1/7/21: Debate and discussion in Congress continue. This blogger, like many Americans, stays up until the bitter end of the bitter end.
3:24 a.m.: The business is concluded. The electoral votes of Arizona are accepted. In the Senate, no challenges of the votes of any other states are offered, making the Arizona challenge strictly symbolic.
Joseph
R. Biden Jr. is officially President-elect.
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Former Republican House Speaker John Boehner calls out his own party. |
____________________
“The power of life and death is in the tongue.”
Senate Chaplain Barry Black
____________________
3:41 a.m.: Vice President Pence asks Senate Chaplain Barry Black, a retired Navy admiral, to close with a prayer. “We deplore the desecration of the United States Capitol building, the shedding of innocent blood, the loss of life and the quagmire of dysfunction that threaten our democracy,” he says. “These tragedies have reminded us that words matter [emphasis added, unless otherwise noted],” he continues, “and that the power of life and death is in the tongue.”
3:49 a.m.: White House aide Dan Scavino, who has access to Twitter (the president’s account having been frozen), releases a statement on his account, in the name of Donald J. Trump. “Even though I totally disagree with the outcome of the election, and the facts bear me out,” the president says, “nevertheless there will be an orderly transition on January 20.”
It’s much too little.
Much too late.
7 a.m.: Former White House Press Secretary Mick Mulvaney, now serving as envoy to Northern Ireland, resigns in protest over events of the day before. “I can’t do it,” he explains, “I can’t stay.” Several other members of the administration announce that they, too, are resigning. They know who to blame for what happened.
According to The New York Times,
Mr. Mulvaney went further, suggesting Mr. Trump had become increasingly unhinged in recent months. “Clearly he is not the same as he was eight months ago and certainly the people advising him are not the same as they were eight months ago and that leads to a dangerous sort of combination, as you saw yesterday,” he said.
(The blogger would
hold that Trump had been unhinged all along.)
A furnace-blast of condemnation begins to build. “This has all been part of a big f***ing show ... That’s what is so infuriating about the whole thing,” a GOP strategist who worked to elect Trump admits. “He knows he lost. He’s a showman,” the strategist continues. “And that showmanship had unintended consequences.”
That includes (we soon learn) five riot-related deaths.
Former White House communications director,
Alyssa Farah, says she saw trouble brewing in December. So she stepped down from her post. She tells Politico she
knew there was no evidence of fraud on a scale to have tipped the
election. People around her made it clear that was not “the message” they
wanted to put out.
Farah explains:
I made the decision to step down…because
I saw where this was heading, and I wasn’t comfortable being a part of sharing
this message to the public that the election results might go a different way.
I didn’t see that to be where the facts lay.
So to me, it was time. And then
Wednesday was really a boiling point showing that misleading the public has
consequences. And what happened was unacceptable. It was unpatriotic. It was
un-American. And I certainly fault the protesters – frankly, we should call
them terrorists, but I fundamentally fault our elected leadership who
allowed these people to believe that their election was stolen from them.
The president and certain advisers around him are directly responsible.
“Entirely unfit to
remain in office.”
Even many of the most loyal Trump aides are appalled.
Stephanie Grisham, the First Lady’s chief of staff and former White House press
secretary, quits in disgust.
Sarah Matthews, the White House deputy press secretary, makes it clear
she has had all she can stomach. While she was “honored to serve in the Trump
administration and proud of the policies we enacted,” she can’t continue.
As “someone who worked in the halls of
Congress,” she explains, “I was deeply disturbed by what I saw. I’ll be stepping
down, effective immediately.”
“Our nation needs a peaceful transfer of power,” she adds.
(This has been obvious to those of us on the other side for two
months.)
The resignations begin to pile up. Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao is the first cabinet member to quit. A day after her husband, Sen. McConnell, repudiated Trump’s efforts to sink the Constitution in the deepest part of the “swamp,” she makes her horror clear. “Yesterday, our country experienced a traumatic and entirely avoidable event as supporters of the president stormed the Capitol building following a rally he addressed. As I’m sure is the case with many of you [in this country], it has deeply troubled me in a way that I simply cannot set aside.”
Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos exits next, but not before laying responsibility for the riot at the door to the Oval Office. “There is no mistaking the impact your rhetoric had on the situation, and it is the inflection point for me,” she wrote, in explaining to the president her decision to leave.
Deputy National Security Advisor Matthew Pottinger, who had done excellent work in addressing the coronavirus outbreak, quits.
The Times also reports:
Even one of Mr. Trump’s lawyers
in his bid to reverse the election results in Pennsylvania, Jerome M. Marcus,
broke with him, filing a motion withdrawing because “the client has used the
lawyer’s services to perpetrate a crime and the client insists upon taking
action that the lawyer considers repugnant and with which the lawyer has a
fundamental disagreement.”
Behind the scenes, even the biggest Trump apologists are stunned. We will not know this for over a year, until a Select panel in Congress begins investigating events surrounding January 6. Sean Hannity, of Fox News, sends White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany a five-part plan for talking to the president. “No more stolen election talk,” he advises. Hannity also suggests that Mr. Trump be warned – impeachment and removal under the 25th Amendment could result.
McEnany responded, “Love that. Thank you. That is the playbook. I will help reinforce.”
In another exchange, Hannity urged McEnany to keep a variety of advisors away from the defeated president. “Key now. No more crazy people,” as he put it.
“Yes 100%” McEnany replied.
(Too
bad Hannity and McEnany have been feeding the craziness, themselves.)
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McEnany fed the president lies. |
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Hannity fed the president, too. |
Almost as shocking is the Trump administration’s focus during this time of grave peril. In the wake of the riot, Gabriel Noronha, a Trump appointee at the State Department, tweets that the president is “entirely unfit to remain in office.” As proof that a dwindling band of toadies still have their eyes fixed on the “main issues” of the day, Noronha is fired from his post within the hour. When Acting Director of Homeland Security Chad Wolf strongly urges the president to condemn the riots, his nomination to be permanent head of DHS is withdrawn.
“Poisoning the minds of
people with the lies and the fraud.”
Former White House Chief of Staff Gen. John Kelly,
who proudly served this nation in uniform for decades, is one of several voices
to call for enacting the Twenty-Fifth Amendment. He is supported by a
number of others, including former Director of Homeland Security, Michael
Chertoff, a Republican, who warns against the potential danger still represented
by Trump.
(That amendment allows a vice president and a
majority of a cabinet to declare a president no longer able to perform his or
her duties due to sickness or incapacity. Or in this case if a president is a
lunatic.)
Finally, he focuses on what he learned by working with the 45th president for as long as he did.
It’s impossible to understand who he
actually is, but when you work closely with him, you understand he’s a very
flawed human being. When you first meet or start working with him – in my case,
no idea of the flaws – and you start working for him and begin to understand
how flawed he is, then it’s a matter of staying in the job as long as you can to
prevent some sort of disaster.
Such as: January 6, 2021.
ABC also provides examples. “It is regretful that our service comes to an end under this cloud of disgrace caused by our President,” writes Corry Schiermeyer, a Republican official who worked for the Bush administration and returned to Washington to work under Trump at the Department of Homeland Security and the Environmental Protection Agency. “I believe we were able to implement several policies and regulatory reforms that are greatly benefitting the American people, protecting human health and the environment while allowing for economic prosperity across the country. We have much to be proud as we exit EPA,” wrote Schiermeyer.
“Unfortunately,” wrote Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar in a lengthy resignation letter outlining his agency’s accomplishments under his watch, “the actions and rhetoric following the election … threaten to tarnish these and other historic legacies of this Administration.”
One former administration official, who left prior to the riots, was so angry about Trump’s role in urging on the rioters that the person removed photos of any presidential events from their office.
Photos of Pence, however, remained.
“If it doesn’t break every American’s heart, something is wrong.”
Ken Langone, the billionaire Home Depot co-founder, and a regular donor to Republican candidates and causes, said he felt “betrayed” by President Trump. “I think the biggest mistake anybody is going to make is try and rationalize what happened … what the president did and what that crowd did. There should be no mitigation at all. It was horrible. It was wrong. I’m shocked.”
