7/25/18: One of Trump’s first tasks every morning is to tweet. At 7:34 a.m. we learn what is foremost in his mind: The revelation, on tape, that he discussed how to go about paying off a Playboy Bunny.
____________________
Trump lied. Cohen lied for him, and Hope
Hicks did, too.
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How do we know about this tape? The “Fake News” folks at CNN have released it, via Trump’s old personal lawyer’s new lawyer, Lanny Davis. Talking heads on cable news spend the day debating the ramifications.
The bottom line is clear. Trump and Michael Cohen can be heard discussing how to pay the Bunny to keep her mouth shut.
Trump is not shocked to be discussing infidelity.
It’s routine.
He may not be guilty of any crimes in the matter, but as for “exculpatory,” which his current lawyer Horndog Rudy says the tape is, someone should probably ask Mrs. Trump what she thinks.
At any rate, the president is up early and ready to tweet!
What kind of a lawyer would tape a
client? So sad! Is this a first, never heard of it before? Why was the tape so
abruptly terminated (cut) while I was presumably saying positive things? I hear
there are other clients and many reporters that are taped - can this be so? Too
bad!
Might we add, this taped conversation took place only weeks before the 2016 election. When the Wall Street Journal reported on a secret payment to a Playboy Bunny, back in those days, Hope Hicks, speaking for the Trump campaign, denied that anyone on Team Trump knew anything about any payment.
Hope
Hicks lied.
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ON CAPITOL HILL, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo sits down before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Senators wish to express their concern. Does Trump really support NATO? What did he say in his private meeting with Putin in Helsinki? Is North Korea still a nuclear threat?
Also, will tariffs hurt chicken farmers?
That last question really did come up. Pompeo responded by saying the tariff wars were going exactly to plan. Chicken prices might fall now but a boom was coming, you bet.
Pompeo did a commendable job outlining his efforts to keep us safe, although he often sounded like he was working for some other president. Everyone knew the process of negotiating with North Korea would be difficult. But his boss has already declared North Korea no longer a nuclear threat. Pompeo admitted “there is an awful long way to go” in getting North Korea to denuclearize. He pledged only that negotiations would not “drag out to no end.”
Just pretend Trump didn’t say it.
As for NATO, Secretary Pompeo suggested we all pretend Trump never said he couldn’t see why we had to defend other members of the alliance, even though he said on Fox News that he couldn’t see why we’d ever have to defend Montenegro. Who cared if Montenegro was in NATO?
(At least one British paper described Trump’s stance in that matter as blowing a giant hole in the key NATO principle.)
Finally, Pompeo insisted that the U.S. position has never changed, regarding Russia’s illegal annexation of the Crimea.
The U.S. strongly opposes it.
On the other hand there have been reports that Trump told leaders at the G-7 summit that he could see the Russians keeping Crimea because most of the people there speak Russian. This led reporters aboard Air Force One to quiz the president. Did he support the idea of sanctions against Russia? Or might he accept the Russian move into Crimea as part of some grand bargain?
“We’re going to have to see,” he responded.
We
know Anatoly Antonov, Russia’s ambassador to the U.S., said last Friday that
during their Helsinki summit Trump and Putin discussed a possible referendum in
separatist-leaning eastern Ukraine. That could mean additional loss of
territory for the Ukraine, additional gains for Putin – and all the result of
his aggressive actions. Plus, maybe the U.S. would ease up on sanctions.
*
FINALLY, WE LEARN that around 3 a.m. a man with a pickaxe vandalizes Trump’s star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
So,
there’s some good news.
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