Economist and former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich revealed a shocking conversation he had with a former member of Congress in a Facebook post Monday.
The post, which was published before Anthony Scaramucci was removed as White House communication's director, paints a picture of a government in chaos.
When Reich suggested that the White House was imploding and the GOP was heading down with the ship, the member laughed, saying "we're officially in a banana republic."
"They're convinced Trump is out of his gourd," the former member revealed. "Remember what I told you at the start of this circus? They planned to use Trump's antics for cover, to get done what they most wanted – big tax cuts, rollbacks of regulations, especially financial. They'd work with Pence behind the scenes and forget the crazy uncle in the attic."
He then corrected himself saying that he's hearing that Attorney General Jeff Sessions "is pissing them off." He said that Republicans in the caucus anticipate Trump will hurt them in 2018 and 2020.
"They want him out [of] there," he continued, saying that they're hoping special counsel Robert Mueller comes up with a "smoking gun." When asked what they would do if Trump fired Mueller, he claimed it would never happen.
If Trump isn't gone by the 2020 elections they intend to put someone up against him.
"Lots of maneuvering already. Pence, obviously. Cruz thinks he has a shot," the member said. Until then, they think Trump is "fritzing out," which he explained was "going totally bananas" with "paranoia."
"You want to know why he fired [Reince] Priebus, wants Sessions out, and is now gunning for Tillerson?" the member asked Reich, who thought it was to shake things up. "No. The way I hear it, he thinks they've been plotting against him."
Reich confessed he found the idea that Sessions and Priebus were plotting against Trump to be absurd.
"It's ludicrous. Sessions is a loyal lapdog," the member said. "[Rex] Tillerson doesn't know where the bathroom is. That's my point. Trump is fritzing out. Having manic delusions. He's actually going nuts… it's downright dangerous."
He went on to say that it won't be long before all of Washington knows that Trump is "flipping out."
"I don't mean just weird. I mean really off his rocker," the former member of Congress said. "They don't have to plot against him. It will be obvious to everyone that he's got to go. That's where the twenty-fifth amendment really does comes in … But he's losing it fast. My betting is he's out of office before the midterms. And Pence is president."
Interesting that in countries where there are no chemtrails, male sperm count is unaffected. But in all the countries where chemtrails are laid down regularly and have been for decades, male sperm count is down by 50 to 60%. Don't know if chemtrail fallout could be the cause, but just sayin'..... Of course, we can't get our government or the government of chemtrailed countries to even admit there are such things as chemtrails (though our "lying eyes" have been seeing them in our skies since at least the 1990s).
Good to see this kind of scientific research making its way from doctors into mainstream media more and more often these days. It's a positive sign of (finally!) a spiritual upgrading of our species, which can't come soon enough to save our country from the greed-and-power lust of Trump Republicans.
There is scientific evidence to suggest that life can continue after death, according to the largest ever medical study carried out on the subject. A team based in the UK has spent the last four years seeking out cardiac arrest patients to analyse their experiences, and found that almost 40 per cent of survivors described having some form of "awareness" at a time when they were declared clinically dead. Dr Sam Parnia ... who led the research, said that he previously [believed] that patients who described near-death experiences were only relating hallucinatory events. One man, however, gave a "very credible" account of what was going on while doctors and nurses tried to bring him back to life – and says that he felt he was observing his resuscitation from the corner of the room. About the evidence provided by a 57-year-old social worker ... Dr Parnia said: "We know the brain can't function when the heart has stopped beating. "But in this case, conscious awareness appears to have continued for up to three minutes. "The man described everything that had happened in the room." Dr Parnia's study involved 2,060 patients from 15 hospitals ... and has been published in the journal Resuscitation. Of those who survived, 46 per cent experienced a broad range of mental recollections, nine per cent had experiences compatible with traditional definitions of a near-death experience and two per cent exhibited full awareness with explicit recall of "seeing" and "hearing" events – or out-of-body experiences.
President Donald J. Trump poses for photographs with an outgoing group of interns at the White House, July 24, 2017, in Washington, DC. He had just been asked, "Should Jeff Sessions resign?" (Photo by Chris Kleponis-Pool/Getty Images)
Fish stinks from the head, as the ancient Greeks first said, and right now there's a 250-pound flounder stinking up the White House and all those around the place.
