President Donald Trump's closest aides have taken extraordinary measures in the White House to try to stop what they saw as his most dangerous impulses, going so far as to swipe and hide papers from his desk so he wouldn't sign them, according to a new book from legendary journalist Bob Woodward

Following Charlottesville, when Trump finally condemned white supremacists and neo-Nazis at the urging of aides, he almost immediately said, "That was the biggest fucking mistake I've made" and the "worst speech I've ever given," according to Woodward.

Woodward writes that Trump told Mattis he wanted to assassinate Assad: “Let’s fucking kill him! Let’s go in. Let’s kill the fucking lot of them.”

Mattis hung up the phone and told senior aide, “We’re not going to do any of that.”

Dowd told Trump: “Don’t testify. It’s either that or an orange jumpsuit.”

Trump: “I’ll be a real good witness,”

Dowd: “You are not a good witness. Mr. President, I’m afraid I just can’t help you.”

The next morning, Dowd resigned.

I feel like hearings are where Democrats often shine, which is a shame because nobody watches them.

Maybe it’s because a hearing is basically a debate, but there are detailed legal processes and the audience isn’t mostly an uninformed mob.

Republicans basically talk in hearings the same way they talk to their public audiences, and “gee whiz this is mob rule” is neither a reasoned nor a particularly defensible stance to take. The degree to which they choose to be full of shit in a hearing ends up being roughly equal to the degree to which they look full shit.

geezes christ

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics ... 01e5694ebf

Like poetry

Three different national polls this week have Trump at around 37%. With lawsuits and books and investigations all bubbling up on the horizon, and no great Korean-summit level opportunities for distraction.