One could say that it was late on a Friday afternoon, but then again, this is MSNBC’s Deadline: White House and liberal Republicans offering fear-mongering prognostications are nothing new. On the March 16 edition, host Nicolle Wallace led a band of MSNBC Republicans as each offered assessments ranging from bragging about smearing Sarah Palin to arguing the President’s tariffs will cause a depression to ironically complaining about having to discuss porn.
Wallace started with fellow failed McCain campaign aide Steve Schmidt as she bragged about how “we were concerned that Sarah Palin might not have been up for the job of vice president” and later aired them out in the media. Somehow, she saw parallels between the 2008 campaign and the President’s firing of Rex Tillerson.
Schmidt agreed, recalling how he ruled any potential Palin presidential bid would be “catastrophic” as “[t]here were many, many people” who thought “she was unfit temperamentally, intellectually, from every conceivable character perspective, from a veracity perspective, were still suspending disbelief and saying, oh, yes, this person, because she’s on Fox, because she has a rabid fan base, I'm going to say that, yes, she’d be qualified to be president.”
Eventually, he brought Trump into the equation by comparing Palin to Trump and surmised that the Trump tariff on steel and aluminum would create not only a “recession” but a “possible depression.”
Schmidt ironically complained that “we” (presumably the media) “seek to change the subject from his relationship and payoffs and maybe physical threats to a porn star” while the President is, in his mind, preparing to kowtow to North Korea.
“He's increasingly getting rid of people he reviews as restraints and the American President is a head of a constitutional republic...but operates within a system of norms and rules and laws and this is part of his increasing autocratic actions where he acts alone outside a system where he does what he feels,” he ranted.
Before a commercial break, Schmidt rambled about how “Vladimir Putin has opened his hand and he has placed it squarely on the throat of both this country and the United Kingdom” and seemed dumbfounded that Stormy Daniels has fetched more attention:
How is this not the lead of the news? We're talking about payoffs to a porn star. The country is under attack. The country is under threat. The President refuses to act. He increasingly acts like somebody who has been compromised by tile foreign power. He is increasingly acting erratically as his investigation draws nearer, it expands[.]
Fake conservative Washington Post columnist Jen Rubin wasn’t going to be left out, lamenting that Congress hasn’t investigated the alleged Trump-Stormy Daniels relationship and thus illustrates “who is enabling this President and why he has gotten as far as he has.”
Even more absurd was Rubin’s conclusion that, along with the Russia probe, the inability for Congress to investigate Daniels threatens our republic:
And unfortunately, right now, we have a Congress that is not doing its job and I cannot stress enough that the Founding Fathers did not imagine a system that would work this way. They imagined a system in which the Congress would act as an oversight authority, would check the executive and when that does not happen, we wind up in very deep constitutional waters.
Back to Schmidt, he invoked the gun control student activists as having show “courage,” “leadership,” and “principle” while Trump has created “chaos,” shown a “lack of any decency around the White House,” and offered “payoffs to porn stars.”
“And it's just this remarkable moment where we have growing threats in the world, where there is this sense that the momentum of his recklessness is drawing us closer to real consequence, economic consequence that will crush the dreams and aspirations of America's working families as he blunders his way into a trade war,” Schmidt complained.
Wallace concluded with accolades for Rubin and Schmidt: “Steve Schmidt and Jennifer Rubin, we can't get enough of either of you. Thank you for spending so much time with us.”
To see the relevant transcript from MSNBC’s Deadline: White House on March 16, click “expand.”
MSNBC’s Deadline: White House
March 16, 2018
4:26 p.m. EasternNICOLLE WALLACE: Steve, let me ask you something that's close to home for you and me, and at least one other person at this table, John Heilman is here. During the McCain/Palin campaign, it was our job to keep secret the degree to which we were concerned that Sarah Palin might not have been up for the job of vice president, and we did. After the campaign, people like John Heilman and his coauthor Mark Halperin wrote a book called Game Change, HBO went on to make a movie. And at that point, which would be the parallel to Rex Tillerson being gone, at that point we shared some of the things we'd seen and some of the concerns we had. Talk about, I mean, because what you started out by saying is right, but it's pretty agonizing. Someone that went in and served at the highest levels on behalf of a politician aren't going thinking about coming out talking about what a bleep show it all was.