"Everybody, I can honestly say, with rare exception, who has been associated with this administration and this president has been diminished by it. Their reputation has been tarnished. They're smaller people as a result of it. And that's tragic."
Six months in and we've reached a level of mayhem, compulsive lying and incompetence that defies the imagination. Just to mix the animal metaphors, there's more bull running through Washington right now than the streets of Pamplona, and for our nation's capital, that's saying something.
Or, in the words of the British actor and veteran Ernest Thesiger, when asked to describe what it had been like on World War I's Western Front, "The noise, my dear, and the people!"
Six months in and we've reached a level of mayhem, compulsive lying and incompetence that defies the imagination.
Havoc rules. And did I mention the whining? Snowflake Donald Trump should change his entrance music from "Hail to the Chief" to "Poor, Poor Pitiful Me." Everything that happens is someone else's fault while the real culprit is staring out at him from the bathroom mirror every morning.
By now, of course, we were supposed to have repealed and replaced Obamacare, instituted vast tax cuts and begun rebuilding America's infrastructure. And I'm still waiting for my rocket belt and flying car.
This is not to ignore the gruesome deregulatory chainsaw being put to government departments and agencies, but legislatively this administration is a flaming train wreck.
While simultaneously claiming great lawmaking accomplishments, Trump falsely argues that what's holding everything up is obstruction from Democrats, and certainly there has been some Dem-instigated, strategic slow walking that has impeded GOP activity in Congress, such as it is. But far more grievous are the self-inflicted wounds of incompetence, inattention and infighting that have turned the capital into Pork Chop Hill.
And Russia. Trump and his campaign team's possible involvement with the Russian government and election tampering has created major roadblocks at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue, diverting huge amounts of time and attention.
The White House is on a war footing, seemingly determined to prove that the rule of law does not apply to Trump, his children or associates. Meanwhile, Congress is enmeshed in hearings and Russia-related maneuvering. All of this while the investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller and his team of prosecutors quietly hums along — even though it's about to be subject to an even greater onslaught of mudslinging and disruption as Trump may try anything to tear it apart through legal challenges and firings.
The White House is on a war footing, seemingly determined to prove that the rule of law does not apply to Trump, his children or associates.
To repeat the question over and over: What is he trying to hide? Getting to the truth of what happened is important, not just because of what it says about the amorality of this administration but also the devastating attack Russia has attempted on our democracy, part of a pattern of interference that has been perpetrated against European democracies as well.
Not to give a gratuitous plug to my place of employment, but the extent of the scandal is best seen in the stunningly thorough and quite brilliant timeline that has been assembled at the BillMoyers.com website by law professor and former litigator Steven Harper with the assistance of our editorial staff.
It's a jaw-dropping overview that demonstrates how truly deep and longstanding this scandal may go, so much so that at Politico, former Watergate assistant prosecutor Nick Akerman recommended it as "the most enlightening thing you can possibly read… the best source out there on this stuff."
But for this moment, let's focus on just a couple of recent developments that suffice to show that much is rotten in the state of Trump.
First, there's that New York Times interview Trump granted last Wednesday, a cross-examination that for sheer inarticulateness and borderline madness rivals The Caine Mutiny's Captain Queeg clacking away with his ball bearings and muttering about the crew stealing strawberries.
The Times' David Brooks said it demonstrated "a disturbing level of incoherent thinking," which is putting it mildly. The president is like a one-man game of Telephone: he hears information from wherever or whomever but when he repeats it back, the facts are thrown in the air and come down as surrealist jabberwock.
Thus, Napoleon Bonaparte, Trump thinks, "… his one problem is he didn't go to Russia that night because he had extracurricular activities, and they froze to death." Huh? As for health insurance, "…you're 21 years old, you start working and you're paying $12 a year for insurance, and by the time you're 70, you get a nice plan." Where would that be, the Planet Mongo?
In truth, much of the interview was far more sinister than his garbled, incomplete sentences: thinly veiled grumblings and threats about Attorney General Jefferson Beauregard Sessions, whose recusal from the Russia probe was, Trump argued, "very unfair to the president;" special counsel Mueller and his staff — rife, he believes, with "conflicts of interest;" Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein; and former FBI Director James Comey. By firing Comey, the president said, "I did a great thing for the American people." Meaning a great thing for I, Donald Trump.
These latest alleged moves by Donald Trump and the legal team assembled feel like the kind of maneuvers fashioned by a crime boss when cornered by his own lies.
