Cringeworthy Moments in Presidential History

Trump's Stormy Day (and more obligatory dog pictures)

May 07, 2024

Monday’s great moment in presidential history:

“Going forward, this court will have to consider a jail sanction,” [Judge] Merchan said Monday.
“Mr. Trump, it’s important you understand, the last thing I want to do is put you in jail. You are the former president of the United States and possibly the next president as well.”
“The magnitude of this decision is not lost on me but at the end of the day I have a job to do,” the judge added. “So as much as I don’t want to impose a jail sanction … I want you to understand that I will if necessary and appropriate.”

And that was before things got particularly stormy in the courtroom today.

Happy Tuesday, and welcome back to my random, unscheduled, irregular, and often contrarian thoughts on the idiocracy of our times.

But first we have more dog pictures, because that’s what you’re really paying for here, amirite?

Auggie has plans.

Back at the lake.

Eli…

Flashback: Puppy Auggie taking care of old guy, Pete.

Great moments in presidential rhetoric

Via the Wapo: [Trump] called [Jack] Smith — who is prosecuting federal cases involving Trump’s handling of classified documents and his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol — a “f---ing a--hole.” He continued to mock another prosecutor, District Attorney Fani T. Willis (D) of Georgia’s Fulton County, for her past relationship with former special prosecutor Nathan Wade, calling her “Mrs. Wade” and “a real beauty.”

Via the Guardian: “You remind me of my daughter, she is smart and blonde and beautiful and people underestimate her as well.” Donald Trump to porn star Stormy Daniels.

Meanwhile, Joe Biden spoke at a Holocaust remembrance ceremony and described the surge of antisemitism. Via the NYT:

“Let me close with this. I know these days of remembrance fall on difficult times. We all do well to remember these days also fall during the month we celebrate Jewish American heritage. A heritage that stretches from our earliest days to enrich every single part of American life today. Great American — great Jewish American — Tom Lantos used the phrase the veneer of civilization is paper-thin. We are its guardians, and we can never rest.
“My fellow Americans, we must, we must be those guardians. We must never rest. We must rise against hate, meet across the divide, see our common humanity. And God bless the victims and survivors of the Shoah. May the resilient hearts, courageous spirit and eternal flame of faith of the Jewish people shine their light on America and all around the world. Praise God. Thank you all.”

Trump's search for a new apprentice is pure cringe

In Tuesday’s “How to Win 2024” newsletter, I had some thoughts about Trump’s humiliating VP auditions:

If you want to know what Republicans really think of Donald Trump, look at what they think he wants from his running mate.

In the Before Times, vice presidential aspirants might have polished their credentials by giving interviews that highlighted their policy chops or their ability to handle media pressure.
But not in Trump’s bizarre new world. Consider how the candidates are auditioning for Trump’s favor…
In short: Republicans are convinced that Trump is looking for a running mate willing to jettison history, principles, common sense and common decency to win his favor — and they are almost certainly right. Unfortunately, there is a wide field of Republican candidates willing to do exactly that.

You can read the whole thing here.

BONUS: Will Saletan has an even more detailed breakdown: “GOP Veepstakes: Race to Self-Abase.”

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Nota Bene

Anne Applebaum: Russia and China Are Winning the Propaganda War

Because the American extreme right and (more rarely) the extreme left benefit from the spread of antidemocratic narratives, they have an interest in silencing or hobbling any group that wants to stop, or even identify, foreign campaigns. Senator Mark Warner, the chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, told me that “we are actually less prepared today than we were four years ago” for foreign attempts to influence the 2024 election. This is not only because authoritarian propaganda campaigns have become more sophisticated as they begin to use AI, or because “you obviously have a political environment here where there’s a lot more Americans who are more distrustful of all institutions.” It’s also because the lawsuits, threats, and smear tactics have chilled government, academic, and tech-company responses.
One could call this a secret authoritarian “plot” to preserve the ability to spread antidemocratic conspiracy theories, except that it’s not a secret. It’s all visible, right on the surface.

Geoff Duncan: Why the former Georgia Republican lieutenant governor is voting for Joe Biden

[The] GOP will never rebuild until we move on from the Trump era, leaving conservative (but not angry) Republicans like me no choice but to pull the lever for Biden. At the same time, we should work to elect GOP congressional majorities to block his second-term legislative agenda and provide a check and balance.
The alternative is another term of Trump, a man who has disqualified himself through his conduct and his character. The headlines are ablaze with his hush-money trial over allegations of improper record-keeping for payments to conceal an affair with an adult-film star.
Most important, Trump fanned the flames of unfounded conspiracy theories that led to the horrific events of Jan. 6, 2021. He refuses to admit he lost the last election and has hinted he might do so again after the next one.

A.B. Stoddard: Biden Risks Radicalizing the Center

But it seems like Biden may have lost the plot. Trying to win with young voters, he is paying off more student debt and is reclassifying marijuana. Yet for every young American screaming at “Genocide Joe,” there are far more voters in the middle who find the normalcy Biden promised four years ago is nowhere in sight.
In 2024, Biden is the chaos candidate. Fair or unfair, in politics perception is reality.

Abigail Shrier: The Campus 'Free Speech' Shell Game

On campuses that have—for a decade or more—repeated ad nauseam that priority one was the creation of a “safe, inclusive, supportive, and fair” community, the pro-Palestinian demonstrators wave Hezbollah flags, wear Hamas headbands, and conceal their faces with masks. They ignore all time, place, and manner restrictions on student demonstrations set by their schools, and refuse all demands from the universities to take down their tents or to move their protests elsewhere. And at Columbia, until April 30, when protesters took over Columbia’s Hamilton Hall and the NYPD was at last called in, they almost got away with it. …
The lengths administrators have gone to placate, encourage, and embolden the pro-Hamas protesters in the past weeks provide a signal reminder that there are at least two sets of rules governing elite universities today: one for the favored, protected class; the other for everyone else. And in case anyone has any doubt which category Jewish students fall into, the unwillingness of universities to enforce their own codes of conduct against pro-Hamas protesters in the months since October 7 should disabuse them.
Consider how racist speech (or even racially insensitive speech) has been received on virtually any major American campus for decades.

And, finally, curious minds want to know: What retromingent apparatchik told Noem that this media tour was a good idea? Who prepped her? Who told her that this would work?