longtime ally of Paul Manafort, Trump's campaign manager: "Manafort not challenging Trump anymore. Mailing it in. Staff suicidal."
— John Harwood (@JohnJHarwood) August 3, 2016
Key Republicans close to Donald Trump’s orbit are plotting an intervention with the candidate after a disastrous 48 hours led some influential voices in the party to question whether Trump can stay at the top of the Republican ticket without catastrophic consequences for his campaign and the GOP at large.
Republican National Committee head Reince Priebus, former Republican New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich are among the Trump endorsers hoping to talk the real estate mogul into a dramatic reset of his campaign in the coming days, sources tell NBC News.
The group of GOP heavyweights hopes to enlist the help of Trump’s children – who comprise much of his innermost circle of influential advisers – to aid in the attempt to rescue his candidacy. Trump’s family is considered to have by far the most influence over the candidate’s thinking at what could be a make-or-break moment for his campaign.
Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort said Wednesday he had heard nothing of such a meeting and disputed that it would be at all necessary, saying on FOX News that “the only need we have for an intervention is with some media types who keep saying things that aren’t true.”
“The candidate’s in control of his own campaign,” he said.
The idea of an intervention is in its early stages, and there’s no guarantee that Trump’s team would entertain a conversation requiring such comprehensive changes for a candidate who has resisted calls to moderate his tone or reel in his most outlandish political positions.
We’re in the first week of the general election, people. It’s the first week of August. And he is not going to step down or quit. Obligatory:
MattF
Manafort categorically denies story about Trump & nukes. It is now time to get genuinely scared.
Yutsano
So how long can RNC PR BS remain Baghdad Bob?
Enhanced Voting Techinques
It certianly feels like Trump’s campaign is on a Death Watch. It’s got that whole “so who’se the first Republican to say enough?” vibe going.
jl
No surprise the crying baby got under his skin. Trump cannot stand competition.from peers. Interferes with his dominance politics MO.
MattF
@Enhanced Voting Techinques: And the person designated as the ‘new’ R nom will have a notarized letter from a psychiatrist to prove that he’s sane.
nominus
Reince will try to stage an intervention with Trump and will wind up getting his ass paddled like a fraternity pledge.
We desperately need hidden cellphone video of that meeting
chopper
god, to be a fly on the wall during this meeting. let’s hope they don’t frisk the guy serving coffee for recording devices.
MattF
@Enhanced Voting Techinques: But what would the intervention group actually say? What’s the threat they can make without giggling? Why would Trump pay any attention to them?
cmorenc
So this is what “rooting for injuries” wrt our nasty political opponents looks like when it actually comes true.
Be careful what you wish for – if Trump’s self-inflicted political injuries become much more grave, the “intervention” the GOP leaders might elect to go for might be to force him to voluntarily step aside and permit them to name a replacement. Doing so at this late point might be trading the devil they know for another devil rather than the saving angel they are hoping for – Trump’s core supporters might choose to sit on their hands come November, in anger at the GOP establishment for engineering a hijacking of Trump’s nomination in order to hand it to a more establishment candidate.
However, we shouldn’t underestimate how much distrust there is among swing voters over Hillary Clinton’s own honesty and judgment – however much of the barrage of accusations that have sewed that in many voter’s minds is propaganda bullshit the MSM has passed along. And many Trump voters are so deeply infected with Hillary-hatred that they might come home to vote for the GOP replacement candidate in November. Clinton didn’t exactly help herself with swing voters wrt her answers to Chris Wallace about the email server on Sunday – even though her answer was in a lawyerly sense, technically true, it stank of bullshit even to a firm progressive like myself who has every intention of voting for her and supporting her in this election.
In short, when your opponent seems to be on-course to fuck chickens, don’t count your chickens before they’re actually fucked.
Omnes Omnibus
@MattF: Let’s say the GOP wants a new nominiee, how do they get rid of Trump? He is their guy until and unless he decides to walk away.
Betty Cracker
Trump has zero self-control and is easily baited. These are immutable facts that can’t be “intervened” away.
Calouste
blue aardvark @AardvarkBlue
@EWErickson Sir, do you mean to say Trump bribes journalists for favorable coverage? https://twitter.com/JackCookeInNY/status/760213014415077376 …
Erick Erickson
✔ @EWErickson
@AardvarkBlue Something like that.
Miss Bianca
@MattF: “There were no riots in Red Square today. No protesters were killed.”
@cmorenc:
“force him to voluntarily step aside” – think about the wording on that one for a second…
Chyron HR
@cmorenc: Yes, truly, this is good news for Donald Trump.
gogol's wife
Please get rid of audio autoplay ads.
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
Lots of luck getting the rabid hordes of Trump voters to go along with a new nominee…
Calouste
blue aardvark @AardvarkBlue
@EWErickson Sir, do you mean to say Trump bribes journalists for favorable coverage?
Erick Erickson
✔ @EWErickson
@AardvarkBlue Something like that.
More Twitter
gogol's wife
@chopper:
Where’s Jimmy Carter’s grandson when you need him?
Calouste
@cmorenc: We know that Trump just can’t let any perceived insult slide. I expect him to call on his supporters to just vote the top line for President and leave the rest of the ballot blank, “because those losers in the GOP don’t deserve their votes”. Probably before the month is out.
Actually, Bob IS My Uncle
I’ve never been a gun enthusiast like many of my neighbors here in the South, but I’m seriously considering arming myself heavily for the day when the Trump people decide the election’s been stolen and start murdering Democrats out of rage.
Miss Bianca
@Omnes Omnibus: Hippo birdies to you, too!
nominus
@Calouste: They didn’t even offer a tire swing. My God, what has it come down to?
Bruce K
@Omnes Omnibus: You might find your answer in James Thurber’s “The Greatest Man In The World”.
Omnes Omnibus
@Miss Bianca: Tanks.
cmorenc
@Chyron HR:
No, it would not be good news for Donald Trump if he gets pushed off the ticket by a panicked GOP establishment. However, that might just create a glimmer of realistic hope for the GOP establishment that the election might still be winnable if replacing Trump successfully facilitates refocusing the election on Clinton’s flaws rather than their replacement candidate’s flaws, and the election once more becomes a referendum on Clinton rather than a referendum on Trump.
