit at historic highs and the effective corporate tax rate in the U.S. is one of the lowest in the entire world. In spite of that, Republicans want to lower corporate taxes by 15 percent, add trillions to the deficit and reward big business by giving special perks to those who ship jobs overseas. On top of all this, the GOP is working to give a handout to the 5,400 wealthiest families across the country in the form of estate tax repeal. For a party that claims to be against so-called government handouts, they seem to have no problem giving everything we’ve got to big business and the super-rich. These giveaways come at the expense of programs that help American families get by, but this plan comes as no surprise. It is everything you’d expect from the party that is deep in the pocket of millionaires, billionaires and corporations. It’s up to all of us make tons of noise and defeat it, just as we defeated the GOP’s efforts to transfer wealth to the richest by stripping health care from the American people.”

Rep. Carol Shea-Porter, from New Hampshire, saw it very similarly. She noted how Ryan and his conference are "trying to rush a gift to the wealthiest corporations and individuals through Congress by misleading Americans about how their plan would really affect low- and middle-income families-- just like they did with their failed health care repeal plan. This bill eliminates critical deductions that help working people, including the student loan interest and tuition deductions, and curtails the State and Local Tax deduction. It blows up the deficit, setting the stage for drastic cuts to federal spending on Medicare, Medicaid, education, infrastructure, and other crucial domestic programs. And I agree with Senator Marco Rubio that this bill’s failure to meaningfully expand refundable provisions that put money in working families’ pockets and that have strong bipartisan support, including the Child Tax Credit and the Earned Income Tax Credit, is a huge missed opportunity to grow and strengthen the middle class. Meanwhile, the plan is loaded with provisions to help the wealthiest. It eliminates the estate tax, which only applies to estates valued over $11 million for heirs who are joint filers and will only be paid by an estimated 5,500 Americans this year. And it slashes the corporate tax rate claimed by larger businesses while actually raising rates for many small businesses, earning it opposition from the right-leaning National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB). House Republicans’ tax plan isn’t just regressive-- it’s enormously hypocritical. After subjecting our country to years of obstruction and brinkmanship over the debt ceiling and government funding levels as they claimed they cared about the deficit, House Republicans have now proposed a plan that would explode the deficit by $1.5 trillion or even more. They want to repeat the damage they did during the Bush era, when they drove up the national debt by $4.9 trillion. We’ve seen this rodeo before, and it was a disaster. In 2003, seeking a second round of tax cuts, Vice President Dick Cheney infamously said: ‘Reagan proved that deficits don’t matter.’ This year, House Republicans are again acknowledging that they only care about deficits when it’s politically expedient. ‘It’s a great talking point when you have an administration that’s Democrat-led,’ said Representative Mark Walker (R-NC), chairman of the hyper-conservative Republican Study Committee."

So what's she going to do about it? She was very clear that she will "never support a plan that exacerbates income inequality by giving away even more to corporations and individuals that are already favored by our tax code, and then, in the name of deficit reduction, asks working Americans to bear the brunt of draconian budget cuts to essential federal programs. In contrast to the closed process that yielded this unacceptable proposal, I will continue to advocate for an honest, bipartisan discussion on revenue-neutral tax reform that prioritizes tax relief for working families and small businesses in order to address our nation’s income inequality crisis.”

Early polling indicates that 60% of Americans agree with Shea-Porter and Jayapal on the bill-- and that includes 60% of wealthy people who would benefit most from this unfair plan! Only 33% of voters polled are embracing the proposal, the same percentage of people who still back Trump.

Jamie Raskin (D-MD) speaks for most progressive Democrats when he points out that "the GOP’s outrageous plutocrat tax plan is a civic emergency... According to the New York Times, the GOP’s plan would 'raise taxes on nearly 13 million tax filers who earn $100,000 a year or less.' It would wipe out the Alternative Minimum Tax, the only reason Donald Trump paid any taxes at all the one year we know he paid taxes in the last several decades, 2005. He paid $36 million that year; under his new plan, he would have paid $5 million. It would decimate the estate tax which affects only two out of 1,000 families in America, the richest people in the country. It will provide tax incentives for shipping jobs overseas and increase the deficit by an estimated $1.5 trillion-- which Republicans will surely use to call for massive cuts to Medicare and Medicaid. It’s a scandal, and we have to stop it the only way we have been able to stop all the nonsense-- through popular organizing and political action."

From his Esquire perch Charles Pierce pointed out Ryan's nonsense is all unicorns. "One good way to understand what’s going on with this latest exercise in financial misdirection," he wrote, "is to notice that this plan will tax the interest payment on one student’s loans, but that it may no longer tax another student’s multibillion-dollar inheritance. Of course, the estate tax will go away entirely in six years, probably when nobody’s watching. It also will cap the mortgage-interest deduction, probably in the interest of eliminating it entirely when nobody’s watching. So that’s what all that 'middle-class' bafflegab is really all about."

