Your Saturday Trump Dump

Just a few articles for your weekend reading pleasure — and believe me, reading this stuff is not a pleasure…

  • Despite furious back-pedaling by his staff and even Republican leaders in Congress saying there's no "there" there, Trump is standing behind his feeble-sourced claim that Obama had him wiretapped. Well, of course. Trump says "I'm sorry" and "I was wrong" about as often as I say, "Hey, lemme have some more of that delicious candy corn!" Want to know how much truth there is to his assertion? Kevin Drum says there isn't much.
  • How much does Trump even know about the American Health Care Act which he is now pushing? Almost nothing, according to Ezra Klein but that may not be fair.  Trump does seem to know that it's super and terrific and the best thing ever…but that's about it.
  • William Saletan writes about how the Trump Administration wants lots of investigations of their opponents and none of them. So they need two contradictory policies of what should be investigated.  In other words, Trump can shoot someone in broad daylight on 5th Avenue but you can't.
  • John Cassidy notes how one of the big things that's been getting Donald Trump in trouble has been his own words coming back to haunt him and be used against him.  The man got away with a lot of that during the campaign because that was a campaign when even your supporters will overlook a little warping of reality because, hey, you've gotta win, right?  Most folks aren't as forgiving once you've won, plus now your words apply to the real world.

And in a related story, Caroline Framke writes about how Stephen Colbert has finally found a successful character to replace the old Stephen Colbert. He's transformed himself into Stephen Colbert and Stephen Colbert is now a successful talk show host.