Or so he seems to think. "I'm not under investigation," he insisted. "For what? I didn't do anything wrong." Yet the very next night after the interview, both The Times and The Washington Postreported on efforts by Trump to "limit or undercut" the Mueller investigation and ongoing discussions of presidential pardons for "aides, family members and even himself."
These latest alleged moves by Donald Trump and the legal team assembled feel like the kind of maneuvers fashioned by a crime boss when cornered by his own lies. And while the principle of innocence until guilt remains paramount in a society still deemed to be free, every action they take in the Trump/Russia case feels more like obstruction than any attempt to build a solid case for the defense.
For them to argue that some political donations to Democrats by members of Mueller's staff are conflicts of interest and reason for recusal is rich enough, but coming from a gang that has embraced unlimited campaign contributions from big business and the wealthy as free speech is almost as ironic as a bunch of self-described nationalists and populists reaching across the oceans and steppes to sacrifice sovereignty and endorse the philosophy of a tin-hat Russian despot.
Also risible are claims that Mueller should recuse himself from his Russia probe because he once disputed his membership fees at a Trump golf course (a charge a Mueller spokesman denies).
Illogic and yes, madness. "… [A]ll agree the US president has the complete power to pardon," Trump tweets, as his lawyer Jay Sekulow runs to the Sunday talk shows saying there will be no pardons because, hey, there is no wrongdoing to pardon.
But which is worse, the ranting nature of the president's febrile brain, the posturing of his lawyers or the spinelessness in his Cabinet and the GOP? As several have suggested, much of this nonsense might be curbed if Republican congressional leadership simply said if you try more firings to stymy the Russia inquiry or start issuing pardons like Kleenex, impeachment proceedings immediately begin. So far, silence.
You have to ask them, are your jobs and personal ambition so overwhelming and important that you've abandoned courage and responsibility? As you debate what's legal versus illegal, have you completely lost sight of what's morally right or wrong?
Every time you pledge fealty to this man, an angel loses its wings. Meanwhile, the smell of fishiness at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. grows ranker by the minute.
The Donald hasn't had enough vacation yet, even with all the many weekends he's taken to play golf and goof off at his many resorts.
Remember when the Republicans were complaining about Obama playing golf and taking "too many" vacations? Oh, for those good old days to come back again when we had a President actually dedicated to his job!
You'll never hear Trump supporters complain about their Dear Leader taking time off, though--even if he were to take a 3 month vacation (and I WISH he would!). Even if he were to shoot someone in cold blood in daylight on 5th Avenue in NY City, they would still love him.
The Alt-right don't realize they are in a dictatorship cult. It resembles the way the Germans idolized their Fuhrer Hitler and how the Italians adored their "Il Duce." Fox News helps keep the Trump cult going, and the deluded Trumpsters devotedly and blindly follow their leader as if he were the Pied Piper of Hamlin. He speaks their language, which most of the time is unintelligible to the rest of the world. As Trump once proudly exclaimed, "I LOVE the poorly educated!!!!" Oh yes, he does. They keep him afloat.
When the going gets tough, the tough get going. As opposed to Donald Trump, who goes golfing. He's already established himself as the laziest, most uninterested, most feeble weakling to ever occupy the office of President of the United States. And now that the clock is ticking on how much longer he might be able to hang onto that office, he's decided not to even try to put up a real fight. Instead he's taking the mother of all vacations.
According to flight plan records, Donald Trump is preparing to head to his New Jersey golf resort from August 3rd to August 20th (link). That's a whopping eighteen days away from the White House. He's already spent almost a third of his presidency at golf resorts, but vanishing from the White House for this many consecutive days is a new low even for him. And while it's not as if he's been doing anything while he's in Washington DC, abandoning the city at this time is his worst possible strategic move.
We see the Republican Congress quietly backing away from Donald Trump by letting his disastrous health care bill die, and by preparing to take away his ability to lift Russian sanctions. If Trump wants to survive this withdrawal, his best bet is to be in Washington DC, to use the power of the Oval Office, and to try to motivate (or scare) these Republicans into sticking with him. Instead he's skipping town.
No one in Washington takes a threat from the President seriously if it's coming from a guy with a 25% approval rating who's hiding out at a golf resort in New Jersey. Donald Trump's minimal and fading control over the Republican Congress will recede even further as he spends most of August hiding from the political world. And yet Trump is either too oblivious to understand what a mistake this is, or too far gone to care.
