Trump Uses and Betrays His Collaborators

Spicer was determinedly dour and looked miserable. He was puffy, pinched and pale. And little wonder: Trump has sucked the lifeblood out of him.

.. Washington is abuzz with speculation about when Spicer will be shown the door, but it doesn’t really matter. His credibility, and his dignity, have already been defenestrated.

.. Trump has a long history of walking out of disasters unscathed. It’s those around him — the Spicers of the world — who are destroyed.

  • Trump entities filed for bankruptcy protection six times. Investors, lenders and workers took hits — and Trump moved on.
  • Trump was caught on tape boasting to Billy Bush about sexually assaulting women — and Billy Bush lost his job.
  • Corey Lewandowski and
  • Paul Manafort poured themselves into Trump’s campaign and were unceremoniously dumped.
  • Michael Flynn is out and potentially in legal trouble.
  • The FBI’s Comey arguably handed Trump the election — and learned of his dismissal from TV.
  • Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein tarnished his sterling reputation in just two weeks.
  • Vice President Pence has been “unflagging in his loyalty,” only to be made “the public face of official narratives that turn out to be misleading or false.”
  • Trump humiliated Steve Bannon by publicly downplaying their association.
  • Trump repaid House Speaker Paul Ryan’s loyalty by winking at calls for Ryan’s ouster.
  • Attempts to defend Trump by aides Reince Priebus and Kellyanne Conway and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell have left them sounding clownish.

.. avoided answering questions by saying no fewer than 22 times how very “clear” he or Trump had been about this or that.

.. And, as many a Trump loyalist has discovered, you are useful to Trump until you are not — and then you are cast aside.

Pence Warns North Korea Not to Test Trump

Vice President Mike Pence warned North Korea not to push President Donald Trump, calling the recent American military strikes on Syria and Afghanistan an example of Washington’s strength.

.. “North Korea would do well not to test his resolve or the strength of the armed forces of the United States,” Mr. Pence said

.. Mr. Pence pointed to recent unilateral airstrikes by the U.S., first with 59 Tomahawk missiles on an air base in Syria and later with one of the U.S.’s largest nonnuclear bombs in Afghanistan as a warning to North Korea.

“Just in the past two weeks, the world witnessed the strength and resolve of our new president in actions taken in Syria and in Afghanistan,” Mr. Pence said, underscoring the “message of resolve” that he said he was bringing to Northeast Asia.

Tomi Lahren Was Made for the Trump Era

The rising TV starlet might have run afoul of social conservatives. But with her wide reach and trademark sass, her future could be positively Trumpian.

.. she’s pro-choice

.. I’m for limited government, so stay out of my guns, and you can stay out of my body as well.”

.. Beck, Lahren’s boss, questioned Lahren’s libertarian bona fides as a zealous Trump supporter

.. Trump is anything but libertarian.

.. high-speed rant style with “Final Thoughts .. little jalapeño poppers of bravura bile clock in at just 30 seconds, and are perfectly suited to social media

.. Lahren’s departure from TheBlaze might contain clues for the future of conservative media in the age of Trump and beyond, and even for the Republican Party.

.. most in conservative media are impotent to censure the president himself for his betrayal of signature conservative positions, they can flex some muscle by smacking down Lahren

.. a suggestion of what could happen, ideologically, if the GOP is ever emboldened .. to take Trump to task for his disregard of both civil liberties and family values.

.. on track to be the Samantha Bee of the right

.. the ironies that interest her concern “snowflakes” and “participation-trophy” types

.. she admitted that Trump’s on-tape comments about groping women didn’t “look good

.. “Don’t go around acting holier than thou about this, like you’ve never heard anyone say anything like that before.

.. “When will those in black communities take a step back and take some responsi-damn-bility for the problems of black communities? Because it seems to me blaming white people for all of your problems might make you the racist.”

.. grew up in a military family in South Dakota

.. with decades of sass ahead of her, Lahren is rumored (without clear evidence) to be in Fox’s sights

.. Mindful of her senior-citizen base, Lahren has made her home not primarily on Snapchat or even Twitter but on venerable old Facebook.

.. Facebook is a perfect place for her to perform for Tea Partyers and older conservatives, leaning on her love of guns and country to come off as the dream daughter—like Ivanka Trump, but country and not snooty.

.. tacit pact with Beck: He could give her the conservative white-old-man seal of approval and then she would be allowed to be spicy and pro-Trump, which in turn would be evidence of Blaze’s big tent.

.. Beck is a genuinely principled conservative, and his commitments to both family values and libertarianism made Trump—multiply-married, genital-grabbing, pro-choice in some interviews—insupportable, and finally appears to have made Lahren insupportable, too.

.. many uneasy bargains .. are being tested now

.. If Ryan’s tax reform, or Pence’s desired overturn of Roe v. Wade, come to nothing, how much more will they be willing to sacrifice for this rogue president?

.. there are libertarians, who have quarrels with Trump.

There are family-values types, who have quarrels with Trump.

And then there is Trump—a reality star who darkens his skin and lightens his hair and says whatever gets the biggest response

 .. She’s trying to be Trump.