Cynically, I’d much rather Trump remain the candidate and take the whole stinking rotten GOP ship down with him in November.
Betty Cracker
@Calouste: From your keyboard to the Flying Spaghetti Monster’s delicate al dente orecchiette!
low-tech cyclist
The fact that the possibility of an intervention has gotten into the news would be more than enough to prevent its happening – not that it was going to happen anyway, but if it had a chance, this would have killed it.
Now Trump will talk with his kids and make sure they won’t go along with anything like that, and that’ll be the end of it. And anyone else who might participate can be fired.
BR
I think the RNC will announce that everything has been fixed in a couple of days, and they will take away Trump’s phone again and just spew out BS press releases for a while. That’ll work but Trump will eventually regain control — he won’t like being in a box, so a week later it’ll be back to this.
JPL
@Calouste: He might say it will be easier to negotiate with democratic members, because they are weak. Vote Dem!
Kay
@cmorenc:
No one listens to them. The “establishment” candidates didn’t listen to them either. There were too many candidates and they stuck around forever slicing and dicing the non-Trump vote. Why would Trump listen to them? They dithered around and refused to make a decision for a year.
Mnemosyne
@cmorenc:
I stand firm by my prediction for a replacement: Alan Keyes. Because that’s what he does.
lamh36
this nukes thing is really causing an uproar for those foreign policy GOPers who up til now were mostly quiet til now.
Yikes!
tweet storm in progress from @noonanjo long time GOP security advisor on Trump and nuclear codes
low-tech cyclist
And if the GOP dumps Trump, Trump’s supporters won’t exactly take it well. Trump won’t destroy the GOP, win or lose. But dumping Trump could possibly accomplish that.
Kay
The truth is the leadership of the Republican Party got beaten at their own game by an absolute moron who had never played before. They’re weak. They’re bad leaders. They still can’t decide what to do.
hovercraft
@Calouste:
And this is why he will never quit this race, he will not admit defeat. With the rats all trying to flee and save their smoldering careers, they have given him a ready made excuse for his eventual defeat. The republican establishment along with their corporate owners conspired together to defeat him, and he would have overcome that with his ‘movement’, but then the democrats rigged the system to allow Hillary to win. This way he has not lost, it was stolen from him and he will maintain the loyalty of his hordes and wield them against the GOP in perpetuity. He is nothing if not vindictive.
lgerard
Dear Mr Trump
Don’t listen to these people! Rudy and Newt are losers. Also they’re fat!
I hear everybody loves you, so keep doing what you are doing. It is historic!
Lurking Canadian
@low-tech cyclist: I think this is the key. The party could en masse announce that Trump is a disaster in the making and focus its efforts on holding the House and Senate in order to prevent the Democratics from giving the she-Antichrist a legislature that will work with her. (ETA: first version didn’t make any sense)
However, that would piss off the Trump faithful, without whom they have no voters at all.
rp
Has anyone mentioned this?:
“Washington and other Western capitals have impeded potential progress through their often hypocritical focus on ideas such as democratization, inequality, corruption, and regime change,” Page said last month during a commencement speech at a Moscow economics graduate school.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/carter-page-trump-russia_us_57a0f329e4b0693164c2fb41
cmorenc
@Miss Bianca:
Think how the Mafia sometimes phrases extremely rough threats in language expressing superficial concern for the addressee’s continuing welfare and good health. Or, alternatively think how Debbie Wasserman Shultz was persuaded to finally “voluntarily” step aside.
Mary G
@Omnes Omnibus: Happy Birthday!
Emma
@cmorenc: If they force him out his psychotic fandom will explode. Whoever takes the candidacy from Trump will be lucky to not be lynched.
cmorenc
@Mnemosyne:
We could only wish that God would love us enough to make that happen.
MCA1
Tooting my own horn briefly, I was watching Lawrence O’D late last night when he reported on this bit from Harwood and posted the same reaction Cole did in one of the Open Threads: We’re in the first fucking WEEK still! I feel like we’re watching the Hindenburg fall here.
Heard a reference the other day that made me think of an analogy: Trump’s campaign is that classic I Love Lucy scene at the chocolate factory. Trump’s the conveyor belt, the lies and craziness and assorted shit that comes out of his mouth are the chocolates, and Manafort and co. are Lucy and Ethel desperately trying to keep up. Hilarity ensues daily.
Omnes Omnibus
@Mary G: Thank you.
rp
Has anyone mentioned the fact that Trump’s foreign policy guy gave a speech in Russia a couple weeks ago and said this?:
dmsilev
@cmorenc: I think you’re overthinking things. Put aside the question of who replaces Trump and ask first how Trump would be replaced. It would have to either be coercing him into stepping down or some rules chicanery forcing him out. Either way, his main core of supporters will not react well, and they’ll take out their anger on the GOP establishment.
cmorenc
@Emma:
It would be a terrifyingly interesting experiment to see which would win out in November: whether his fandom’s psychotic hatred of Clinton overcomes his fandom’s psychotic attachment to Trump and hatred for the GOP establishment, should he be replaced on the ticket. And we wouldn’t know for sure until election day whether they’d actually turn out or not.
hovercraft
@BR:
That’s the problem though, as long as he’s campaigning and he has to, he will continue to pop off. Even if the give him a teleprompter he still laces in his bizarre tirades about fire marshals and what not. And every time he gets upset about the coverage he is receiving he will run to Billo or Sean for a sympathetic ear, and when those two are the voice of reason, your goose is cooked. Last night Billo was trying to get Trump to understand that attacking a “little muslim woman” was not the best strategy, and Trump was whining that he was the victim who’d been attacked. Taking his phone away will not save them, he will continue to speak out and be heard. Because no one puts baby in the corner goddammit !!!
sigaba
Dear Ted Cruz, please investigate Donald Trump:
There’s something kinda delicious that Cruz gets to decide if he wants to make a deal out of this or not. If it were anyone other than Trump, anyone other than Cruz, any election other than this one, obviously this would be made to go away. I don’t think it’s going anywhere but it’s too cute.
sigaba
@rp: To be honest I hear that line on Pacifica Radio every other day.