Store an avocado in a paper bag with an apple or a banana to ripen it more quickly as those fruits give off the gas ethylene which helps ripen fruit. The paper bag traps the gases.
Oh, but you HAVE health insurance! So your opinion only applies to others who might not have insurance. Well, if Fox fires you for some reason down the road, you might not have that precious coverage -- and what IF you or your wife or one of your kids have contracted some "pre-existing condition"? Oops. Out of luck. You might want to reconsider the heartless position you took on Fox Noise today. Actually, your glum, angry-looking face tells the story of your entire character that cannot relate to empathy or good will or charity to others:
Question: When it's finally time for a vote -- Will McCain vote for Obama Care to continue so other Americans will be able to have health care when they need it -- just like he has had?
Answer: Of course not. He'll vote to take away health care from millions of Americans.
Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) will be taking a week off from work this week, complicating efforts be Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to bring about a vote on whether to move forward on a bill to "repeal and replace" Obamacare.
Extraordinary: The Stan Romanek Story Anyone who may be curious as to whether extraterrestrials have visited the Earth will want to watch this astounding story of Stan Romanek, an average guy who could be your next-door neighbor, and his heavily documented encounters with ETs. Videos, audio tapes, police reports, credible documentation of all kinds make his story the most documented abduction story ever related to the public (which makes it dangerous to the government that doesn't want this kind of information out to the people). The title is apt. This is an EXTRAORDINARY story.
This is a remarkable video documentary. For those who have streaming Netflix, I recommend it as something that will give you much to think about--and of all the ramifications for us on planet Earth if his well-documented story is true. For anyone who already counts themselves as a skeptic, this documentary may not change your mind and might even strengthen your disbelief, as the epilogue (included in this Netflix-produced documentary) tells us that Stan has now been charged with computer child pornography. See story on snopes: http://www.snopes.com/2017/07/11/stan-romanek/ His trial on these charges is slated to take place at the end of this month (July 2017) and his defense team is determined to bring into the courtroom documented evidence of UFOs and Stan's experiences. It will be interesting to see how much, if any, of this will be allowed.
Anyone who has followed UFO information for years (as I have--attending many UFO seminars and meeting many of the well-known credentialed experts in this field) knows that accusations (and computer planting) of child porn is one of the favorite means of the black ops in government to shut up anyone who is considered too believable in their UFO stories. Stan Romanek was warned many times by black operatives (those infamous "Men in Black" that have been made fun of in the movies) to stop telling his story and showing his films. He refused. Just like UFO investigator Wendelle Stevens, who refused years ago to stop telling the stories of experiencers whom he had personally interviewed -- and was arrested for child porn. Anyone who knew Wendelle, a gentleman of the highest order and a well-regarded retired military Colonel, knew this was a ridiculous charge against him; yet he was sent to prison for it. Whistleblowers and UFO experiencers know they are taking great risks when going against government warnings. And they pay heavy prices. I hope Stan Romanek will be able to prove his innocence in court. He and his wife have suffered greatly through the years of his UFO experiences, but he has steadfastly stuck to the truth as he has experienced it.
I hope those who watch the film will keep an open mind -- it is so hard to know in these cases how much of it is government-coverup-related and how much actually ET-related. Whenever a contactee's story becomes too believable, the govt. rushes in to salt it with disinformation to make it appear ridiculous. Although other countries' governments (France and the UK, and even the Vatican, for instance) are much more open about admitting ET visitations to Earth, the U.S. has continually denied it overtly, while covertly working with extraterrestrials for decades -- just read online stories about Area 51--all of the reports of workers there over the years can't be lies. The government's stated fear of admitting all this to the world at large is that government control will be eroded and people will run screaming into the streets--especially the fundamentalists of all religions, whose beliefs will be threatened and shaken to the core. With all this said, I leave it to you as to whether you want to view Stan's story. You may dismiss it with a laugh and think I am naive, but I think he is credible. But I have had many years to consider the facts that have been presented over and over and over about extraterrestrials on earth, by scientists, physicists, and high government and military officials who want to get the truth out. So this is not a mind-shocking documentary for me. Eventually, it will be admitted by all governments on earth that we are not alone in the universe--and all the stories that have been ridiculed, and the people, like Stan, who have been cruelly vilified, imprisoned, and even killed for trying to get the word out, will finally be recognized as having told the truth. That may not happen in my lifetime, but I believe it will happen in the lifetime of my children and grandchildren. Lastly, I highly recommend the book: Kennedy's Last Stand: Eisenhower, UFOs, MJ-12 and JFK's Assassination by Michael E. Salla, Ph.D. as a wealth of information about the attempts of presidents and high government authorities to get the word out about ET visitation to Earth--and the prices they paid for their attempts to alert the populace. Informative facts about the sudden mysterious deaths of CIA Director William Colby, Naval Secretary James Forrestal, Marilyn Monroe and columnist Dorothy Kilgallen are included in this riveting book that will definitely hold your attention. Read reviews of it on amazon at:
Professor of Psychiatry, Lecturer on Bioethics & Humanities at SUNY Upstate Medical University; and Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, Tufts University School of Medicine, Tufts University
When Donald Trump gave the commencement address at Liberty University this spring, he told the graduates that "America has always been the land of dreams because America is a nation of true believers." Trump argued that, in America, "we don't worship government; we worship God."
