This is an important analysis of The Phone Call from Josh Marshall at TPM:
As with the President’s “perfect call” with President Zelensky of Ukraine, the Raffensperger call is so transparent and damning it rather defies commentary. What more is t here to say? The call is reminiscent of descriptions of Trump calls and ploys going back deca…
This is an important analysis of The Phone Call from Josh Marshall at TPM:
As with the President’s “perfect call” with President Zelensky of Ukraine, the Raffensperger call is so transparent and damning it rather defies commentary. What more is t here to say? The call is reminiscent of descriptions of Trump calls and ploys going back decades. I’ve actually been in calls like this with angry CEOs. One of them I remember most palpably was with a New York richie who’s a pal of the President’s. They’ve been puffed up on affirmations and theories by their yes-men and your job is to listen to them vent and yell.
I’ve said before that I don’t think Trump ‘believes’ anything in the way you or I might mean the term. We have things we believe and things which advantage us. Much of the moral calculus of our lives revolves around how we resolve the conflicts between the two. The two don’t exist as separate domains for Donald Trump. He’s like a particular, avaricious kind of salesman. He says and embraces what helps him. Asking whether he thinks this or that claim is ‘true’ would make no more sense to him than asking a novelist whether her latest chapter is ‘true’.
Listening to the audio or reading the words in this call the image is of an omnivore, a predator moving forward. He rattles off a litany of rumors, factoids, propaganda, lies which his toad ies and sycophants have been plying him with for months. But he’s not deluded. They’re simply a map, a storyline to guide his aggression and appetite for power, which emanate from the deepest depths of his being. He pitches from one side to the other, between aggressive and sullen, threatening and sarcastic. Hungry and desperate. Predatory.
As I mentioned earlier, perhaps the most striking thing about this transcript is not the criminal conduct. That’s not surprising. We’ve seen this from Trump many times before. It is that he still believes he can remain President and that enough threats or gifts can make that a reality. This is a private call, not playing to the Trumpite masses to build a post-presidential grievance movement. This portends a chaotic and quite likely violent final two weeks of his presidency.
This is about more than losing power or the prestige of the presidency. This is more existential. Leaving the White House is a terrifying vulnerability.
Yes this is Trump’s existential crisis (though I don’t think he knows that) and the main thing is that he’s going to make as many people suffer as he can on his way out the door. Yes his ego is terrifyingly vulnerable but I have no pity. He’s a dangerous and unhinged man.
So I just spent an hour listening to this call. Besides the crazy rumors and the fact that it sounds like Trump was trying to read off a script, which he did badly, the other thing that struck me was the fact that Mark Meadows tried to sound like a reasonable person, negotiating a deal. I know Mark is just another sycophant, but this call reveals how deeply he contributes to Trump's madness.
"Asking whether he thinks this or that claim is ‘true’ would make no more sense to him than asking a novelist whether her latest chapter is ‘true’." That is so illuminating. Thank You.
“He pitches from one side to the other, between aggressive and sullen, threatening and sarcastic. Hungry and desperate. Predatory.”
This entire analysis describes my impression after listening to the call. He is calculating and relentless, the way he snakes repeatedly from fabricated data to threat to back-handed complement, back to fabricated data, over and over and over, wrapping it all up with his presumptive close that went something like, “So let’s meet tomorrow and wrap this up quickly or many bad things could happen.” I fully expect that there have been countless conversations like this between Trump and any number of people from whom he wants something. He expects people to do his bidding and he will hammer them until he gets what he wants.
He is dangerous and should be impeached. At a minimum, impeachment would prevent him from running for office again.
This is an important analysis of The Phone Call from Josh Marshall at TPM:
As with the President’s “perfect call” with President Zelensky of Ukraine, the Raffensperger call is so transparent and damning it rather defies commentary. What more is t here to say? The call is reminiscent of descriptions of Trump calls and ploys going back decades. I’ve actually been in calls like this with angry CEOs. One of them I remember most palpably was with a New York richie who’s a pal of the President’s. They’ve been puffed up on affirmations and theories by their yes-men and your job is to listen to them vent and yell.
I’ve said before that I don’t think Trump ‘believes’ anything in the way you or I might mean the term. We have things we believe and things which advantage us. Much of the moral calculus of our lives revolves around how we resolve the conflicts between the two. The two don’t exist as separate domains for Donald Trump. He’s like a particular, avaricious kind of salesman. He says and embraces what helps him. Asking whether he thinks this or that claim is ‘true’ would make no more sense to him than asking a novelist whether her latest chapter is ‘true’.
Listening to the audio or reading the words in this call the image is of an omnivore, a predator moving forward. He rattles off a litany of rumors, factoids, propaganda, lies which his toad ies and sycophants have been plying him with for months. But he’s not deluded. They’re simply a map, a storyline to guide his aggression and appetite for power, which emanate from the deepest depths of his being. He pitches from one side to the other, between aggressive and sullen, threatening and sarcastic. Hungry and desperate. Predatory.
As I mentioned earlier, perhaps the most striking thing about this transcript is not the criminal conduct. That’s not surprising. We’ve seen this from Trump many times before. It is that he still believes he can remain President and that enough threats or gifts can make that a reality. This is a private call, not playing to the Trumpite masses to build a post-presidential grievance movement. This portends a chaotic and quite likely violent final two weeks of his presidency.
This is about more than losing power or the prestige of the presidency. This is more existential. Leaving the White House is a terrifying vulnerability.
Yes this is Trump’s existential crisis (though I don’t think he knows that) and the main thing is that he’s going to make as many people suffer as he can on his way out the door. Yes his ego is terrifyingly vulnerable but I have no pity. He’s a dangerous and unhinged man.
So I just spent an hour listening to this call. Besides the crazy rumors and the fact that it sounds like Trump was trying to read off a script, which he did badly, the other thing that struck me was the fact that Mark Meadows tried to sound like a reasonable person, negotiating a deal. I know Mark is just another sycophant, but this call reveals how deeply he contributes to Trump's madness.
Classic good cop bad cop...except in this case it was Laurel and Hardy
"Asking whether he thinks this or that claim is ‘true’ would make no more sense to him than asking a novelist whether her latest chapter is ‘true’." That is so illuminating. Thank You.
“He pitches from one side to the other, between aggressive and sullen, threatening and sarcastic. Hungry and desperate. Predatory.”
This entire analysis describes my impression after listening to the call. He is calculating and relentless, the way he snakes repeatedly from fabricated data to threat to back-handed complement, back to fabricated data, over and over and over, wrapping it all up with his presumptive close that went something like, “So let’s meet tomorrow and wrap this up quickly or many bad things could happen.” I fully expect that there have been countless conversations like this between Trump and any number of people from whom he wants something. He expects people to do his bidding and he will hammer them until he gets what he wants.
He is dangerous and should be impeached. At a minimum, impeachment would prevent him from running for office again.