Bill in Section 147
I hope all true conservatives realize that the elite establishment Republicans have been planning this from the beginning. They keep leaking lies and false stories trying to make Trump look crazy. They are forcing him to not reveal his taxes. They rigged the Kansas primary and they will rig the Presidential election unless Trump steps aside and let’s them choose their own puppet. They have another thing coming if they think Trump will back down. TRUMP DOES NOT BACK DOWN!!! HE DOUBLES DOWN!!! *
*The Double Down is a pseudo-sandwich offered by Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC). The Double Down contains “bacon, two different kinds of melted cheese between two pieces of fried chicken and is not a political strategy. It may also be consumed with a knife and fork.
BR
@sigaba:
There’s no upside for Dems or Cruz — Trump would have an unsympathetic character to fight against, boosting his support.
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
And in other news, clueless Trump spokeszero Katrina Pearson blames President Obama and Hillary Clinton for Humayun Khan’s death. No, really. It’s true!
dmsilev
@hovercraft:
…but somebody removes babies from his rallies.
cmorenc
@low-tech cyclist:
That was exactly the point of Obama’s brilliant tactical concern-trolling yesterday of various prominent GOP figures’ continuing support of Trump.
Emma
@cmorenc: I don’t have any doubts of what would happen. He would egg them on and they would go berserk. This would not not Hillary stealing their triumph but their own team.
lgerard
I love the first line in that NBC article
Yes he is in orbit, and at quite a distance from the planet Earth
Miss Bianca
@sigaba: Oh, just when I thought the dog’s breakfast could get any more steamy and delicious…
bobbo
@BR:
Exactamundo.
p.a.
“Don, we agree with everything you say. Just don’t say it!!!” We can salvage the situation. The media will just say there was a campaigning learning curve. Stick with ‘crooked Hillary’, ‘Benghazi’, ’emails’. TPP ia a winner. For christ sake don’t mention race, but an on-stage born again experience would be nice with the base, they’ll get the message.
Fallwell and Graham kids will be happy to help out. We’re at triage level now, but as much as we hate the MSM, we know how to manipulate them. Let us help. Don? Don? Are you listening?” (Cue 3 Stooges theme)
MJS
Even if there was an “intervention”, it’s not like Trump can un-say everything already said. Sure, the media would tout “New Trump”, but Hillary’s ad spots wouldn’t be so kind
cmorenc
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.):
Well, since Obama’s evil 11-dimensional powers include the ability to invisibly time-travel back to the past before he was President in order to inflict damage on the country, it might well be true that he caused Khan’s death. Never underestimate the superpowers of someone able to play 11-dimensional chess blindfolded against multiple opponents simultaneously.
bobbo
@Mnemosyne:
Genius! Keyes will guarantee the minimum 27%
ed_finnerty
ben carson just told wolf that the Khans should apologize to trump – but he was unable to say what they would apologize for.
cluelessness knows no limits
Barb2
intervention
For any intervention to work – there first must be self awareness by the person of the planned intervention.
From everything I’ve read – Trump believes he is perfect.
I doubt that Trump would allow anyone to have that much control.
I don’t believe that the idiots surrounding Trump are using the correct word for this group encounter. Also why all the warnings? To work – an intervention needs to be a surprise — blind side the patient.
Will they have a psychologist or psychiatrist as part of this “intervention”?
rikyrah
@Kay:
Kay spitting THE TRUTH!!!
LOL
BWA HA HHA HA HA HA HA HA HA
NorthLeft12
I tend to agree with those who are saying that the MSM are eager to give him another chance and conveniently forget most of the “miscues”. But don’t expect der Donald to apologize or withdraw anything he has said. The MSM will fall all over themselves to do that for him.
O. Felix Culpa
Just out of curiosity, is anything happening this week in the Clinton campaign?
//
CONGRATULATIONS!
97 days to go. Let’s hope Il Donaldo stays in for all of ’em.
Cermet
@cmorenc: Sorry, don’t buy that song and dance. Democrats will not switch because the thugs put up a pretty boy who coos soft words. At best, some may realize that the tRumpet’s base are staying home so they might not come out knowing the elction is in the bag.
Gerald
@cmorenc:
True THAT!
Only a win is awin!
ed_finnerty
How long until Trump denounces Pence
Botsplainer, Neoliberal Corporatist Shill
@Bill in Section 147:
The double down is an amazing product. To mention it in the same paragraph as Dumb Donald is sacrilege.
Cermet
@cmorenc: I think more to the point, President Obama’s brilliant tactical concern-trolling was telling the gop’s to drop tRump. Now they can’t. That was brilliant in a 11-dimensional chess sorta way …
Old Broad in California
@O. Felix Culpa: Clinton is coming to CA today to fundraise.
lgerard
NBC reporting Christie will not participate in the intervention
He is still mad about the VP thing
LOL
different-church-lady
@O. Felix Culpa:
I hope not!
p.a.
Quite an indictment of the American economic system that a buffoon can still be a hundred-millionaire if not billionaire after 70 years of buffoonery. Admittedly he had a yuuuge cushion, but still… too bad no one Madoff’d him.
Kylroy
@NorthLeft12: Even so, he would need to at least fake some contrition – it wouldn’t need to be genuine, but he’d at least need to look like he’s *trying* to appear sorry. And Trump is just congenitally incapable of backing down or acknowledging mistakes, in even the most superficial way.
Trollhattan
@cmorenc:
If that were to happen I’d gather and display all the Trump! campaign crap I could get my hands on. Fun for all ages! Sad.
Trollhattan
@different-church-lady:
ATM if Hillary gave birth to a unicorn it would be three column inches on page 16.
RK
Anyone ever consider Trump has no intention of winning, that he undermines his campaign purposely, perhaps on a subconscious level. It’s true he’s a thin-skinned, petty, vindictive narcissist but it’s hard to look at his behavior at times and not see self-sabotage.
nonynony
@Kay:
More to the point – the GOP has no leaders. Who are the leaders of the GOP at this point?
* Reince Preibus? He’s essentially a Chief Fundraising Officer for the GOP. He doesn’t set direction, he doesn’t do anything to control the party – he only really controls the fundraising/PR apparatus and, frankly, the PR apparatus got taken over by Roger Ailes at Fox News between 2000 and 2004 and so he’s mostly been doing fundraising.
