As Donald Trump continues to assemble his Masters Of Evil cabinet, elected Republicans have to keep telling everyone how each pick is a “winner.” Be it groveling cowardice or genuine sycophantic genuflecting, their justifications for each appointment are laughable.
And since we have nothing else to do as we await the crash and burn, we might as well make sarcastic comments while we find a way to survive this.
We’ll begin with the most obvious Trump toadie, Texas Senator Rafael “Ted” Cruz. Appearing on CBS’s “Face The Nation,” Zodiac Cruz wore a perma shit-eating grin as he looked forward to Trump returning to power.
When guest host Major Garrett asked Cru about Trump tariffs, he said this without shame.
CRUZ: Well, I’ll tell you, what hasn’t changed is, is the importance of leverage. And I got to say, you look at the threat of tariffs against Mexico and Canada, immediately has produced action. We’ve seen the President of Mexico stand up and promise that she is going to work hand in hand with the President of the United States, President Trump, to secure the border.
If “hand in hand” means Mexico and Canada pointing out that they will impose retaliatory tariffs in return and that a large portion of US goods come from them, then “mission accomplished,” Rafael. Trump claims he got a “win” on the Mexico border and from Canada because Justin Trudeau went to the adult-sized wadding pool he calls Mar-a-Lago, but people forget a key thing: Trump always lies. The reality is that Trump probably got his ego stroked and now will claim victory even if it ends the same way as his infamous “border wall” completion last time.
Cruz, Trump and other Republicans are already gearing up to take credit for things they had nothing to do with. When Cruz predicted that Trump will immediately drop immigration crossings next year, Garrett helpfully pointed out that is an existing trend and not some grand power from Trump. Cruz, caught in an immutable fact, was forced to sheepishly concede this:
GARRETT: On that point. Senator Cruz, you would concede, in the last three or four months, numbers have gone down already, have they not?
CRUZ: They have ticked down slightly.
Then he moved on to other prepared talking points:
CRUZ: Listen, I don’t want a Republican Department of Justice. I don’t want a Democrat Department of Justice. I want a Department of Justice and an FBI that enforces the law regardless of party.
On CNN’s “State Of The Union,” newly re-elected Republican New York Rep. Mike Lawler assured guest host Kasie Hunt he would be just as much a rubber stamp as Ted Cruz.
Lawler worked hard to shore up his GOP base and prevent a future primary by praising the selection of wholly unqualified Kash Patel as the next FBI director. There are many reasons Patel is bad, but Kasie Hunt pointed out that Patel has a quite literal “enemies list.”
Lawler tried to Susan Collins the problem and assured us the obvious consequences aren’t obvious.
HUNT: Do you have any reservations about Patel potentially going after President-elect Trump’s political enemies? Patel has a list of names in his book.
LAWLER: Look, I don’t think the American people are interested in a revenge tour. […] The objective here, obviously, is to reform the Department of Justice and the FBI and get it back to its mission of going after criminals. […] The lack of confidence that Americans have in the Department of Justice and the FBI is terrible. And so, obviously, we want a system that is reformed, that works for the American people, and that prosecutes criminals. And that should be the objective and the goal of every American. And, obviously, that’s what my hope is as the Department of Justice moves forward under Pam Bondi and the FBI under Kash Patel.
Hunt followed up this “bipartisan DOJ” caterwauling by pointing out the obvious:
HUNT: If the goal is partisan neutrality, is Patel not a partisan? And it’s also maybe worth noting, I mean, Christopher Wray was appointed by then-President Donald Trump.
Lawler then tried and failed to pretzel the logic of why Trump’s own appointed FBI director is partisan because he (checks notes) followed the investigations where they led them.
LAWLER: Right. And Christopher Wray’s FBI then went and investigated Donald Trump. These charges have since been dropped by the special prosecutor. […]
HUNT: All right, sir. We should note those charges were, of course, dropped because Donald Trump was elected to become our next president.
Elections have consequences.
For Trump, it means getting away with crimes. For Mike Johnson and his GOP House colleagues like Lawler, it’s having an absurdly small majority to govern. Watching guys like that be made fools for the next few years is the small victory we need.
Have a week.
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