“It should never have happened in this country,” he continued. “If it doesn’t break every American’s heart, something is wrong. It breaks my heart, for sure. I didn’t sign up for that.”
Langone promised he would “do everything I can from Day 1 to
make sure…Joe Biden [is] the most successful president in the history of this
country.”
Gen. Colin Powell tells reporters that while he is opposed to the idea of invoking the 25th Amendment, as far as Mr. Trump is involved, you “can’t not have concerns” about his fitness for office and the potential for fresh damage he might cause in the 13 days in office he has remaining.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski summed up her contempt for the president, saying emphatically, “I just want him gone.”
Sen. Pat Toomey and former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie both said the president had committed “impeachable offenses.”
The Wall Street Journal, owned by longtime Trump supporter Rupert Murdoch, agrees. Editors call for Trump to resign or be impeached:
When some in the crowd turned
violent and occupied the Capitol, the President caviled and declined for far
too long to call them off. When he did speak, he hedged his plea with election
complaint.
This was an assault on the
constitutional process of transferring power after an election. It was also an
assault on the legislature from an executive sworn to uphold the laws of the
United States. This goes beyond merely refusing to concede defeat. In our view it
crosses a constitutional line that Mr. Trump hasn’t previously crossed. It
is impeachable.
With less than two weeks until his term is ended, why impeach at all?
The Journal explains: “The best case for impeachment is not to punish Mr. Trump. It is to send a message to future Presidents that Congress will protect itself from populists of all ideological stripes willing to stir up a mob and threaten the Capitol or its Members.”
It would be best, the Editorial Board explains, if Trump would resign, but the Board doubts he will:
We know an act of grace by
Mr. Trump isn’t likely. In any case this week has probably finished him as
a serious political figure. He has cost Republicans the House, the White House,
and now the Senate. Worse, he has betrayed his loyal supporters by lying to
them about the election and the ability of Congress and Mr. Pence to overturn
it. He has refused to accept the basic bargain of democracy, which is to accept
the result, win or lose.
It is best for everyone, himself
included, if he goes away quietly.
Former GOP Speaker of the House John Boehner is frank in assessing the challenge facing his party. “I once said the party of Lincoln and Reagan is off taking a nap. The nap has become a nightmare for our nation,” he tweets. “The GOP must awaken. The invasion of our Capitol by a mob, incited by lies from some entrusted with power, is a disgrace to all who sacrificed to build our Republic.”
Former U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley is equally clear. “President Trump has not always chosen the right words,” she tells attendees at a Republican National Committee meeting, at least according to one person familiar with her remarks. “He was wrong with his words in Charlottesville, and I told him so at the time. He was badly wrong with his words yesterday. And it wasn’t just his words. His actions since Election Day will be judged harshly by history.”
Even Sen.
Lindsey Graham catches a brief glimpse of the truth “When it comes to accountability the president needs to understand that his
actions were the problem not the solution. A good friend of mine,” he
added, “Rudy Giuliani, did not help.”
Graham said he had no regrets, after
having sucked up for four years to a man he correctly identified in 2016 as a
“xenophobic, race-baiting bigot.” As for the events of January 6, however, he
said, “It breaks my heart that my friend, a president of consequence, would
allow yesterday to happen, and it will be a major part of his presidency. It
was a self-inflicted wound.”
(Whereas Trump was hoping to shoot democracy between the eyes.)
Newly-elected Congresswoman Nancy Mace, who worked for Trump’s 2016 campaign, places blame right where it belongs.
“I’m disappointed right now. I
think that after last night – and I’m on my hundredth hour of being a member of Congress, I’m
working on about two hours of sleep – I’m distraught,” she tells CNN. “We’ve
got to rebuild our nation, and we’ve got to rebuild our party. This is not who
we are. It’s extremely distressing. And it’s saddening. It’s heartbreaking.”
As for Trump, “everything that
he’s worked for ... all of that – his entire legacy – was wiped out yesterday.
We’ve got to start over.”