* Paul Ryan? A joke. He’s Speaker of the House as a weak-ass compromise candidate that a good-sized chunk of his coalition almost refused to compromise at all on. He can’t get anyone to do anything because he isn’t a leader – nobody respects him outside of the Beltway Media, and frankly I’m not convinced that even they have much respect for him.
* Mitch McConnell? McConnell has no authority in the GOP. All he can manage to do is convince his people to vote no on everything and keep them in line on those no votes. Since about 90% of his caucus wants to vote no on everything anyway, it’s not a tough job – it mostly involves making sure that Kelly Ayotte and Susan Collins stay in line.
* The Elder Statesmen of the GOP? HA! Nobody cares about them anymore. Some of them – like Dick Luger – were forcibly ejected from the party by their own voters. Some of them – like McCain and Romney – lost presidential elections and so have no authority because they’re losers. Many of the rest of them – like Bush and Giuliani and Graham – were rejected as presidential picks by Republican primary voters, and so have even less authority than McCain and Romney.
There is no leadership. George W Bush broke the party in 2006 and it has been leaderless ever since. No one has the power to set a direction for the party. In fact, what we saw during the primary was an all-out civil war between the establishment (represented by Jeb Bush) and the movement conservative upstarts (represented by Ted Cruz) that was disrupted by an outsider because neither side’s standard bearer had the authority among the voting base to win their loyalty.
Trump is the closest thing that the GOP has to a party leader right now. He still has a larger coalition of voters behind him than anyone else in the party does (even if its still a minority). I would not be surprised at all to find out that Trump is upset that the rest of the GOP pols don’t understand that it’s supposed to be HIS party now and they’re supposed to be falling in line behind him and not criticizing him like Ted Cruz did. And I suspect that the 30-40% of hardcore Trump supporters in the GOP are thinking exactly the same way.
MCA1
@O. Felix Culpa: Bill’s campaigning. In UTAH. While Der Fuchspeltfuhrer is in the GOP’s deserted camp breaking shit, Hillary’s out looting and pillaging his Red States.
I’m sure there’s a real world historical military analogy to be made here. Country A goes and attacks its nominal ally, Country B, forgetting about its traditional enemy, Country C, so Country C decides “WTF, it’s unprotected, Imma go get me some territory in Country A!”
Adam L Silverman
@Omnes Omnibus: Here are the rules:
https://s3.amazonaws.com/prod-static-ngop-pbl/docs/Rules_of_the_Republican+Party_FINAL_S14090314.pdf
(the link was found here: https://www.gop.com/rules-and-resolutions/)
There is no articulate mechanism in the rules for removing the nominee. There are articulated rules for replacing a nominee should the nominee drop out or suffer a serious infirmity or die. There are articulated rules for replacing Republican officials that will not support the nominee, which, I think, explains why no one who isn’t retiring from office is jumping ship.
raven
@RK: Oh I don’t know, maybe about a MILLION fucking people.
nonynony
@MCA1: I’m not sure that Bill campaigning in Utah is such a good idea. That seems like a place you wouldn’t want to send a serial adulterer to to argue your case that they shouldn’t vote for the serial adulterer.
Anoniminous
The NRC and national leaders force Trump out for another candidate and they’ll split the party.
Keep Trump as their nominee and split the party.
Sucks to be them.
I’d sympathize but I’m too busy LMFAO.
eric
@nonynony: adultery is polygamy under color of law.
O. Felix Culpa
@MCA1:
From what other commenters have said, she’s also raising $$$ in CA. After a super fundraising July. (Has anyone seen Trump’s July numbers?) Interesting that the HRC campaign is largely flying under the media radar at this point, while significantly building GOTV structure. A stealth victory is fine with me.
Tripod
@nonynony:
+11
This is it, but I prefer the Pog form:
Dr. Egon Spengler: Vinz, you said before you were waiting for a sign. What sign are you waiting for?
Louis: Gozer the Traveler. He will come in one of the pre-chosen forms. During the rectification of the Vuldrini, the traveler came as a large and moving Torg! Then, during the third reconciliation of the last of the McKetrick supplicants, they chose a new form for him: that of a giant Slor! Many Shuvs and Zuuls knew what it was to be roasted in the depths of the Slor that day, I can tell you!
nonynony
@Adam L Silverman:
Wait – really? Which rule is that? Because I’d like to see how that’s worded and what the process is. There’s a chance it may actually come into effect this cycle…
MCA1
@nonynony: I don’t disagree, though that wasn’t my point. The point was the Democrat’s got a top surrogate out working one of the reddest states in America. I’m guessing there are no prominent Trump surrogates* spending the week in Maryland. I wouldn’t be surprised to see Michelle make several trips to Atlanta in the next couple months, and PBO to be speaking in St. Louis a few times. If we ever see Hillary and Kaine themselves leave PA/OH/FL for more than a couple days at a time, we’ll know what it signals.
* I know, I know. Contradiction in terms, using “prominent” with “Trump surrogate.” :^)
The Ancient Randonnuer
Excellent tweet storm from a guy who once sat in a missile silo:
His Twitter bio:
It is chilling but this one really to me:
.
schrodinger's cat
@nonynony: He is not asking anyone to marry him, he is asking people to vote for Hillary as a successful ex-President. That he is also the candidate’s husband is besides the point.
nonynony
@eric: polygamy is more like parallel monogamy than serial adultery.
lgerard
I wonder if there is a single newspaper, other then the New York Post, which will endorse trump
Amir Khalid
It’s quite likely Trump’s not even being irrational here. He won the primaries by aggressively trash-talking and bullying all the other candidates, right? So the way to beat Hillary must be through even more aggressive trash-talk and bullying.
In a way, I’m glad that a hopeful theory many people outside he party held looks like it’s being vindicated: That his shtik wouldn’t play well outside the Republican party. Indeed, he’s taken it to the point of drawing disgust and scorn from the wider American public.
Short of dying or becoming incapacitated, he can’t be replaced as the nominee — the party ran out of ways to do it months ago — and he won’t willingly step aside. (Why should he, when he won the nomination fair and square?) His candidacy is the symptom and the result of a party that has badly lost its way. Not a new idea here, but maybe the party needs him to go down hard, so it can cut out the disease and make a start on finding its way back.
