Patterns: Trump's Fake Smile and Transactional View

SEASON 4 EPISODE 42: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (2:30) SPECIAL COMMENT: Trump is drowning.

Trump’s presidency is DROWNING.

Yesterday, it was Republicans forcing a vote to extend Obamacare subsidies. Yesterday, 38 PERCENT approval in the Marist poll. Monday, his Rob Reiner tweet that appalled even the worst of MAGA. Tuesday, Susie Wiles. Friday, the Epstein Files, proving: no, history doesn’t repeat itself but yes, sometimes it LITERALLY rhymes.

The Venezuela Wag-The-Dog episode collapsed before it started. It's about Narco-terrorism, whatever the eff that is? Oil? Stuff they stole? Nuh uh. For the first but not the last time we turn to Susie Wiles for the, uh, well, it’s a strange word to use about the Trump administration but here it is: TRUTH. "He wants to keep on blowing boats up until [president Nicolás] Maduro cries uncle. And people way smarter than me on that say that he will." She also single-handedly ended the just-forming prosecution of Jack Smith, and the vowed prosecution of Anthony Fauci, and the already-moribund prosecutions of James Comey and Letitia James and Adam Schiff and and and…All those cases will be thrown out of court. All of them. Because Susie Wiles is on tape saying quote “I don’t think he wakes up thinking about retribution but when there’s an opportunity he will go for it.” About Comey, quote: “I mean, people could think it does look vindictive. I can’t tell you why you shouldn’t think that.” Trump’s chief of staff. Confirming it’s retribution. And retribution means selective prosecution and selective prosecution is illegal and you not only get the case thrown out, if you’ve had to defend yourself or your reputation has been hurt, you can sue the government. And it’s on TAPE.

So why did she say it? Why did she think she could get away with it? Because inside the White House even the Chief of Staff knows Trump is drowning. And they are beginning to distance themselves from him.

B-Block (27:00) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Laura Ingraham doesn't know Niagara Falls is in Ontario or Ontario is in Canada or that Premier Doug Ford isn't an American. I make bad choices in Exes. And these MAGA idiots just cannot see anything in the world any more without trying to force it into their brain-dead templates: it MUST be political and it MUST be an attack on Trump. New York City councilwoman Vickie Paladino "knows" the terrible shooting was an attack on Republicans at Brown University, and the moronic troll "Cat Turd" is sure they're wiping the shooter's social media history clean (which is an idea he should execute).

C-Block (37:00) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: I'm off by only four days from the exact anniversary, but it is now 42 years since I first met and interviewed Trump and I know most of us who knew him before knew he was nuts, but I must give myself credit. An hour after that meeting I was asking a colleague "what the eff is wrong with THAT guy?"

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