Republicans Can Never Grovel Enough To Satisfy Trump

David Kurtz
·6 min read

A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo. Sign up for the email version.

‘Totalitarian Unanimity’

I alternate between mocking the shattered remnant of the Republican Party and soberly treating it like foreshadowing of what Trump wants to do to America. Both are true.

A proud party of self-avowed institutionalists reduced to dressing like their cult leader, excusing his crimes, minimizing his criminal conviction, and engaging in elaborate displays of abject loyalty to him.

If there was one abiding theme in the 72 hours after Trump’s first criminal conviction, it was the harshly enforced rallying around the felon by Republicans, a dynamic Chris Hayes called “totalitarian unanimity”:

I’ve written before about how the Republican Party is a useful microcosm for what Trump wants to do to America. Almost every repugnant thing that Trump has done to the country writ large followed a corresponding move he had done to the GOP. So as much as it warrants mockery and derision, the Republican Party serves as a warning, a wake-up call, an object lesson in what re-electing Trump will look like. Be warned.

Trump Don’t Care About A GOP Senate Majority

If keeping the pressure on Republicans not to waver in their support of the now-convicted Donald Trump means sacrificing the GOP’s best chance of regaining a majority in the Senate, then so be it:

Clever!

HuffPo’s Jennifer Bendery has compiled the compleat list of all the Republicans calling for Donald Trump to withdraw from the presidential race following his conviction on 34 felony counts.

What Republicans Are Defending

Roger Parloff has a very useful reminder that the scheme that Donald Trump had going with the National Enquirer during the 2016 GOP presidential primary targeted some of the same Republicans that are defending Trump so vocally now.

The Democratic Messaging Wars

  • Brian Beutler: Democrats Need To Join The Fight Over The Trump Verdict Now

In the almost 48 hours since a New York jury returned its verdict against Donald Trump, many liberals who are normally sanguine about the Democratic Party’s approach to partisan combat have found themselves astonished by what they’ve seen. As their response has taken shape, Democrats have revealed fundamental disunity over how and even whether to exploit the fact that their principal opponent is a convicted felon.

  • Josh Marshall: Don’t Expect Your Campaign Case to Make Itself For You

Sometimes — actually most of the time — the big obstacle to effective communication is not boiling down and simply saying what it is you mean. You try to be too clever, to pull your punches to calibrate some imagined balance. Donald Trump is a liar, a cheat and a fraud who doesn’t care a wit about you, or anyone else but himself. He’s a convicted felon. Every time he faces consequences for his own actions he claims it’s someone else’s fault. Whenever he loses, the process is rigged against him. We all know that person. And we all know we can’t trust that person.

  • Dan Pfeiffer: Why Dems Shouldn’t be Shy about Trump’s Conviction

The message is that Donald Trump is a danger to democracy, and he is running for president to help himself, avoid legal accountability, and punish his enemies. The fact that he was convicted of falsifying business records as part of a scheme to interfere in an election seems more than a little relevant.

A Lifetime Without Accountability

Philip Bump: Trump insists his trial was rigged … just like everything else

Mike Johnson Tries To Walk Back His SCOTUS Remarks

Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) on Friday called for the Supreme Court to intervene in the Trump conviction in New York and suggested he’d talked some of the justices personally about it. Here he is trying to walk that back Sunday:

Aileen Cannon Has Only One Speed: Slooow!

After being smacked down by U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon the first time, Special Counsel Jack Smith reupped a motion Friday to modify the conditions of Donald Trump’s pre-trial release in the Mar-a-Lago case by barring him from continuing to make his bogus attacks on federal law enforcement.

Cannon didn’t smack Smith around this time, but she once again drew out the case by setting a somnambulant briefing schedule: Trump has until June 14 to respond, and Smith has until June 21 to reply.

‘2,000 Mules’ Producer Apologizes

The producer of the Dinesh D’Souza 2020 election conspiracy film “2,000 Mules” will cease its distribution and remove it from its platforms apparently as part of a settlement of a defamation lawsuit brought by a Georgia man whom the film falsely depicts as illegally voting.

Rudy’s Woes

  • The D.C. Board on Professional Responsibility has recommended that Rudy Giuliani be disbarred for his role in the Trump effort to overturn the 2020 election. “Friday’s recommendation is the final step before the D.C. Court of Appeals hears arguments ahead of deciding whether to disbar him,” NBC News reported.

  • NYT: A 9/11 Charity Provides a Financial Safety Net to a Giuliani Firm

Good Read

NYT: Faith-Based Groups That Assist Migrants Become Targets of Extremists

The Hunter Biden Gun Trial Begins Today

The federal trial of Hunter Biden by Special Prosecutor David Weiss for lying on a form to purchase a gun when he said he wasn’t using drugs at a time when he was in the throes of addiction begins today in Delaware.

I’ll say it again for those in the back: This is a case the feds don’t usually bring as a standalone charge, the investigation originated in the darkest days of the Trump DOJ, and some weird shit happened that ended up scotching a plea agreement in this matter.

Otherwise, nothing to see here.

Political Miscellany

  • Marian Robinson, the mother of Michelle Obama, died Friday at age 86.

  • Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX), 74, announced that she has been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.

  • The soon-to-retire Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia has left the Democratic Party to become an independent.

Kilauea Is Erupting Again

After a few hours of increased seismicity at shallow depths, a new lava flow emerged overnight at Kilauea in a place on the volcano that, until now, hadn’t seen eruptive activity since 1974.

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