Quinerly
@nonynony:
CNBC online has a piece up briefly explaining Rule 9 of the RNC Rules.
Fair Economist
@RK:
Which is why I’m moving to the theory that the point of the campaign was to get a bunch of aggrieved supporters for Trump TV when the Establishment “unfairly” kicked him out.
His problem is the Republican establishment is morally so far gone they’ll tolerate anything as long as there’s a reasonable chance they’ll do OK in the election (meaning retaining a veto in Congress somehow). He’s dialing the outrage to 20 trying to get kicked out and it’s still not enough.
eric
@nonynony: good, because, if i recall correctly, there is less resistance when in parallel than in series.
Adam L Silverman
@rp: Here or anywhere? I’ve seen several places its been mentioned.
nonynony
@schrodinger’s cat: Sure, but at least one reason why Trump is disliked in Utah is because of his lack of “values”. So Bill being the surrogate reaching out to folks in Utah is a bit weird (though admittedly he’s unlikely to do any damage out there either since Utah is an unlikely pickup in the first place).
I wonder if its more giving Bill something useful to do where he’s unlikely to stick his foot into his mouth and shove hard. He’s had a few foot-in-mouth moments both in 2008 and in this campaign and sending him off to Utah to court people on the fence might be a good use for his talents.
(Full disclosure – I’ve always liked and respected Hillary Clinton far, far more than her husband. I personally think he’s a very charming weasel and his charms have always eluded me. So perhaps I’m biased in that respect.)
Adam L Silverman
@hovercraft: His speech in Loudon, VA was way off key. The remarks were prepared and he told people from the wealthiest county in the US that they are doing terribly economically. He started laundry listing factory closures, none actually near Loudon. And none germane to Loudon where almost everyone is involved in or profiting from the defense contracting industry. When someone in the crowd yelled a question about the sequester he basically just blew through it and kept with his laundry list of factory closures several hundred miles away.
Miss Bianca
@Amir Khalid:
Except I’m not convinced that that would work. I see the Libertarians gaining prominence and influence as the right-leaning 2nd major party and replacing the Republicans before I see the Republicans abandoning the “to the right, ever to the right” strategy despite disastrous national defeats. I could be wrong, but I do think at this point the Republican Party can’t help itself – it may know it has a drinking problem, may agree objectively that drinking more right-wing Kool-aid will kill it, but be unable to stop.
Amir Khalid
@Botsplainer, Neoliberal Corporatist Shill:
There’s even a halal Double Down for certain of KFC’s national markets — the bacon is replaced with two pieces of fatty beef. But it still looks ghastly, and I wouldn’t try one at gunpoint.
Fair Economist
@MCA1:
If the Democrats want to run the table, what counts is the swing House districts. Interestingly, there’s one in Utah, and one in Omaha, where Hillary went a few days ago. The states which will show they’re really in it to win it are New York and California, which are both blue as can be but with a lot of critical swing districts (6 and 4, IIRC). GA and MO are totally irrelevant for the Presidency – if Hillary wins those states, she’ll have won anyway, and I don’t think they have swing House districts, but MO does have a Senate race (GA too, but it doesn’t look good.)
gogol's wife
@rp:
Spasibo, ochen’ interesno. Golosuite za Trampa!
Joyce H
@MJS:
Boy-howdy, ain’t that the truth! You just know they have ‘whole BINDERS full!’ of oppo research that they haven’t even cracked open yet because there just hasn’t been time! They’re too busy responding to the daily outrage to get back into Trump’s history.
Even if the GOP can medicate Trump and force him somehow to stay on message and read what’s on the teleprompter and nothing else, and not to tweet or phone, the Clinton campaign can just trot out an almost infinite selection of Trump’s Greatest Hits.
Personally, I’d like to see an ad about the Polish Brigade, the undocumented workers who demolished the Bonwit Teller building to make way for the construction of Trump Tower – paid $5 an hour if they were paid at all, working twelve hour shifts seven days a week and sleeping at the construction site. Finally had to sue for their back pay. And another spot about how Trump tried to cancel his own nephew’s health insurance when the nephew had a critically ill baby.
Tag line for the Greatest Hits ads – ‘He was always like this.’
gogol's wife
@rp:
Oh, okay, you’re actually sincerely conveying information. Thank you. Snark cancelled.
Trentrunner
MSNBC reporter following Trump reports that since Trump is speaking in Florida today, he’s likely to address the Zika virus outbreak.
Well, this should be great. He’s a germ freak, and so his chicken-littling will go to 11. Moreover, we know he knows NOTHING about how government actually does respond, at every level, to an actual health concern, so basically he’ll just weave Zika into his “America never wins, we always lose, we build nothing” narrative.
Also, he swats mosquitoes during his speeches, calling them “Hillary,” so I think we can count on some kind of crazy connection there.
Felanius Kootea
@Yutsano: My previous response got
eaten :(. Priebus will continue to play Baghdad Bob as long as it takes. They’re hoping to still hang on to the House and the Senate in spite of Trump. If they can do this and win the presidency, then there will be an unfortunate incident that leads to Herr Trump’s immediate impeachment (a bipartisan event, led by the GOP). Puppet Pence can then be relied upon to do the bidding of the Reoublican donors. Not an insane plan under the circumstances.
gogol's wife
@different-church-lady:
lol
burnspbesq
@O. Felix Culpa:
Your question neatly highlights the (deliberate or accidental–who the hell knows) genius of the Trump meltdown.
He has sucked all the air out of the room. There is no bandwidth or mind-space available to the Clinton campaign.
Mike E
@raven: that shiny lure might weight down the entire GOP rig…bad fishing IMO
Adam L Silverman
@nonynony: go to the pdf I linked and read till your hearts content. What’s interesting is they have the rules adopted in 2012 and updated through 2014, but not the rules that came out of the just completed convention or anything updated between the end of 2014 and July of 2016. So it is impossible to know what has and has not changed.
Amir Khalid
@Miss Bianca:
I too am not really convinced it would work, and for the same reasons you cited. It’s the party as a whole that needs an intervention, not just Trump, and who could carry that out?
Robert Sneddon
America has lots of guns and lots of people who like to kill politicians. Donald Trump is a politician in America. Problem solved.