I suspect the president was unaware that the term "true believer" was made famous more than 65 years ago in Eric Hoffer's 1951 book, "The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements." Hoffer had no academic training, having worked mainly as a longshoreman. He wrote "The True Believer" in reaction to the rise of fascism, Nazism and communism. Against all odds, the book became a best-seller.
Hoffer shrewdly analyzed the forces that spark nationalist and totalitarian movements. The irony of Trump's "true believers" remark probably escaped both the president and his audience.
As a psychiatrist, I'm interested in how vulnerable groups can be manipulated by misleading rhetoric. I believe there are striking parallels between Trump's rhetoric and the factors Hoffer explored.
Targeting the true believer
Hoffer wrote, "For men to plunge headlong into an undertaking of vast change, they must be intensely discontented yet not destitute." They must also have "an extravagant conception of the prospects and potentialities of the future" and "be wholly ignorant of the difficulties involved in their vast undertaking. Experience is a handicap."
Much of Trump's campaign was based on promises of vast change, such as the immediate repeal of Obamacare. These promises never took into account the great difficulties of radical change. Indeed, in late February 2017, Trump acknowledged, "Nobody knew health care could be so complicated." And, of course, Trump had no political or public sector experience to inform his most controversial decisions. Yet he masterfully parlayed this shortcoming into the virtue of being an "outsider" battling an entrenched Washington establishment.
Hoffer viewed "true believers" as craving "a new life – a rebirth – or, failing this, a chance to acquire new elements of pride, confidence, hope, a sense of purpose and worth by an identification with a holy cause." Trump's repeated promise to "make America great again" spoke to such a longing among disaffected voters. This message was often fused with appeals to evangelical Christians. Indeed, writing in The New Republic, Sarah Posner observed that "Trump effectively played to the religious right's own roots in white supremacy."
Hoffer understood that the true believer is rarely concerned with facts. He wrote, "It is futile to judge the viability of a new movement by the truth of its doctrine and the feasibility of its promises."
Trump's rhetoric was based on what Senior Adviser Kellyanne Conway famously called "alternative facts." And Trump repeatedly made promises that most experts considered anything but feasible. He proclaimed, for example, "I will build a great wall … on our southern border, and I will make Mexico pay for that wall. Mark my words."
Hoffer recognized that "Mass movements can rise and spread without belief in a God, but never without belief in a devil." Furthermore, "the ideal devil is a foreigner…[and] a domestic enemy must be given a foreign ancestry."
True to form, Trump's campaign rhetoric repeatedly invoked anti-immigrant themes, often disparaging Muslims and Mexicans. Trump famously characterized Judge Gonzalo Curiel as a "hater" and a "Mexican" when Curiel was presiding over lawsuits against Trump University – despite the fact that Curiel was born in Indiana.
Finally, Hoffer described the "true believer" as someone willing to die for "the cause." It's not clear how many of Trump's supporters would fit that description. But Trump himself may have characterized his most fervid followers when he said, "I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn't lose voters." Eric Hoffer might well have called those voters Trump's "true believers."
EXCERPT: The kerfuffle over the White House briefings is misplaced. The Trump White House move to have fewer briefings and to move them off camera is just a symptom. The real problem is that the people giving the briefings don't have a clue; they can't, as Trump put it, "stand at the podium with perfect accuracy."
