What’s the difference between Trump primary challenger Chris Christie and foreign policy maven Jake Sullivan? Answer: One is working to forestall a geopolitical disaster that would inch our world a step closer to Armageddon and throw an entire geographical region into chaos, and the other is Joe Biden’s national security adviser.
But they have a lot in common, too, other than being guests this week on multiple Sunday shows. Christie is still trying to rouse the GOP’s long-quiescent conscience in order to keep Donald Trump, who incited an insurrection against the legitimate government of the U.S. before brazenly stealing some of its most highly sensitive documents, out of the White House. And Sullivan is advising President Biden on the fraught situation in Gaza. Both are heavy lifts, but if you’re a betting person, bringing stability to the Middle East seems a lot more likely than restoring normalcy to the Republican Party. But best of luck to them both. Truly.
Of course, there’s lots more fun to be had that has nothing to do with Gaza or the careening GOP clown car, so let’s start this Sunday show countdown, shall we? And a 1 and a 2 and a 3 ...
1.
Some of us are old enough to remember when a protracted hostage crisis all but sunk the fortunes of a sitting president—thanks, in part, to his treasonous successor. So it’s encouraging to see a current president roll up his sleeves in order to resolve another fraught hostage situation.
National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan appeared with Kristen Welker on “Meet the Press” to discuss the recent pause in hostilities between Israel and Hamas that paved the way for the release of several hostages. He notes that President Biden accomplished this by getting on his phone and doing something other than tweeting insults at Kim Kardashian.
WELKER: “So would the administration support that?”
SULLIVAN: “Well, in that answer, President Biden acknowledged the idea, but he went on to say that his approach, President Biden’s approach, which was high-level private diplomacy has actually generated results. It has generated the introduction of a substantial and growing amount of humanitarian assistance to civilians in Gaza; the exit of thousands of foreign nationals, including American citizens from Gaza; and the first pause in the fighting since the conflict began; and the release of a set of hostages, 50 hostages. All of that has been the product of presidential engagement, private engagement, hard diplomacy. That’s the course that President Biden set us on, and that is the course that is delivering results right now.”
WELKER: “Just to be very clear, should we take his word that it would be a worthwhile thought to mean that the president is open to signing legislation that would provide aid to Israel that comes with conditions?”
SULLIVAN: “I thought the president really couldn’t have been clearer when he answered the question. He acknowledged the idea, and then he said, but the way that I have conducted our diplomacy, and this is what it’s actually produced [unintelligible]. That’s what he’s done so far, and that’s what he’s going to do.”
WELKER: “But is that a yes, Jake? Is he open to it?”
SULLIVAN: “Again, he is going to continue to focus on what is going to generate results. And as he said in the press conference quite clearly, and as you can see from the fact that for the last few days we have seen hostages released, the approach that he is taking, direct presidential diplomacy behind closed doors with the Israelis and with our Arab partners, that’s what’s generating the kinds of results we’re seeing right now. That’s the course he is on.”
Progressives’ passions run high whenever the topic of Israeli-Palestinian relations is broached, and we often find ourselves on opposite sides of the fence. But I think we can all agree that it’s better to have Joe Biden in the White House right now than Trump. Trump’s solution might have been to nuke Gaza and blame it on someone else. Indeed, that seems to be his solution for everything. Though Trump is still peeved at Benjamin Netanyahu for congratulating the actual winner of the 2020 presidential election, so who knows? Trump might have bombed Israel, too, and pointed the finger at Papua New Guinea. Or maybe the dog.
2.
Judging by Chris Christie’s anemic poll numbers, his stop-Trump campaign message isn’t exactly taking flight on gossamer wings. He could take a different tack—like pointing out that Trump tried to kill him with COVID-19 while Christie was helping him with debate prep. He might get a sympathy bump from that, ratcheting his support up half a point or so. Unfortunately, it would probably give Trump at least a 5% bounce—and closer to 50% in New Jersey. And if Trump goes to prison—which would be the best way to get rid of him, short of exiling him to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch and telling him it’s Greenland—no one will care what Christie has to say anymore. On any subject, really.
But for now, he’s getting under Trump’s skin. And since there are no tag-backs with COVID, this is his best shot at revenge—as feckless as it may seem.
Christie appeared on CNN’s “State of the Union” with Dana Bash to give Trump the business. If that fails, the nuclear noogie option may be on the table.
BASH: “You told The New York Times that you believe former President Donald Trump’s, quote, ‘intolerance for everybody has contributed to the surge in antisemitism and Islamophobia.’ How so?”
CHRISTIE: “Well, look, when you show intolerance toward everyone, which is what he does, you give permission as a leader for others to have their intolerance come out. And so intolerance toward anyone encourages intolerance toward everyone. And that’s exactly what’s going on here, and that’s been going on for quite some time, not just with Donald Trump, but with university professors on some of our most elite campuses in this country, with university administrators and presidents who have been unwilling to stand up against antisemitism on their campuses, most particularly. And there should be no campus in this country where a Jewish student is afraid to leave their dorm, a Jewish student is afraid to go to their classes, a Jewish student is afraid to go to even have a meal in the dining hall. I mean, that is outrageous and it’s wrong. I think governors of those individual states should be sending state police to make sure that they’re protected on those campuses, and we need to have university presidents who are willing to stand up and be counted against hate. And that’s exactly what’s going on here. We saw this display also at the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. These are folks who are ignorant, and when they talk about intifada, my guess is two-thirds of them don’t even know what intifada is, and if they did they’d be ashamed of themselves for calling for the elimination of the Jewish people around the world, which is what intifada is. And so, in the end, I think that there have been a lot of people who have contributed to it, and I believe Donald Trump’s intolerant language and his intolerant conduct gives others permission to act the same.”