Hell, set up someone with a MANPAD just outside the fence at a scheduled Trump fly-in event. The RNC can blame it on “radical Islam” and say hello to President Pence come November.
Lizzy L
From teachinghistory.org:
“Since the time of Andrew Jackson’s run for the presidency in 1828, individual political parties have had the job of filling any vacancy on their national ticket, either that of their presidential or vice-presidential candidate. If one of their candidates vacates the ticket after they are nominated, either because of death or withdrawal, the party selects a replacement.
“Both the Republican and the Democratic parties have rules in their bylaws governing how to fill the vacancy. The Party Chair calls a meeting of the National Committee, and the Committee members at the meeting vote to fill the vacancy on the ticket. A candidate must receive a majority of the votes to win the party’s nod.
“The same process would happen if the vacancy were to occur after the general election but before the Electoral College voting. If a vacancy should occur on the winning ticket, it would then be the party’s responsibility to fill it and provide a candidate for whom their electors could vote.”
Also, there is nothing in the rules that says that if a Presidential candidate withdraws, his V-P choice automatically takes his spot. The party gets to choose. I am sure Ted Cruz knows this.
Quinerly
I find this whole “intervention” thing borderline hilarious if we weren’t talking about the presidency. It’s being described as “real” and “long overdue.” Who in the hell would vote for a man whose friends, family, staff and advisors are openly leaking that they are having to intervene. The word “intervention” carries with it so much. I mean have we come to the point that his backers think it’s ok that a potential president has to be “talked down” occasionally. This is acceptable to some? Surreal.
Miss Bianca
o/t, but I kind of wish I had read this article before trying to talk down the BoB’ers in my crowd, because basically, it makes a compelling argument for why they are unreachable. You’d think I could have figured that one out for myself, but sometimes it takes someone else to put the matter cogently before I get it.
If I’m glad of anything about this Trumpster fire (0% contained as of today), it’s that even the misogynists who won’t examine their unreasoning Hillary-hate *might* end up coming round in the face of the Sheer Awful of the Capering Circus Peanut. I’m gonna keep breathing, of course…
Enhanced Voting Techinques
@MattF:
“We control the House and Senate with the power to subpoena you and your employees as much as we want, and the Dems will just laugh at you the whole time”
sigaba
Outgoing NYPD Commish Bill Bratton:
Not a Republican but a famous (infamous?) Rudy Giuliani collaborator. (I think Bratton did a great job with the LAPD though opinions differ.)
Tripod
@Trentrunner:
The moron brigade that is the GOP congress deserve fire on them for refusing Zika public health spend, with the added benefit of further cleaving the party.
LULZ
Adam L Silverman
@Robert Sneddon: No. Do not even jokingly suggest something like this. And don’t even jokingly post something like this again. I’m deleting this one.
burnspbesq
@lgerard:
Jackson Clarion-Ledger? Oklahoman? Idaho Statesnan? The Vegas paper that Adelson owns?
Shana
@dmsilev: How about something like this:
“Donald, the RNC will not give you any money, we will not give you any support at all. No mailing lists, no campaign workers, nothing. We will tell all our donors not to give you any money. You will not have access to field organizers you do not pay out of your own campaign funds. All our support will be for Senators, Congresspeople and state level candidates and will not mention you at all. Want out now?”
I assume the RNC could do that. Anyone know?
J.
What @gogol’s wife said. (Those ads are almost as annoying at Donald Trump — and almost as hard to silence.)
amk
I hope those morons do the ‘intervention’ seriously so that the deadbeat goes completely over the edge.
gindy51
@nonynony: You don’t know Utah very well do you?
eric
@burnspbesq: pravda?
Adam L Silverman
@Shana: The RNC has no money to give. Because of Citizen’s United and the emergence of the independent campaign finance networks, especially on the right, the Kochs or Art Pope or Sheldon Adelson or Peter Thiel or any of the others don’t need to funnel their money through the RNC. As a result the RNC has become more and more irrelevant year after year. As both a fundraising and distributing organization and as the institutional core for the Republican Party.
Feebog
@MCA1:
That may be the funniest thing I have read in a week. Good thing I finished my coffee before reading it. With your permission stealing it, with attribution of course.
SiubhanDuinne
@RK:
Several of us on this very blog have considered it, discussed it, speculated on it, made various predictions about it, and hoped for it, all in varying degrees, for months now.
CONGRATULATIONS!
@sigaba: I agree, the LAPD, FWIW, never stopped shooting and beating people but really ratcheted it down while he had the helm. He was good with all the communities. He was good with the politicians. The officers were fine with him. I was a bit mystified why he left.
And more mystified as to why he did so well out here, as he was either unwilling or unable to do any of that during his two tenures in New York.
His brain’s working just fine!
celticdragonchick
@Actually, Bob IS My Uncle:
You can spend the week at my place. I have a couple of deer rifles among other things to keep the wingnuts at bay and the neighborhood is nice ;)
CONGRATULATIONS!
@Adam L Silverman: Thanks, that was not OK by any definition.
celticdragonchick
@MCA1:
Pure win.
rikyrah
@nonynony:
Bill and Hillary worked through their marriage issues. Does that not get a pass in Utah?
They should send JoeyB next.
And, send FLOTUS and Dr. Jill to Mississippi.
Hillary only need 16% of the White vote to win. Maybe there are enough White women to cross over. After all, they defeated the Personhood Amendment.
Mnemosyne
@cmorenc:
I believe in a loving God with a long timeframe and a wicked sense of humor, so …
(Actually, I’m an agnostic, but that’s a harder joke and I’m on the iPhone.)
Adam L Silverman
@CONGRATULATIONS!: I’m pretty sure he was joking, and I’ve got about as morbid a sense of humor as anyone, but better safe than sorry.
Felanius Kootea
@burnspbesq: Dominating the news cycle is not how this election will be won though. Clinton’s GOTV operation dwarfs Trump’s. This is where his reality TV experience starts to be a hindrance rather than an asset.
celticdragonchick
@Fair Economist:
Here in NC we have a Senate seat and the Governorship up for grabs.
We need serious attention paid here, because the governor in particular has overstayed his welcome and we can start getting control of state houses again as well.
