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French is pretty much out of his mind with Trump Derangement Syndrome(as I listen more – BAD case of TDS). Just my opinion. Also, in my opinion anyone who considered using the 25th Amendment should be indicted for treason. The whole 25th Amendment thing sounds like a bunch of people disagreeing over policy or personality with the elected President and wanting to depose him…regardless of him being legally the President. Aaron Burr, anyone? And just for grins, I don’t agree with French’s frequent assertion that the Russians were trying to get Trump elected…It seems to me they were just intent on screwing up the election and messed with both sides in an ongoing attempt to paint the US elections and the election process as corrupt and unreliable. Could be wrong about that, but that is how I see it as of now.
I like David French, but when it comes to Trump he reminds me of Ahab in his quest against Moby Dick. It may be his evangelical background, but he absolutely seethes with hatred for Trump. Where he is normally very judicious in discussing other issues, when anything about Trump is being discussed he has almost no ability to see anything positive.
Thanks for the Hiya recommendation. I’m gonna check it out.
Great discussion on McCabe.
I’m going to try out the Hiya app. It has to be better than nothing.
Trump is a fool and Democrats are corrupt. That pretty much explains everything. And I think Charlie is spot on except Trump didn’t win so much as Hillary lost the election. As for Bernie, he’s a socialist with 3 houses. Are Democrats stupid enough to fall for him? Probably.
I’m pretty much with Jim Treacher in regards to Donald Trump, but someone needs to review David French’s med levels.
I am completely enthralled with Charlie’s expression and manifestation of American principles, especially the distinction between ethics as claimed and ethics as actually lived. Bravo! . . . And Rich’s passion is great to see, especially since he’s clearly able to keep it in check as the formidable, even-handed MC. Michael and David are terrific volleyers and servers as well.
Fantastic episode. Great podcast.
What is appalling to me is that an executive agency – the FBI – may have been working to invoke the 25th amendment. The FBI has no role in the invocation of the 25th amendment.
French is a smart and good man, but has a blind spot when it comes to Trump.
Line of the podcast. Also it sounds like all this “coup” consisted of was talk. Aren’t we supposed to ignore talk and focus on actions now?
The talk led to an actual investigation which, according to the “three felonies a day” principle, is quite likely to find something, anything in Trump’s long career that can be utilized to impeach or indict him.
Remember, as a Republican, he is subject to laws that don’t apply to Democrats.
No question Hillary, probably trying to outdo her husband instead of simply concentrating on winning, mismanaged the general election, in spite of her enormous advantages in money and media support.
But are you willing to argue that Trump’s sixteen Republican rivals all marched off a cliff of their own accord, like lemmings?
Whenever somebody calls Trump a fool, I always imagine somebody at their first baseball game in the 1930s, insisting that the fat guy mincing around the bases, with the number 3 on his back, can’t possibly be a good athlete.
Jeb Bush was a fool for wasting millions going after Rubio instead of Trump. And Trump is a good con man and a fool at the same time. His dealings with foreign leaders are foolish in the extreme and will be very costly to the US. Of course they benefit Trump in the short term and that’s all he cares about.
As for Babe Ruth? He had some very good years – way better than the President’s – but he was only a good baseball player. He was no athlete. The two don’t always go together.
I always enjoy that the editors engage in full debate. To see David French have an intense TDS flare-up in real time was quite entertaining.
Some frequent commenters here too suffer from TDS…evil genius and moron at the same time. Brilliant. I really wish Trump hadn’t appointed such a competent Secretary of State and National Security Advisor because it really throws a wrench into the “he’s so stupid and never listens to anyone” narrative. On another note, is efferescent even a real word? Rich says it all the time but I cannot for the life of me find it in any dictionary. It seems familiar from an old Alka-Seltzer commercial. Anyone find a definition for me? Is he trying to say effervescent by chance? He’s an editor after all and should be more careful with his word choices. I remember evanescent from Newton, but that’s clearly not what he is saying. So, is Reihan bubbly or quickly fading?
I’m behind on my podcast queue and just finished the previous episode. Does Rich mention that he said that Trump would sign a deal and declare a national emergency? He said “mark my words” and my understanding of what Trump did proves Rich right.
Russian Doll on Netflix would probably have made a better two-hour movie, than a four-hour mini series.
I quite enjoyed the early episodes but it got a little boring after that, perhaps a natural problem with a show that constantly cycles through the same scenes, with minor variations. The tiresome “subplot” about the nerdy guy whose girlfriend breaks up with him (and breaks up with him, and breaks up with him, etc.) didn’t help.
And I have some trouble remembering the ending, which is not a good sign.
So what if they had? An American politician can’t control the support of every country and foreign leader.
Besides the Democrats has been humping the Russians for the past 50 to 100 years from Yalta Conference attendee Alger Hiss and the surrender of Eastern Europe for Stalin to George McGovern’s appeasement which led to a decade of Soviet adventurism to Ted Kennedy’s secret overtures to the Soviet Union’s spy agency to thwart then-President Ronald Reagan’s re-election to Obama’s more flexibility with puppet Medvedev after the election to Hillary and the uranium sales.
In fact, French’s assertion is ridiculous, because it implies that the Russians realized Trump was electable when nobody in the US did.
Realistically, the Russians were interested in causing political division and, at most, reducing Hillary‘s mandate a little.
In fact, I see I posted something on this in January 2018. Here’s a bit of it:
The titles of the six bogus [Facebook] pages [studied by a Columbia University researcher] give you a hint of what the Russians were up to: Being Patriotic, Blacktivist, Heart of Texas, LGBT United, Secured Borders, United Muslims of America.
On each page, Russian disinformation specialists would play the role of radicals, left and right, with intolerant and inflammatory views.
But the beauty of the “Russian collusion“ narrative is that it obscures the fact that, aside from about twenty years (from the late 1940s to the late 1960s), the Democratic Party has been pro-communist or pro-Russian in international affairs for a century.
I always though he was saying efflorescent, but now that I’ve looked that up it doesn’t make sense either.
At 43:50, French goes off the rails. No wonder the Special Counsel was appointed! Trump is weird!
Just because Trump seems weird to French, that is no reason to appoint a Special Counsel.
Just because Trump seems to French to act erratically is not sufficient evidence to convince most of the 63 million people who did vote for Trump that Trump is indeed “not an adult”.
French is simply justifying those who moved against Trump because he agrees with them that Trump is not a good choice for President, and that their collective judgment should overrule the choice of 63 million American voters.
French could not be more arrogant and clueless if he tried.
Leave it to French – he who cannot recognize Trump’s overflowing (dare I say effervescent) charisma – to recognize Bernie’s “grumpy charisma”.
Bernie almost won because hillary was so extraordinarily bad at campaigning and he was closer to Obama in nature than she was.
Charlie: Biden has less of the “crazy old man vibe” than Bernie has.
That’s only true if you look at his hair. Biden is truly crazy. He’s got the “crazy old uncle (who gets handsy)” vibe down pat.