Or a semblance of dignity. The humiliations that ruined Sean Spicer will do the same to Sanders or whoever fills the role. Trump doesn't seem to tell his people what he's doing, if he knows himself. ABC News's Jon Karl published a list last month of 26 times Sanders and Spicer said they would "get back to you" but never do.
WHY SARAH WANTS CAMERAS OFF -- SHE DOESN'T KNOW ANYTHING
By Dana Milbank
t's easy to see why Sarah Huckabee Sanders wants the TV cameras off during her White House news briefings.
There is, for one, the matter of her boss constantly proclaiming things that range from the inexplicable to the patently wrong. There's also the metastasizing Russia scandal, which keeps rendering previous Trump White House statements inoperative, as Richard Nixon press secretary Ron Ziegler used to say.
But above all is a more simple explanation: Sanders has no earthly idea what's going on in the White House she purports to represent.
And so, at Monday's off-camera briefing, she stood on the podium, frequently cocking her left eyebrow and raising the left corner of her lips to convey displeasure at the line of questioning. Then, as frequently, she opened her mouth and, with a heavy Arkansas twang, said a lot of nothing.
The Post's Philip Rucker asked about other Trump campaign meetings with Russians such as the newly discovered one in which Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort reportedly sought the goods on Hillary Clinton. "I am not sure," she said. "I'll check and get back to you."
John Gizzi from Newsmax asked if Trump raised the subject of Russia's human rights abuses during their meeting. "I'm not sure," she said. "I'll have to ask."
Another reporter asked if Trump trusts Russian President Vladimir Putin.
"I haven't asked."
Was their meeting recorded?
"I'd have to ask. I'm not sure."
And on it went. Sanders said she'd need to "have further conversations" before terming Russia an ally or an adversary.
The kerfuffle over the White House briefings is misplaced. The Trump White House move to have fewer briefings and to move them off camera is just a symptom. The real problem is that the people giving the briefings don't have a clue; they can't, as Trump put it, "stand at podium with perfect accuracy."
Or a semblance of dignity. The humiliations that ruined Sean Spicer will do the same to Sanders or whoever fills the role. Trump doesn't seem to tell his people what he's doing, if he knows himself. ABC News's Jon Karl published a list last month of 26 times Sanders and Spicer said they would "get back to you" but never did. There are, surely, many more.
Sanders did everything possible to avoid drawing attention to herself at Monday's briefing, but to no avail. It wasn't televised, but reporters were standing in the aisles. She brought out Marc Short, Trump's legislative director, to deliver a diversionary statement about Democrats' "needless obstruction" of Trump's nominees. But the distraction failed when half a dozen reporters used the opportunity to quiz Short about the floundering effort in the Senate to pass Trumpcare.
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Sanders stepped onto the podium and gave her colleague the hook. She read a six-minute statement about Trump's "powerful and historic speech" in Poland and how he "successfully achieved his objectives" in Germany, then gave reporters exactly 15 minutes to question her before walking out of the room.
She called first on her "fellow Arkansan" Frank Lockwood from the Democrat-Gazette. But this was no safe harbor: He asked about Trump's tweet targeting Chelsea Clinton. "At what point is the president going to put Hillary Clinton, Chelsea Clinton, Bill Clinton in the rear-view mirror?" he asked. "He won the election."
Sanders attempted to argue that the Clinton tweet was justified by an "outrageous attack against a White House senior adviser" — the derision set off by Ivanka Trump taking her father's chair at the G-20 summit.
Then came a barrage of questions about Donald Jr.'s newly reported meeting with the Russians, which negated, as CBS's Major Garrett noted, the White House's "long history of blanket denials" that there had been campaign contacts with the Russians.
"There was simply no collusion," she said, eyebrow cocked and lip corner raised.
"That's a different question," Garrett pointed out.
Sanders repeated that there wasn't any collusion.
It didn't go much better with questions about Trump's weekend tweet touting a new "cyber security unit" with Russia and then, 12 hours later, another tweet disavowing the project. "I am not sure there were specific details discussed," Sanders said.
In fairness to Sanders, there are no good answers to these questions. Trump, with his reckless tweets and nonsense claims, leaves his mouthpieces in an impossible position. No less an authority than former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee said after Trump's vulgar tweet about Mika Brzezinski that "he makes my daughter's job very difficult."
But that's no excuse. Sanders has agreed to interpret the nonsensical and to rationalize the indefensible. Like Spicer, she will fail.
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