Adam L Silverman
@Mnemosyne: Prop humor is very hard to pull off on the Internet.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@Miss Bianca:
It’s nice that that nice white male Bernie supporter ended up seeing what most of us saw early on in the Berniebros, and he’s right about what progressives should really want, and not simply be white male entitled egotistical racist sexist fucksticks, but he’s wrong about anything called a revolution that Bernie can take credit for. It was just another presidential primary that another presidential hopeful lost (by several million votes) just like all the other presidential hopefuls who ran in other presidential election cycles and lost. There was nothing special or unique about either Bernie or his supporters. The revolution in fact happened in 2008 when white male voters got sidelined by a coalition of everyone not white males for the first time in US presidential election history. I understand the inability of white males like this guy who got caught up in the rallies and online echo chamber and felt like they were being really instrumental and important to everything to fully accept this fact, but it is true. Bernie was able to negotiate some platform items, which was a bone he got thrown from some Dems acting in good faith with him, which is more than they got from him, but unless these “kids” actually start running for, or organizing for, offices other than president, their ‘revolution’ is just a nice little story they can all tell themselves someday. Some day this will be more widely understood as we get further down the electoral history path and see more clearly the importance of Obama’s coalition.
catclub
The dream team of popular GOP politicians.
Keith P.
What are the odds that someone at the intervention brings a Pez dispenser, which causes Trump to rediscover his humanity? Zero?
amk
@cmorenc:
you win the joke of the day.
Lizzy L
@catclub: I think it’s pretty clear that Trump only listens to people who tell him what he wants to hear. I think it’s also pretty clear that even if he were to hear what they have to say, and “agree” to moderate his behavior, there’s no way he could keep that agreement for more than 48 hours.
lgerard
@burnspbesq:
I don’t see Adelson going anywhere near trump. Aside form the Putin love, there is the revolting antisemitism displayed by Donnie Jr’s online friends, and the lack of push back against it.
J R in WV
@Omnes Omnibus:
But here is quoted (copied and pasted) Rule 9 of the RNC:
I call everyone’s attention of the third listed reason the RNC may need to fill any and all vacancies: “or otherwise”! Otherwise isn’t specifically defined, but what could it mean other than the candidate being expelled from the Party, and thus ineligible to run on the Republican ticket?
That word, “otherwise,” in that rule allows the RNC to do what they decide must be done. I just hope they wait til the last minute, instead of doing it Saturday afternoon. And who would they replace Mr Trump with? They could even scrape up evidence of Trump breaking election laws, have him arrested as he gets off the Trump Plane at an airport run by Republican pols, and replace him before he’s even in a police car.
RK
It became clear early on that Trump’s almost daily outbursts are media driven–which isn’t to say his character, or lack thereof, doesn’t get the best of him at times.
dww44
@Adam L Silverman: Which, with the evidence now before us, is NOT a good thing. Has the same thing not happened to the DNC?
Shana
@Adam L Silverman: But would even the Kochs or Adelson or Pope put any money toward him after that? I know the Kochs won’t give him any money already, but would any of the others?
J R in WV
@Actually, Bob IS My Uncle:
Not the worst thought you have had this week. I went there a couple of elections ago.
catclub
@hovercraft:
Somebody has been picking small venues so they will be full or overflowing. And not telling Donald.
RK
@Felanius Kootea: Conventional wisdom says so but we’re dealing with a celebrity so I’m not sure how well that applies this year.
Gravenstone
@Adam L Silverman:
So the whole “intervention” idea is basically an effort to get Trump so emotionally and physically worked up that he strokes out and becomes incapacitated? Not bad for a bunch of nihilists.
Barbara
@RK: One of the first lessons in self-defense class is that you cannot apply the kind of logic that works for most people in their interactions with each other to someone who has just shown by assaulting you that he does not play within the usual bounds of civil society. Trump has been showing us all his life that he feels an utterly overwhelming need to dominate others even when it makes no sense for him to try to win, as it surely did not with the Khans. He isn’t trying to sabotage anything. He is just doing what he always does to try and win.
O. Felix Culpa
@Quinerly:
Although this is probably a near-dead thread, I wanted to comment that I find this whole “intervention” thing in a presidential candidate terrifying. I’ve been part of interventions and they are serious events over terribly serious issues These issues take considerable time to resolve. And such resolution, if any, takes place only if the person in question wants to change. Trump’s behavior provides ample evidence that he neither wants nor has the capacity to change.
Any discussion of an intervention in Trump’s campaign undergirds the simple fact that he is unfit for office.
MCA1
@Feebog: No permission (or attribution) necessary – ’tis the wild wild webs!
scav
@RK: It’s TBD, but I’d say more critical than Trump’s reality show celebrity glister is the character and make-up of the voting “audience”, and not only their character as to the voting half of the personality (do they want elderly Sanjaya on diet pills as CIC? How low info don’t give a damn can they go and in what size flashmob?) but also their couch potato remote media skills / quirks (sharkjumping and plot-lines getting tediously reused — CLICK!). The different between exposure and over-exposure, where’s the line? And can a ratings-obsessed narcissist with a short fuse not cross it?
Calouste
@Shana: The RNC could tell the deranged fascist that. The problem will be to get him to understand it.
Miss Bianca
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: Oh, I agree – in fact, the major edit I would make to that article is that Bernie Sanders’s primary usefulness to the cause was that he for some reason, struck a nerve, brought people out, and made it seem suddenly “safe” – if not downright hip – to be openly leftist. Anybody paying attention to HRC and her career and her stands knows that she didn’t need any “prompting” or “dragging” to the left – typically, it’s when the guy says it that the vast majority suddenly wake up and pay attention – and then, of course, he has to get the credit. Le sigh.
catclub
@MattF: Did he call them absurd. That is how you know they are true.
SFAW
Am I the only one who thinks the “Manafort mailing it in, staff suicidal” is complete bullshit? (I’m lazy enough that I didn’t read all the comments to see.) I can’t believe that Vladimir Vladimirovich would let him off the hook that easily. And given that Lewandowski, with his new megaphone, is still actively campaigning for Trump, the idea that any of those assholes is “mailing it in” seems ludicrous.
Adam L Silverman
@dww44: If its simply a transitory phase to whatever the GOP becomes or replaces the GOP then its not necessarily a problem. If its an ongoing state of things: a hollowed out institutional GOP with multiple centers of gravity and power and funding all scrambling for control of the hollowed out organization election to election, then its a real problem. At that point the GOP’s internal politics mirrors a bucket of crabs, with each crab crawling over the others, and pulling the ones above them down, trying to get out of the bucket.
