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The Screaming Moderate

Hoisted on his own petard?

3/26/2018

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Donald Trump is getting beaten at his own game.

He is under attack by women who allege they had sexual relationships with him right around the time his wife gave birth to their son.

That’s one nasty man thing to do. Another nasty man trait is to deny it.

Of all the slights and insults the President has uttered in interviews and, primarily, in tweets, so far there has been not one tweet about Stormy Daniels' accusations. Or any of the women who’ve made allegations.

The closest was this morning when he tweeted: “So much Fake News. Never been more voluminous or more inaccurate. But through it all, our country is doing great!”

We all we know what he means.

But seriously, no tweets about Stormy or Karen McDougal, a former Playboy model, who also claims an affair with Trump? On an issue that not only is damaging to his reputation and credibility but must be driving a big wedge, at minimum, between Trump and his wife?

Buried in her interview with Anderson Cooper last night Stormy said that the alleged sex she had with Trump occurred only once. Hardly an affair other than she says he made many phone calls to her and she met him in person one other time with no sex involved.

Also, she said Trump was not attractive to her and the sex was pretty standard.

A far cry from when he boasted about the headlines Marla Maples created in the tabloids when she said of Trump: “Best sex I ever  had.”

Put aside everything else. These tidbits must drive Trump mad. His Big Button is being challenged. And even Trump supporters must admit, he doesn't like when that happens.

But still, no tweets.

His public relations approach is one standard in the PR handbook: Don’t draw more attention to the allegations and lay low if there is truth to try to protect any legal position you may need to take. In short, don't say anything.

He had dinner with his “fixer,” Michael Cohen, the night before the Stormy interview ran on “60 Minutes.” Cohen is the lawyer who paid Stormy $130,000, he claims out of his own pocket because that’s the kind of friend he is. (I don’t think I’ve made any such friends in my life)

This is what puts him and Trump's campaign in legal jeopardy because it could be considered an illegal campaign donation.

If he did have, as I believe, affairs that he has been denying for years, no law was broken. Moral conduct yes,marital vows, yes. Laws no. But the potential illegal donation is criminal.

Stormy was quite credible in her interview. Her lawyer must be holding back more evidence she has of the relationship with the President but who knows?

This President, who made a career literally out of successfully working the New York tabloids for years, has now made the media all “tabloid.” He’s making it impossible to explain to your kids what he’s doing. And he’s losing the PR war.

This all on the same weekend that the “kids” led a national charge to modify the nation’s gun laws. Speaking of those, the National Rifle Association, is using tactics against those protesting kids that they use against everyone – personal attacks, demean and claim the liberal wing has them under their control to do their bidding.and cries of "they want to take away your 2nd Amendment rights."

This because the kids want to go to school and not worry about being victims of a mass shooter.

Methinks the President and the NRA are on the wrong PR sides of these issues and the wrong side of the truth too.

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Trump calls out Mueller by name. What's up??

3/18/2018

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President Trump for the first time used Robert Mueller’s name in a tweet, a move I take to mean something is up. He typically refers to Mueller as the special counsel.

It is time for elected Republicans to follow the leads of folks like Sen. Jeff Flake and Sen. Lindsay Graham and publicly state the President should not fire Mueller.

The obvious: If it’s true that the President has done nothing wrong, he should want this investigation over. It is not a “witch hunt” as the President has called it and Muller has the convictions and indictments to prove that. Not proof of collusion, as  Trump has maintained, but proof of the Russians meddling in our election.

Trump, though, now has upped his bet by calling Mueller out by name and I have a hunch that means he knows something we don’t. Maybe, since Attorney General Jeff Sessions fired Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe, as the President has been calling for, for months, maybe something is up regarding Mueller. Sessions can’t fire Mueller since Sessions is recused from the investigation. The deputy AG has resigned, so she isn’t going to do it. And next in line is the Solicitor General…who knows?

It’s all feeling very hinkey to me. Trump is making moves as if he believes he now understands the job he won, or at least he believes no one else on his team is helping him so he needs to assume full control. He is using Mueller’s name in tweets. He got his wish when the career bureaucracy recommended McCabe be fired. Maybe McCabe deserved to be fired,  if he lied which is about the biggest no-no for an FBI agent because they lose all credibility with one lie. Not sure he deserved to be fired the day before he qualified for the pension he spent more than 20 years earning. That move is very Trumpian though.

And clearly the Russians did mess in our election. Why? Because their aim is to sow distrust among democracies, especially the U.S. And, they want us to not trust a free press. And they want us to believe only what they say we should believe.

Sounds rather…Trumpian no? He debases the free press, he tells us only he can solve our problems, he has further separated this country politically.  And he, self-admittedly lies. As if we needed his affirmation to know that.

 Maybe it’s coincidence that Trump is doing things the Russians have been trying to do to us for decades. It probably is. But, we need to know and Mueller is our best bet to find the truth.

Senators and Congressmen, yes you Republicans over there cowering because you are craven…stand up and tell the President to leave Mueller alone. If Trump is innocent, he should welcome the investigation’s results.


 

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Nunnberg: What is the media's responsibility in broadcasting live?

3/6/2018

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Sam Nunnberg’s seeming meltdown on TV yesterday raises an interesting question. What is a reporter’s obligation/responsibility when the person you are interviewing live seems off or maybe drunk?

