When will Trump resign?

Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank on Monday afternoon wrote,

If things weren’t already bad enough for President Trump — economic collapse, botched pandemic response, mass unrest — U.S. intelligence believes Trump’s “friend” Vladimir Putin paid Taliban fighters bounties to kill U.S. troops.

But the White House is ready with a defense: The president has no earthly idea what’s going on.

Totally in the dark.

Not a [freakin'] clue!

“The CIA director, NSA, national security adviser, and the chief of staff can all confirm that neither the president nor the vice president were briefed on the alleged Russian bounty intelligence,” White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany declared at Monday afternoon’s briefing.

So, asked NBC’s Kristen Welker, Trump was kept “out of the loop by his own intelligence community?”

“It would not be elevated to the president until it was verified,” the press secretary explained.

On June 2nd, Robert Reich declared that Trump had already abdicated.

Others (the Arizona Eagletarian included) have suggested from the start of this administration that he has been completely incompetent.

Indeed, Trump's cabinet ministers have, from day one, set about to dismantle (not hyperbole) the American federal government.

Now, with Trump massively failing the country on the Covid19 Pandemic, WE come to learn that he has known (or should/would have known if only he had been paying attention) that his best buddy, Vladimir Putin has been paying bounty to Taliban-linked fighters in Afghanistan to murder US soldiers.

Former National Security Advisor John Bolton's book reportedly mentions that Trump was briefed on the situation in March 2019.

Bolton declined to comment Monday when asked by the AP if he had briefed Trump about the matter in 2019. On Sunday, he suggested to NBC’s “Meet the Press” that Trump was claiming ignorance of Russia’s provocations to justify his administration’s lack of a response.

“He can disown everything if nobody ever told him about it,” Bolton said.

The revelations cast new doubt on the White House’s efforts to distance Trump from the Russian intelligence assessments. The AP reported Sunday that concerns about Russian bounties were also included in a second written presidential daily briefing earlier this year and that current national security adviser Robert O’Brien had discussed the matter with Trump. O’Brien denies he did so.

Which is worse? That Trump knew and completely ignored the intelligence that was set before him that Putin had a bounty on American soldiers, or that he is claiming (implausibly) that he just never knew about it?

Ragin' Cajun James Carville, long time Democratic political consultant, in an interview recorded last week with MSNBC host Brian Williams, says there's a better chance Trump will not actually stand for re-election than that he will be re-elected.



Carville mentions Peggy Noonan's Wall Street Journal opinion column (published on June 25)

Something shifted this month. Donald Trump’s hold on history loosened, and may be breaking. In some new way his limitations are being seen and acknowledged, and at a moment when people are worried about the continuance of their country and their own ability to continue within it. He hasn’t been equal to the multiple crises. Good news or bad, he rarely makes any situation better. And everyone kind of knows. [...]

The latest White House memoir paints the president as ignorant, selfish and unworthy of high office. Two GOP House primary candidates the president supported lost their primaries resoundingly. Internet betting sites that long saw Mr. Trump as the front-runner now favor Mr. Biden. The president’s vaunted Tulsa, Okla., rally was a dud with low turnout. Senior officials continue to depart the administration—another economic adviser this week, the director of legislative affairs and the head of the domestic policy council before him. Why are they fleeing the ship in a crisis, in an election year?

Judgments on the president’s pandemic leadership have settled in. It was inadequate and did harm. He experienced Covid-19 not as a once-in-a-lifetime medical threat but merely a threat to his re-election argument, a gangbusters economy. He denied the scope and scale of the crisis, sent economic adviser Larry Kudlow out to say we have it “contained” and don’t forget to buy the dip. Mr. Trump essentially [repeatedly has] admitted he didn’t want more testing because it would result in more positives.

And the virus rages on, having hit blue states first and now tearing through red states in the South and West—Arizona, Florida, the Carolinas, Texas. (more)

From The Free Dictionary,

Smart (and disloyal) individuals will desert a failing enterprise before it is too late. This observation was made long ago about rats, which would remain on board devouring a ship’s stores in the hold until the ship foundered in a storm or ran aground; then they would disappear so as not to be drowned. The transfer to human desertion was made before 1600; in some cases it was a ship they abandoned, in others a house about to collapse. “It is the Wisdome of Rats that will be sure to leave a House somewhat before its fall,” wrote Francis Bacon (Essays, 1597).