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Before heading to Vietnam for his summit with Kim Jong Un, President Trump was fretting because his former lawyer’s testimony would happen the same day in Washington and he’d have to share his positive summit coverage with the negative hearing coverage. Today, he should be happy because his summit was not a success. Which means his failure didn’t get as much play as if it were the only news of the day.

But he can proudly point to both events as being all about him, as he likes it.

The hearing with his former lawyer, Michael Cohen, while reinforcing some things anti-Trumpers believe and disclosing very little new information, wasn’t as revealing as anticipated. The summit, something Trump has built up as one of his crowning achievements was a failure.

Cohen was quite credible on most topics and he reinforced confidence in his testimony when he said a tape of Trump allegedly hitting his wife in an elevator didn’t exist, to his knowledge or investigation. Also, he said he saw no evidence of Trump colluding with Russia over his election. (Naturally, while Trump said Cohen is a liar he cherry-picked that fact out as proof there was no collusion.)

The hearing was a typical Hill hearing: lots of grandstanding by both sides of the aisle who played to the cameras without a real effort to elicit useful information from Cohen. Though it did get more than its share of “wow” statements.

As pointed out in a New York Times column this morning by Caroline Frederickson, president of the American Constitution Society, the only questioner who really did her job was, surprisingly, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York who asked questions as would a prosecutor in a trial to get necessary information that can be further investigated.

The Republican strategy was for everyone to attack Cohen’s credibility and it did not work. He admitted up front as he has in court that he lied to Congress and committed other crimes. And, as the Republicans noted time after time, Cohen is going to prison in May for his crimes. Then Cong. Mark Meadows (R-NC) brought out his show and tell -- a black woman who worked for Trump thus, he claimed, proving Trump is not a racist -- well, do I need to say more? A stupid idea based on an ignorant theory and using a black woman as a prop to try to make his point. Only Trump’s basest base might possibly buy that stunt.

Cohen held up well under the constant attacks, though he showed moments of being on the verge of displaying his well-known anger (real or not). When talking about letting his wife and children down, I thought he’d crack. But he didn’t. Not until committee Chairman Elijah Cummings closed out the hearing with an impassioned plea to get the countr8y back to “normal” and civility. Then Cohen’s eyes welled up and it earned Cummings a rare hearing standing ovation.

On the other side of the world, Trump and Kim ended their summit early when they couldn’t reach agreement on eliminating North Korea’s nuclear capability. On top of that, because they didn’t like questions asked at an earlier event, the White House disinvited four print reporters from the next event. Typically when American presidents are overseas, especially when meeting with dictators, they go out of their way to showcase that our press is free, even if they don’t like the coverage at times. This time, not so much. One more stab in the back of the American press by the American president in front of a murderous dictator that Trump has admitted he is “in love” with.

Bottom line, nothing accomplished at the summit and no movement of the ball at the Cohen hearing. Whoever disliked Trump before the hearing heard further evidence of his bad behavior and, possibly, crimes; and whoever liked Trump just chalked it up to another liar trying to reduce his prison term (Fact Check: nothing Cohen said in the hearing will reduce his sentence. It’s only when a cooperating witness gives investigators information that leads to discovering crimes that a sentence reduction may be considered.)

At the summit, Trump once again demonstrated he does not have the fantastic negotiating skills he claimed. The only winner at the summit was Kim – who wins just sitting next to an American president and giving him credibility.

At the Cohen hearing one thing that struck me as ominous is it that Cohen worries that if the 2020 election is not a clear victory for whoever opposes Trump, Trump will not give up power easily – another fundamental of our democracy. That is a very scary prediction.
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There also was nothing that was clear evidence that Trump should be impeached though the Left is likely to push harder for impeachment now. Cohen may have offered up allegations that could result in impeachment but lots of corroboration would be necessary. And now focus turns not only to the Mueller investigation but the investigation going on in the Southern District of New York. Those folks have information beyond Cohen’s testimony that either backs it up, or doesn’t.
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The other thing Cohen said that explains a lot is that he confirmed Trump never expected to win the election. He looked at it as one big marketing opportunity to make money, thus the push to build Trump Tower in Moscow. Thus all the visits to Trump owned properties. Thus Trump, when he did win, not giving up his companies.
Despite a summit staged by Trump to be a foreign policy success, but failed; and despite a Congressional hearing that was entertaining but provided no smoking gun – nothing changed at the end of the day. Except we still have a president who didn’t think he’d win running a country as if it was his personal business and being surrounded, in his administration and the Congress, by a bunch of men and women who do everything they can to enable him.