The elimination of the deduction for state and local taxes seems to be based in an entirely new riff that’s become popular among congresscritters who are tired of seeing their laissez-faire hellholes called moochers because the hellholes take in more money from the federal government than they send back to it in taxes. Now, believe it or not, and you will believe it because these people will say anything, the argument is being made that the high-tax states are somehow luxuriating on the backs of Good Country People in places like Alabama and, yes, Kansas. In any event, this provision of the bill has put Republicans from places like New York and New Jersey in a considerable bind, so much so that insisting upon it may be enough to sink the bill entirely.

The only way it will pass while these deductions are in place is if California Republicans-- namely Steve Knight, Mimi Walters, Ed Royce, Darrell Issa, Devin Nunes, Jeff Denham, Duncan Hunter, Dave Valadao and Dana Rohrabacher-- continue to support it. So far all 9 are doing just that. They need more pressure, a lot more pressure-- and their opponents need some support (see the California 2018 thermometer on the right).

Yesterday, Bloomberg's Sahil Kapur looked at who Ryan has chosen to take winner and who he's chosen to make losers.

About 60 percent of the tax cuts will be from corporate tax reduction, another 20 percent through the business pass-through reductions, and the remaining 20 percent to individuals, according to an analysis of the initial plan by Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics Inc. in West Chester, Pennsylvania.

“The bulk of it is through corporate tax changes and changes to pass-through entities. This is really a cut to business,” Zandi said. “The preponderance-- the vast majority-- of tax cuts go to business.”

Trump’s economic advisers have said that cutting the corporate rate will increase wages, lifting average household income by at least $4,000. Other economists question that finding. But beyond that, the specifics in the new House bill would create winners and losers, especially among those who itemize their tax deductions.

“If you live in a high tax state, are an itemizer, buy a house with a big mortgage, have medical expenses or casualty losses, you will likely be a loser,” said Howard Gleckman, a senior fellow with the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center. “If you take the standard deduction, are married without kids, and have a pass-through business, you will be a winner.”

...Private-equity managers, venture capitalists, hedge fund managers and certain real estate investors escaped unscathed. The House bill preserves the carried interest tax preference despite Trump’s promise to do away with it.

Every Democrat running for Congress should be running ads like this one

During his campaign, Trump highlighted carried-interest, labeling some hedge fund managers as “paper pushers” who are “getting away with murder.” As recently as September, Trump economic adviser Gary Cohn said the president was committed to ending the carried interest tax break.

...Among the biggest losers would be big families with higher incomes who live in states with high income and property taxes. They would lose the state and local deduction (with the exception of a $10,000 cap on deducting property taxes) as well as personal and dependent exemptions worth $4,000 per family member. For many, the doubling of the standard deduction won’t make up their losses.

“Upper middle income households in high tax states will be dinged the most,” Zandi said. “For very high income households, it is probably a wash, though they would benefit from the estate tax” elimination.

There are changes in store for charities and other non-profits. By increasing the standard deduction, advocates for those groups say it could erode the deduction for charitable giving, which remains in the tax code.

"A lot of charities are having a problem with this," Joseph said. "Before, you might’ve written a check for $200 to the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society; now you’re not going to get a deduction for it, so maybe you’re only gonna write it for $150."

And the eventual repeal of the estate tax means people would be less likely to give their fortunes away to charity to avoid paying the 40 percent levy, as many wealthy people currently do in their estate planning. Joseph said that for this reason, charitable groups will have "a problem with the estate tax disappearing."

The deduction for out-of-pocket medical costs -- including such items as prescriptions, drug-addiction treatment and services for special needs children -- would disappear. Almost 9 million taxpayers deducted about $87 billion in medical expenses for the 2015 tax year, according to the Internal Revenue Service.

That will negatively “impact people with relatively low income and a lot of medical expenses,” Joseph said.

The House GOP tax bill is likely to raise the deficit substantially, thereby putting pressure to cut federal safety net programs used by poor people, said Leonard Burman of the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center.

"Low-income people might end being worse off because they’re really not getting anything from the bill and they might end up bearing the cost of cutting big safety net programs," Burman said.

The House tax plan would eliminate a $7,500 per vehicle tax credit that has helped stoke early demand for electric vehicles. That likely will hit carmakers offering those vehicles such as Tesla Inc., General Motors Co. and Nissan Motor Co. Ltd.

“That will stop any electric vehicle market in the U.S., apart from sales of the highly expensive Tesla Model S,” said Xavier Mosquet, senior partner at consultant Boston Consulting Group, who authored a study on the growth of battery powered vehicles. “There’s no Tesla 3, no Bolt, no Leaf in a market without incentives.”