One reporter yesterday asked him the “awkward question,” as she put it, because she thought she smelled alcohol on his breath. He denied he’d been drinking. But he was on a bender of some sort, calling reporter after reporter to announce he was going to ignore the special counsel’s subpoena to the grand jury. By the end of the day, he was telling the Associated Press he likely would comply with the subpoena.

But what should a TV reporter do when he or she is interviewing a subject live and the reporter thinks something is off?

Seems to me if you suspect an interviewee is drunk or high or off in some fashion, you have a responsibility to ask the question. Likely that person would say no. Then the broadcaster has a responsibility, I think, to go to commercial and use the two minutes to talk to her producer about the value of this interviewee’s testimony. And maybe move to taping an interview rather than go live so you can ascertain without the pressure of being live what to do with the interview.

In Nunberg’s case, CNN had him on two shows consecutively. MSNBC took him live as did a local New York channel. Print reporters have the same obligations, seems to me, to decide what to print and what not to. But everyone went with the interview when it was offered, which tells us something about today’s media – that the pressure to compete often outweighs their solid news judgement.

Even someone as bitter as Nunnberg seems to be about having been fired, twice, by Trump during his campaign, normally wouldn’t, on live TV, call a woman a “fat slob” as he referred to the White House press secretary. And he also first leaked part of his subpoena and then gave it to a reporter on the record. Not normally done.

His frantic calling, which reminded me a bit of President Trump’s campaign strategy of getting free media by calling live into news shows, seemed over the top.

Plus, he will testify or likely sit in jail for a long time to think about what he’s doing. He had no information to give that was reliable, no facts on any collusion or wrong doing by the Trump campaign and the special counsel seems more focused on emails Nunnberg may have rather than his testimony – emails the special counsel likely already  has.

His association with Roger Stone, the self-admitted dirty trickster of campaigning and Trump friend for decades is troublesome too. Some even said Nunnberg may have been carrying out a Stone dirty trick by doing the interviews.

His testimony likely is not all that key to the investigation since unless he has emails with an evidence of wrong doing in them, he doesn’t seem to offer any proof of anything.

And that’s where the ethics of journalists come into play.

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The politics of guns, I mean Trump

3/1/2018

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If you watched yesterday’s live broadcast of a meeting of President Trump and a bipartisan group of senators and congressmen, you saw true reality TV.

It was real, for sure, but there also was a lot of playing to the cameras.

For example, would that Trump was being honest that he’d like an increase in the minimum age for buying long guns but you may recall a similar meeting in January when he told a similar group of lawmakers that if they could settle on a bipartisan immigration bill, he’d sign it.

Trump proceeded to badmouth every potential bipartisan bill the Congress came up with. Result: no immigration bill. And no solution to for that group of young adults who came here with their immigrant parents but are not considered citizens and who Trump promised a solution to, uh, after he was the one last year who ended protection to those “kids” and gave the Congress a deadline by which to act to save them.

Thanks to the courts, those young adults have not been thrown out of the country, yet.

Everyone these days needs to blame someone so Trump, with a very straight face, is pointing the finger at Congressional Democrats for blocking a solution to the immigration problem he himself created.

Back to guns. Trump met over the weekend for lunch with leaders of the National Rifle Association (NRA) and came away saying they were good guys and “are on our side” despite the fact that their leadership has been quite public and pointed in saying basically any change to the gun laws is the first step to eliminating the Second Amendment and therefore they oppose it.

Trump told those senators and congressmen yesterday that they were afraid of the NRA which is why they couldn’t pass a bill but he said he was not afraid of the NRA and pushed for a bill that would include things the NRA opposes. He was implying that through the NRA's donations, and promise of donations, to their campaigns the congressman or senator would never oppose the NRA.  (Reminder: Trump received $30 million in campaign donations from the NRA two years ago.)

He obviously is sorta kinda believing in that belief some have that if he opposes the NRA, really opposes the NRA, he could have a "Nixon goes to China" moment. So i imagine he's trying to figure out a way to "go to China" without getting on a plane.

One person he pointed a finger at specifically was Sen. Pat Toomy, a Pennsylvnia Republican who the NRA chose not to endorse last time because he opposed them on something. But, we’re playing in the moment to the cameras, so who cares about the truth. (Or as his soon to be ex-communications director Hope Hicks allegedly testified, she tells “white lies” to protect Trump. As the Internet meme says, “white lies matter.”)

My guess is he will continue to say he’s for things the NRA opposes until the Congress deadlocks in passing a bill and then he will blame the Congress for its failure to protect our kids and others from potential mass killings. Therefore, eating his cake too.

Donald Trump cares not a whit about good policy. He only cares about good politics, with “good politics” meaning any politics that is good for him.  

Anyway, if you’re looking for Trump to lead us to a new era on guns laws, give me a call. I have a candidate I want to sell you.


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    B. Jay Cooper

    B. Jay is a former deputy White House press secretary to Presidents Reagan and George H.W. Bush. He also headed the communications offices at the Republican National Committee, U.S. Department of Commerce, and Yale University. He is a former reporter and is the retired deputy managing director of APCO Worldwide's Washington, D.C., office.
    He is the father of three daughters and grandfather of five boys and one girl. He lives in Marion, Mass.

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