If you thought the first two years of President Donald Trump were rampant craziness, you ain’t seen nothing yet. Unless, Republicans in Congress finally get over their selfish ways and put country before anything.

Yes, I’m talking to those of you who came out to mourn the passing of President George H.W. Bush and praise him for his bipartisan approach to the government and as soon as the services were over, went back to wearing blinders.

As we are about to hit the two-year mark of the Trump Administration, we literally are watching this country fall into near disaster.

Defense Secretary James Mattis resigned with a flourish, unlike a career soldier who normally would have more quietly walked into the sunset. But Mattis is a true patriot, pledged to the United States of America, not a two-bit faux-politician. If Mattis’ exit letter didn’t shock the Hill into a new behavior, what will?

President Trump is pulling out troops out of Syria. Now, whether that’s good policy or not can be debated. But what can’t be debated is the slap-dash way the decision was made. Trump was on the phone with the Turkish president who was making his standard case for getting American troops out of Syria and finally Trump said, basically, and this isn’t too far from what he’s reported to have said, “The hell with it, Syria is yours. We’re outta there.” And, getting nothing in return for it.

You may not agree with having our troops on the ground while the fight against ISIS is finished, or the various geopolitical reasons we were there beyond killing ISIS, but to leave and get nothing? To make the decision without consulting your advisors one more time, or the Senators and Congressmen who actually do understand the geopolitics, or our allies who are directly affected by our abandoning the fight? Reckless. Dangerous. 

Why? Because there are other countries our troops we are in for similar reasons – not only to fight for the countries and people most directly affected by the bombings and killings and to protect basic human rights but because we fight them there, so they won’t come here – a strategy that’s worked pretty well, until now.

When you see Vladimir Putin praising a U.S. president for a foreign policy decision, you know the wrong decision was made. That’s not a throwaway line – that’s reality.

The President gives his word he will sign a budget agreement to avoid a partial shutdown and two days later, after being pummeled by, get this, Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter – talk show entertainers – and some wackos on the Right. he goes back on his word to the Hill and holds out for money to build his silly wall that he promised Mexico would pay for. Plus, do you remember not long after he took office that he asked the then-president of Mexico to go along with the wall, but that it would never be built? I do. Plus an easy majority of Americans oppose the wall.

Trump’s base may love it when he upsets another apple cart but this week proved you need to think before you throw over the cart. The market is in free-fall. Since October, those of us with “portfolios” invested for retirement are down a significant percentage. Will it come back? Normally the market does, but these are not normal times. We have a President who now wants to fire the Federal Reserve chairman he appointed not that long ago because the independent Fed is making decisions Trump doesn’t agree with. That is dangerous.

He’s appointed a temporary Attorney General who thinks like he does except not when prosecutors make independent decisions that Trump sees as hurting him. Then what does he do? He calls the acting AG to complain about it. Wholly inappropriate.  The Justice  Department is investigating Trump and he calls them to “hint” it needs to be stopped? People, he complains too much about the Mueller investigator for there not to be something there.

There’s more but probably old news by the time you read this, so I won’t list everything going to hell in a hand basket right now.

Our country is facing an extremely dangerous time. And the danger doesn’t come from abroad, it comes from within the White House. Trump has two years under his belt and, while I think he was overwhelmed (as anyone would be) at first, now believes he knows more than anyone thus we are being governed by his gut. He trusts his gut, he says, but he doesn’t trust his foreign policy advisors who keep us safe. He won't read a briefing paper to even pretend he understands a policy before his gut changes it.

He either is the dumbest person to ever hold elected office or he truly is a puppet of the tyrants of the world – Russia, Saudi Arabia, North Korea and others. With our international reputation at its lowest in, well, ever and our economy on the edge of tipping into recession with all of our savings at risk, we have a President who seems to love all the chaos he’s producing. In fact, it emboldens him.

We have a system of checks and balances – but only when those checks and balances are used. Impeachment? I don’t know and doubt this is the right time for that for a variety of reasons. But the Congress can do more – can do something – about checking the Executive’s “power.” Pressure alone would be one thing.

Example? A basic one. The House and Senate could have passed a “clean” bill on the budget – a temporary way to fund the government to punt debates until  later – and let the President veto it. The Congress can override a veto – why didn’t they do that a couple of weeks ago when it would have mattered? Instead, the Republicans in Congress caved to the will of Trump, who knows absolutely nothing about appropriately governing this country. Does he have to be like every President before him? No, but there are some good lessons in our 200-plus years of existence. We didn't spring up over night.

I’m not expert of the laws of this country or the rules of the Senate or House, but we have experts in those areas. And we should be using them creatively to stop the madness.

It’s time. It's about to be past time.