STEVE SCHMIDT: No, they don't and I remember, in my case, in 2009 I was asked at a conference hosted by John King of CNN, who asked what I thought of Sarah Palin as a potential nominee for the presidency in 2012. I answered it in one word. I said it would be catastrophic. There were many, many people, long after the hour, that it was clear she was unfit temperamentally, intellectually, from every conceivable character perspective, from a veracity perspective, were still suspending disbelief and saying, oh, yes, this person, because she's on Fox, because she has a rabid fan base, I'm going to say that, yes, she'd be qualified to be president. Eventually it all comes out, but what we're seeing lately is this emboldened President. We can learn and study about trade wars, for example, by reading about the impact or the — of the Smoot-Hawley Tariff, or we can understand the impact of a trade war experiencially today with the recession and possible depression and the loss of jobs that will follow. We seek to change the subject from his relationship and payoffs and maybe physical threats to a porn star, that he upends America's strategy and gives North Korea the strategic gift that it has always sought, parity and equal status and a rival party on the world stage with the United States of America to change the subject. He's increasingly acting out. He's increasingly emboldened. He's increasingly getting rid of people he reviews as restraints and the American President is a head of a constitutional republic, is the head of state, the head of government, the commander in chief, but operates within a system of norms and rules and laws and this is part of his increasing autocratic actions where he acts alone outside a system where he does what he feels. He does what he intuits. He does what his instinct tells him to do, no matter his almost uniform abject ignorance on every conceivable subject on which he's acting.
(....)
SCHMIDT: Vladimir Putin has opened his hand and he has placed it squarely on the throat of both this country and the United Kingdom. In the United Kingdom, we see a military-grade nerve gas attack on English soil that the President of the United States refuses to personally, directly condemn and in this country, we've seen Russian interference and — and access to critical infrastructure, including our electrical grid, including our nuclear power plants. This is extraordinary, this attack on the United States of America. How is this not the lead of the news? We're talking about payoffs to a porn star. The country is under attack. The country is under threat. The President refuses to act. He increasingly acts like somebody who has been compromised by tile foreign power. He is increasingly acting erratically as his investigation draws nearer, it expands and it expands. The circle of people who are closest to him.
WALLACE: Steve Schmidt is just getting started. He's not going anywhere. Neither is anybody here at the panel.
(....)
JEN RUBIN: This is beginning to resemble the Goodfellas movie, that these people are acting like thugs, threatening people, paying hush money. I'll say a few things. First of all, the notion that Congress should not be investigating a payment to shut up a witness in advance of an election, which arguably violated campaign finance rules tells you everything you need to know about who is enabling this President and why he has gotten as far as he has. So, put that in the back of your mind for November when the control of one or both of the houses of Congress may change.
This is extraordinary conduct and we are going to learn more obviously when Stormy Daniels does a 60 Minutes interview, which was promised later in the month. But at this point, it's very, very disturbing to think that, first of all, there are people out there who have information that is incriminating. Do the Russians also have information that’s incriminating? If Stormy Daniels and six women are running around with information, do we not think that’s been picked up by others as well? So, I think it’s — not only — put aside for a moment the morals of it. His wife was pregnant at the time he had this affair. I think the real implications and the fact we have a President who is so blackmail-able should concern all of us. And unfortunately, right now, we have a Congress that is not doing its job and I cannot stress enough that the Founding Fathers did not imagine a system that would work this way. They imagined a system in which the Congress would act as an oversight authority, would check the executive and when that does not happen, we wind up in very deep constitutional waters.
(....)
EVAN MCMULLIN: I've been slow to sort of say that this is the sort of thing we need to focus on amid everything else. But there's a — there’s a reason why Trump and his team are fighting this so hard. I don't know what it is. I mean, to me, you sort of expect that the President is unfaithful to his wife even when she's pregnant.
(....)
WALLACE: Steve Schmidt, I asked Michael Avenatti about this idea of whether — now that he's in the line of work of defending women who had alleged sexual relationships with the President, if other women had come forward, he acknowledged it was between five and 12 that had. He confirmed this morning on Morning Joe and I believe last night on CNN that he's now looking at six women. You've run campaigns. You've worked in the White House. What does this look like? I mean, what does Donald Trump's war room, to the degree it's staffed by men like Michael Cohen who is sitting on a subpoena from — I'm not saying sitting meaning he's not responsive, but in receipt of a subpoena for his activities from Bob Mueller, what does that look like in light of the Stormy Daniels scandal?
SCHMIDT: You know, I was thinking about Jennifer just referring to them as the cast from Goodfellas. I agree with the sentiment, but it's more like Dumbfellas. It's a group of scumbags like Michael Cohen sitting around in cahoots with each other, subjects of investigations and litigation themselves, in a cauldron of chaos in the west wing of the White House. I think it's remarkable as we look at the news this week, we've seen leadership from teenagers in America. We see the adults looking at teenagers for their courage and principle. We see teenagers watching the news and maybe younger, watching stories about a President of the United States, this chaos, the lack of any decency around the White House, payoffs to porn stars, everything that is up is down, what's down is up in this corrupted world of the Trump presidency. And it's just this remarkable moment where we have growing threats in the world, where there is this sense that the momentum of his recklessness is drawing us closer to real consequence, economic consequence that will crush the dreams and aspirations of America's working families as he blunders his way into a trade war, wholly ignorant how the North American supply chain works or how global trade functions. Perhaps blundering his way towards a military conflict on the Korean Peninsula. It seems, though, that the closer these investigations move to him and to the people around him, the more reckless he's becoming.
WALLACE: Steve Schmidt and Jennifer Rubin, we can't get enough of either of you. Thank you for spending so much time with us.
