Trump defends leaking classified information as the “absolute right” of Trump
There’s something wonderful about this week’s Trump train wreck—a term which is perhaps an insult to trains, at this point—coming from the very meeting with Russian ambassadors that seemed so poorly timed after last week’s Trump train wreck, the surprise firing of FBI Director James Comey. The widely reported story yesterday that Trump “boasted about highly classified intelligence” to Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov and Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak, who you know are just called “the Sergeys” behind their backs, seems to sort of rhyme with the Comey scandal. Both involve our impetuous president acting rashly with his animal brain in what certainly looks like an attempt to endear himself to Russian power, whether as the result of a vast international conspiracy or because he is a stupid person.
And, following last week’s example, in which a balsa-wood justification had been made by the Republican apparatus for the president’s actions only to be toppled over the very next day by the president himself, this week we have seen a suite of carefully worded equivocations and refutations of the “intelligence leak” stories, all of which have again been knocked over immediately, this morning, by the president on Twitter. Trump’s handlers attempt to refute or dance around his embarrassments, but Trump, lacking the capacity for shame, admits everything, always as a part of his strong-man leadership style.
Again, the two possible explanations for this are either 1) a vast conspiracy overseen by evil geniuses with a fourth-dimensional understanding of the media and the American people, or 2) Trump is an idiot. Take your pick.
Anyway, all of the information leak stuff is particularly rich—a sort of unctuous, blindingly buttery chocolate cake sort of hypocrisy that only shitty, in-over-their-heads politicians can bring us, especially given that throwing Hillary Clinton in jail for potentially leaking government secrets had been one of the three legs of Donald Trump’s campaign, the other two being 1) racism, and 2) Republicans are cowards. Thus it is with great delight in the knowledge that just last week the president aired out a Middle Eastern ally by spilling info that, per the Times, “was considered so sensitive that American officials did not share it widely within the United States government or pass it on to other allies,” that we may watch this symphonic video via MSNBC producer Nick Ramsey:
Please enjoy:
This guy is a jackass.