Happy Thanksgiving

Trump's Thanksgiving post insulted his "enemies."

Book: True Crimes and Misdemeanors

Jeffrey Toobin's highly entertaining definitive account of the Robert Mueller investigation and the impeachment of the president takes readers behind the scenes of the epic legal and political struggle to call Trump to account for his misdeeds. Based on dozens of interviews with prosecutors in Mueller's office, Trump's legal team, Congressional investigators, White House staffers, and several of the key players, including some who are now in prison, True Crimes and Misdemeanors is a revelatory narrative that makes sense of the seemingly endless chaos of the Trump years. Filled with never-before-reported details of the high-stakes legal battles and political machinations, the book weaves a tale of a rogue president guilty of historic misconduct, and how he got away with it.

Not A Surprise

The new book is Romney: A Reckoning by McKay Coppins.

"Donald's An Idiot"

Trump’s Former Lawyer Degrades His Lack Of Intelligence

Michael Cohen, the former lawyer of Donald Trump, has cautioned fellow defendants in the Georgia RICO case about the potential for Trump to use them as scapegoats. He has also asserted that Trump’s thought process differs significantly from that of an average human.

Cohen delivered a stark and troubling alert to his co-defendants, stating that Trump holds no concern for their well-being and would readily sacrifice them to save himself. He remarked, “Donald doesn’t care about you. He doesn’t care about you one bit. He will use you as the scapegoat and the system will use you as the scapegoat in order to get somebody,” he affirmed.

Further Insights From Cohen

Continuing his point, the former lawyer of Trump delved into his reasoning. “Prosecutors will get them to turn because these three could easily end up in the same situation I ended up in and I can promise you something – it’s not fun. Exactly what happened to me is going to happen to all 18 of the co-indicted defendants,” he declared, presumably referring to notable figures like Rudy Giuliani, John Eastman, and Mark Meadows.

MSNBC questioned Cohen about whether Trump’s Georgia co-conspirators seeking an expedited trial hold leverage over him. Cohen replied, “Donald doesn’t think like a normal human being. He doesn’t see, for example, a trial that is coming up. He doesn’t see it. It’s an eternity away.”

Book: Betrayal

I found Jonathan Karl's book helpful in remembering and learning why the final year of Trump's presidency happened. The year 2020 began with Covid-19 and its panic and Trump taking over news conferences that he had no business leading because his medical knowledge was non-existent and his interpretations were made-up and not helpful. The summer continued through politics leading to the 2020 election in November. Then "the big lie" that the election was stolen commenced. This culminated in the January 6th insurrection. 

And all because one man thinks and acts only for himself.

The book concludes:

Indicted X 2

In an interview with D Trump yesterday, Bret Baier (Fox News) listed Trump's former appointees who do not support him for the Republican Party presidential nomination:

•  your Vice President Mike Pence is running against you
•  your Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley, she’s running against you
•  your former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said he’s not supporting you
•  you mention National Security Advisor John Bolton, he’s not supporting you either
•  you mentioned Attorney General Bill Barr, says you shouldn’t be president again, calls you the consummate narcissist and a troubled man

Arrested

Indicted

Dumber - Immoral - Ignorant - Lazy

 "Trump far dumber and immoral and ignorant and lazy" than staffers knew before they worked for him

John Kelly didn't have high expectations about Donald Trump when he joined the White House as chief of staff, but he was still shocked by what he found after joining the administration.

The retired U.S. Marine Corps general joined the White House halfway through Trump's first year, and New York Times reporter Michael Schmidt told MSNBC's "Morning Joe" about what Kelly learned about the former president and his abilities.

"So when Kelly came in as chief of staff, he thought that the problem around Trump was that he was not staffed properly and they needed to create a process around him, and that's what the chaos of the first six months of the administration was about," Schmidt said. "But when Kelly comes in as chief of staff, what he realizes is that the problem is not just the fact that there's not a process and that he's not being staffed as well as he could, but that Trump himself was the problem, that Trump was far dumber and immoral and ignorant and lazy than he ever thought he was."

-- story by Travis Gettys