As far as the DNC is concerned, my understanding is that Citizen’s United has not had nearly the same effect. Some of that has to do with the difference between the conservative movement (movement conservatism?), its funders and power brokers, and the way they all operate. Some of it has to do with the fact that the President has been a Democrat, meaning it has been easier to maintain the institutional structures rather than fragment under the Citizens United ruling and other changes. Also, left of center organizations in the US have far less power, even when institutionally sound, than those on the right.
Adam L Silverman
@Shana: I don’t think so. There was a report, sourced to one of his major donors and given anonymity, that that donor is furious and wanted “to break both his thumbs”. Take that for what its worth.
James E Powell
@celticdragonchick:
What’s the deal on the ground in NC? Do the Ds have a chance?
How much impact does Rev Barber have on the electorate?
Miss Bianca
@SFAW:
No. It’s one of those “distrust, but verify” statements for me – and in the meantime, LMAO.
p.a.
Anyone else think Sarah effin Palin would have been a more effective candidate than Trump? Devolution; it’s what’s for dinner.
BruceFromOhio
I’m trying to recall in my hilariously brief political lifetime (first voted for Dukakis in ’88, fuck you Reagan Democrats!) if I’ve ever read a line in a story that was so … piteously helpless. It’s like three of the worst sort of grifters trying to convince the fourth grifter not to fuck up the long con AFTER the FBI has posted all their names and faces to the Top 10 Most Wanted list.
With the exception perhaps of the Grinch, who could devour a whole shouting yam and come back for seconds, I can see the dumpster fire just unzipping and pissing all over the lot of them, all the while shouting, “You’re fired!”
James E Powell
Among the benefits of Donald Trump’s incredible, dominate the daily news style of campaigning:
CEO Amy Dacey, Communications Director Luis Miranda, and CFO Brad Marshall all resigned from the DNC and no one – no one – on cable news is talking about it.
Seanly
@BR:
They can take away his phone (more likely exert control over the person who tweets for Drumpf), but they still need him out there on the campaign trail. He will be up on stage, ignoring the nice, soothing racism/sexism on the teleprompter for his peculiar brand of unhinged unreality. It’s still 3 months until the election. If he does a turnaround now, he’ll just end up reversing that (going 360 as FPer said in later post). If he turns around later, it will be too late and ineffective.
Also, I welcome Manafort phoning it in & his staff being suicidal. They are odious people working for an even more odious person. No sympathy from me.
RK
@Barbara: Unless he wins (and maybe even then given certain circumstances perhaps) it’s something we really can’t know.
r€nato
@cmorenc: Leaving aside the mechanics of replacing the name of your party’s nominated candidate on the ballots of all 50 states and DC (they would have to act soon, like within the next two weeks in order to allow the following two weeks to notify the various states/DC of the change)…
leaving aside whether it’s even possible for the RNC to boot Trumputin or whether there’s any possibility at all of him quitting voluntarily…
who would their new candidate be? Maybe Cruz but as has been amply reported elsewhere, he is nearly universally loathed by those who would have any say in the matter. He also is one of the other sixteen losers of the primary process. If you lost the primary, how do you have any legitimacy to be the GOP nominee?
The only hope I see for the GOP to make anything at all salvageable from this shitshow… wait until after the primaries when there’s no longer a motivation to stick with Trump in order to get primary votes. Form an anti-Trump coalition that pushes Republican voters to show up at the polls to vote GOP on down-ticket races. The implicit or explicit message being, to counter President Clinton and keep her in check. Leave it up to individual pols as to whether they explicitly renounce Trump or just play footsy with whether they still endorse him and how much that endorsement is backed with action.
satby
@Omnes Omnibus: and a very Happy Birthday to you from me as well. Hope it’s an enjoyable one!
sigaba
@CONGRATULATIONS!: Recall that Bratton was offered All The Moneys to become a security consultant in London, and technically he was term-limited at the LAPD. I think the city council considered extending the term limits just for him but they never did.
He strikes me as kinda restless and I doubt he WANTS to stay anywhere long. Kinda likes being the hired gun. He probably did well here because he wasn’t from the ranks, wasn’t Bernard Parks, wasn’t constantly pissing people off and crime plummeted in those years (for a lot of reasons but he was here when it happened).
polyorchnid octopunch
@Enhanced Voting Techinques: Hard to argue with that, I’ve gotta say.
patrick II
@MCA1: that’s what happened to winterfell.
CONGRATULATIONS!
@p.a.: Not a chance. She has all the same issues he has, quite a few more piled on besides, and does NOT have Trump’s willingness to tell the GOP to go fuck itself (which for a reason I did not understand until recently is playing real well with his voters) or his sense of humor. Now, most of his humor is not that funny, but some of it genuinely has been, I’ll give him credit for that much at least.
Sarah! is not and never will be funny. Even when she tries, it just comes off as being mean as shit.
Elie
@Omnes Omnibus:
Happy bday! Enjoy!
Dadadadadadada
@MCA1: A troublesome analogy: the German invasion of France in 1940. The French government, wishing to avoid a repeat of the carnage of WW1, surrendered, but many French citizens (including a huge chunk of the army) wanted to fight on. They demanded assistance (air cover, mostly) from the Brits, who were slow to provide it. Britain figured they’d better save all the assets they could get their hands on in order to defend Britain, rather than risk them in a foolhardy effort to protect a country that seemed to not want much protection. So the Germans rolled into France basically unopposed (as the French opposition hadn’t had time to really organize itself) and, as I quote from some book I read years ago, “couldn’t believe their luck.”
Problematic, because this makes Hillary stand in for Hitler, but the French/British intramural squabbling in the face of an existential outside threat looks very much like today’s GOP.
Dadadadadadada
@eric: Happen to know Utah’s current position on polygamy?
smike
@cmorenc: I think the bigger problem for the pubbies is the wrath they would unleash by turning on teh donald. Have you seen how his followers can turn on someone upon command? tRump would dump blame on everyone on his way out, especially the pubbies. The pubbies know what they have created and they are afraid to act.