Jewish students are indeed being threatened with violence on college campuses across the country. That’s awful and inexcusable. And the tone Donald Trump has set over the past eight years and counting has no doubt contributed to a lot of the rancor we’ve seen—and likely plenty of the violence. But this is hardly new. Did Christie discover Trump’s mean streak after Trump tried to kill Christie or U.S. democracy? Because it was always there. Maybe the fact that Trump helped deliver plutocrat-fluffing tax cuts and a Supreme Court that’s now just three Nazgûl short of a Federalist Society utopia has something to do with Christie’s willingness to cut him loose.
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3.
Speaking of antisemitism—Elon Musk! Say what you want about him, but the guy has given a masterclass in turning a popular social media platform with a positive brand and robust advertising base into skinhead night at your local Olive Garden. Seriously, if he’d wanted to spend $44 billion just to be an asshole, he could have loaded up every jukebox in the country with eight consecutive hours of Kid Rock.
You may have heard that Musk is suing Media Matters for America for exposing some of X’s most noxious practices, and now Angelo Carusone, president and CEO of Media Matters, is responding. He appeared on “The Katie Phang Show” to make his case.
PHANG: “Angelo, let’s be clear. X’s problem with advertisers came long before Media Matters did this report and before this lawsuit. As early as this summer, advertising on that platform was down nearly 60%. Do you think Musk is just using this lawsuit as a scapegoat for his own poor management of this company?”
CARUSONE: “Yeah, and I think not only the mismanagement in terms of gutting the brand safety, the trust teams. To your point, advertisers had been leaving. A lot of them left very early on before he even really made big changes yet because he signaled he was going to roll back a lot of brand safety. So I think that’s part of it. And I think the other part, we shouldn’t forget this, is that this lawsuit came and this advertiser exodus came not only on the heels of the report that we put out but on Elon Musk’s own behavior, where he wasn’t just … engaging with some pretty extreme antisemitic Great Replacement Theory, he responded to this notion that the thing that people were chanting in Charlottesville, that Jews in America are somehow funding mass immigration in order to dilute white power, he responded to that Great Replacement Theory claiming ‘the actual truth’ on his own platform. So if you’re an advertiser, you’re looking at the increased rise in extremism and toxicity. We’re putting out reports showing that they’re sharing ad revenue with these Hitler stan accounts, getting thousands of dollars of ad revenue. Then Elon Musk does that. Then other reports come out showing the juxtaposition of ads next to extreme content. And if you’re an advertiser, when you put it all together, you’re like the rot goes all the way to the top and they’re never going to really be able to put in place the kinds of mechanisms that make it good for business. At least that’s from an advertiser’s perspective.”
Yes, clearly Musk has only himself to blame. And while the idea of sending Musk to Mars sounds superficially appealing, do we really want that many (alleged!) Nazis concentrated in one place? That could come back to bite us. Can you imagine a race of Martian Nazis descended from Elon Musk? In 1,000 years they’ll come back and force us all into far-flung orbiting space gulags for not laughing at their jokes.
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4.
This is pretty incredible. The media are desperate to promote the narrative that President Biden is too old and feebleminded to run again. Unlike Trump, who’s less than four years younger than Biden, thinks he ran against Barack Obama, believes windmills kill whales, and is convinced that electric boats are poised to murder their passengers.
But Fox News has now taken it to another level. You won’t believe this. Or maybe you will. Yeah, you probably will. Who are we kidding?
News organizations are supposed to report news, not make it. And they’re definitely not supposed to manufacture it out of whole cloth. But then Fox is not so much a news organization as a phlegm-festooned Playland ball pit for adults.
FOX’S LUCAS TOMLINSON (VOICEOVER): “The oldest president in U.S. history also continues to face questions about his age, even here in Nantucket.”
TOMLINSON (SHOUTING QUESTION AT BIDEN): “Mr. President, are you too old to be running for reelection?”
BIDEN: “That’s stupid.”
TOMLINSON (SHOUTING AT BIDEN): “Why is Donald Trump beating you in the latest polls?”
TOMLINSON (“REPORTING”): “President Biden faces the lowest approval rating of his presidency. We hope to hear from President Biden before he takes off to go back to Washington.”
Wow. That’s the journalistic equivalent of duct-taping Biden to a bike and shoving him into a ditch full of Ovaltine—an idea you can almost guarantee has come up at least once during Fox editorial meetings. Meanwhile, for some bizarre reason, no one is asking the hoary somnambulant yam if he’s too old to be president. Maybe because Trump’s age is the 1,437th most concerning thing about him, well behind “brags about passing a kindergarten-level dementia test” and “tried to end America.”
But hey, it’s vitally important for our country that we have a presidential horse race—even if one of the horses is a fascist who’s currently channeling Hitler and promising to jail his enemies. And you know Fox will always do its part for the dozen or so grotesquely rich men who might actually benefit from another Trump term.
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But wait! There’s more!
That’s all for now. Happy holidays! War is over, if you want it. (Though not the War on Christmas. That’s forever.)
Check out Aldous J. Pennyfarthing’s four-volume Trump-trashing compendium, including the finale, Goodbye, Asshat: 101 Farewell Letters to Donald Trump, at this link. Or, if you prefer a test drive, you can download the epilogue to Goodbye, Asshat for the low, low price of FREE.
