I usually avoid the Sunday morning talk shows for health reasons. But this morning it was just too tempting. I tuned into This Week with our old pal George Stephanopoulos who interviewed Lindsey Graham about the damning indictment of Donald Trump. In a nutshell, it didn’t take more than a few second for Lindsey to lose his sh*t:
STEPHANOPOULOS: Donald Trump has said repeatedly -- repeatedly that did nothing wrong. Do you believe that?
GRAHAM: Well, here's what I believe. We live in an America where, if you're the Democratic candidate for president, Hillary Clinton, secretary of state, you can set up a private server in your basement to conduct government business. And when an investigation...
STEPHANOPOULOS: Senator...
GRAHAM: ... is had about your activity -- no, let me finish.
STEPHANOPOULOS: But you didn't answer the question.
GRAHAM: This panel you had was ridiculous -- well, yeah, I'm trying to answer the question from a Republican point of view. That may not be acceptable on this show.
Yes, I don't like what President Trump did in certain aspects. I don't like that Joe Biden had classified information on the garage. I don't like that Mike Pence carelessly took classified information. I don't like any of that. But what I don't like is a system in America where the secretary of state, who's a Democratic candidate for president, has people take a hammer to social media devices and break them apart, apply BleachBit to a hard drive to erase e-mails, allow classified information to get on a felon's computer -- Anthony Weiner. You haven't even mentioned that.
Most Republicans believe we live in a country where Hillary Clinton did very similar things and nothing happened to her. . .
Did he do things wrong? Yes, he may have. He will be tried about that. But Hillary Clinton wasn't. Your old boss committed perjury in a civil lawsuit, lost his law license, obstructed justice in a dozen ways, and he didn't get prosecuted.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Yeah, and he was impeached. Well...
GRAHAM: I can't stress to you enough...
(CROSSTALK)
The transcript itself fails to show how quickly Lindsey started to turn red and literally shout down George. The remainder of his “argument” shows how desperate they are for actual reasons they can use to defend the Orange One from these latest accusations. It’s the last refuge of someone trying to seize power: if you can’t persuade ‘em, force ‘em.
They’re relying heavily on the false equivalency argument—and the fact that a good portion of their supporters aren’t intelligent enough to tell the difference:
GRAHAM: I think the espionage charges are completely wrong and I think they paint an impression that doesn’t exist. This is not espionage.
And I do believe, George, that most people on my side of the aisle believes when it comes to Donald Trump, there are no rules. And you can do the exact same thing or something similar as a Democrat and nothing happens to you.
(CROSSTALK)
STEPHANOPOULOS: Hold on a second, Senator.
GRAHAM: The leading candidate for president of the United States on the Republican side is being prosecuted by his opponent.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Had Donald Trump turned over the documents -- had Donald Trump turned over documents as Mike Pence did and you heard our legal panel addressed that as well, we wouldn’t be sitting here.
GRAHAM: Yeah, I heard that.
STEPHANOPOULOS: And there would be no case. There would be no case at all.
GRAHAM: Well, I don’t know if that’s true. He believes he has the power to do that. He will argue the Presidential Records Act. I don't know if he's right or not.
(Hint: whenever you see the word “crosstalk,” they’re shouting over each other)
GS made the point later to another zombie that the PRA is not what is being charged here. Anyway, their arguments are so full of holes I’d need a novel to list them all. Graham was contradicting himself left and right, shouting, saying one thing then denying he said it the next. He’s trying to have it both ways and it shows, badly. When GS tried to say Hillary had been investigated and nothing turned up, Graham scoffed and said, “Yeah right.” There’s just no reasoning with these people.
I’ll take this moment to point out that there was a terrific Atlantic article aptly titled “The Most Pathetic Men in America” about how Lindsey Graham almost turned on DT after January 6th, then inexplicably tucked his tail between his legs and ran. I’d love to know what goes through his tiny mind.
One other note on This Week: GS also had as a guest Elizabeth Neumann who was Assistant secretary for counterterrorism at the Department of Homeland Security under Trump. She essentially said, yeah, this was the sort of thing that happened all the time when DT was president:
NEUMANN: I found the indictment to be a really vivid picture for the American publica of what the National Security Community dealt with for four years when he was president.
He had a blatant disregard, just did not care to follow the rules. And not only did he not protect our country's most sensitive secrets, that's not protecting American lives . . .
GS: Elizabeth, if Donald Trump is indeed elected president of the United States again, what are the national security implications?
NEUMANN: It's -- I have a hard time going there. It was so traumatic for four years trying to figure out how to keep the country safe from a man who had this -- he just didn't care. He did not care to keep our country's secret safe. He did not care that it was putting people at risk, and the idea that we would do four more years of that, and by the way, they've actually learned how to use the tools of government now, it -- it will be much consequential and very -- a very serious threat for the -- the safety and security of the country.
Once again I found myself thinking; and we’re just hearing about how bad it was now??!
Bottom line: if these are the best arguments the Republicans can come up with to continue supporting Donald Trump, they’re in bad shape. The Democrats need to take advantage of this moment and deliver the knockout blow. Force Republicans who continue to defend this traitor to choose: Your country, or Donald Trump? Rule of law, or Donald Trump? Make it clear, make it simple. Because that’s how it is.