Trump still has his loyalists. Rep. Matt Gaetz and other toadies get to work, floating the myth that XRVision, a company specializing in facial recognition software, has identified swarms of Antifa types storming the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.
This is total nonsense. That means many Trump supporters fall for it completely. XRVision quickly announces it has not identified any members of the mob and has no idea what Gaetz might be talking about. The Washington Times, which first ran the claim, which Gaetz picked up, makes corrections.
Then editors take the story down.
On Newsmax, Greg Kelly, offers up a hairbrained theory about who attacked the Capitol. “I have serious questions about who these people are,” he tells viewers. “Who are these people? This is not the Trump crowd that I know, that you know.”
Actually, the people who used to howl, “Lock her up!” in 2016, referring to Hillary Clinton, are exactly the people who the day before were howling, “Hang Mike Pence!” and “Kill Nancy Pelosi!”
Howling
is what mobs do best.
Kelly has it figured out – and has it figured out that what he dearly wishes to believe is true, is in fact true. “We see serious indications that antifa and outside infiltrators could be involved in all of this. These don’t look like Trump supporters. Trump supporters don’t do these things.”
Rush Limbaugh does his first show for 2021. He’s not buying the idea that the people he stirs with hate every day would trash Congress and try to rip out the heart of American democracy.
His take? No surprise. He insists the fix was in:
A bloody coup attempt! Even though the only blood spilled was that of an
unarmed Trump supporter who was shot. Meanwhile, four years of a coup launched
in the Oval Office of Barack Obama to overturn the election results of 2016,
and not a single word of concern about the potential damage to our
Constitution. No.
(Rush apparently missed all the blood spilled by police
holding back the mob.)
In fact, he snorts, if you really think about it (and if you listen to Rush, you won’t), the left is way worse anyway. “They’ve burned down political federal courthouses, after barricading people inside of them. They’ve taken over freeways. They’ve taken over entire cities.”
Now, those rioters the day before? Gentle folk, really:
I know they broke some
windows at the Capitol and so forth. Yeah, I know they breached the doors and
took some selfies. Oh, that’s what they took? They took selfies. So you can set
fire to a downtown strip of any blue-state city – Portland, Seattle,
Minneapolis, New York – and it’s called a peaceful protest. But you dare not
set foot where the political class lives and works and does its job.
What he doesn’t say – and what he hopes his listeners won’t think about – is that ordinary riots don’t topple the edifice of the U.S. government. And that’s what the rioters on January 6 hoped to do.
In any case, authoritarian leaders around the world are happy to have a chance to knock the president for hypocrisy. President Emmerson Mnangagwa of Zimbabwe is fairly typical when he tweets: “Last year, President Trump extended painful economic sanctions placed on Zimbabwe, citing concerns about Zimbabwe’s democracy. Yesterday’s events showed that the U.S. has no moral right to punish another nation under the guise of upholding democracy.”
POSTSCRIPT: While Donald J. Trump was busy stirring up a mob, the toll from COVID-19 continued to grow. According to CDC, we lost 1,800 Americans on January 4.
On January 5, the toll was 3,541 dead.
On January 6, the loss was 3,844.
And today, an even grimmer toll: 4,180, and a seven-day average of 2,790 American lives lost every 24 hours, the highest rate yet.
The number of Americans hospitalized also hit a new high yesterday, 132,370, with no sign of a decline anytime soon. For comparison purposes, on November 3, Election Day, a little more than 50,000 were hospitalized.
According to the Centers for Disease Control, a
total of 364,029 Americans have now died from
the virus.
*
SO, HOW DID the President of the United States-for-13-More-Days spend this chill January day? According to the White House, his schedule for today read, “President Trump will work from early in the morning until late in the evening. He will make many calls and have many meetings.”
Just three days ago, the schedule sounded a bit more impressive: “During the Holiday season,” the White House insisted, “President Trump will continue to work tirelessly for the American People. His schedule includes many meetings and calls.” Now, it’s like aides have given up.
By next week, the
schedule may just read, “The President no longer gives a f**k. He spends his
days diddling himself and doesn’t care what happens to the people he was elected
to serve.”
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