Donald Trump
You have to understand this. @MikeBloomberg is not running to defeat @realDonaldTrump. They are lifelong friends.
He entered this race for one reason and one reason alone: to stop the insurgent campaign of @BernieSanders.
Billionaires will protect billionaires. Period.
— Shaun King (@shaunking) February 19, 2020
If indeed the spat between Donald Trump and William Barr is all an act, then either Republican senators have been taken in by it, or they’re in on it.[1] I can’t say I know which it is. But I think Jon Allsop’s analysis from a few days ago[2] isn’t out of date yet.
I think if pressed, I would have to guess that Trump just really is insane—I’ve been calling him a delusional raging narcissist-in-chief for a while. His current behavior reminds me of a teenaged boy who has figured out his parents can’t stop him from doing something and so he does it to spite them. And for him to have this understanding with Barr that Barr can protest and Trump can continue raging but Barr somehow preserves his credibility and that of the Department of Justice[3] just requires a lot more sophistication than I think Trump is capable of.
Burgess Everett and Marianne Levine, “Republicans plead with Trump to leave Barr alone,” Politico, February 19, 2020, https://www.politico.com/news/2020/02/19/republican-senate-barr-trump-116034
- [1]Burgess Everett and Marianne Levine, “Republicans plead with Trump to leave Barr alone,” Politico, February 19, 2020, https://www.politico.com/news/2020/02/19/republican-senate-barr-trump-116034↩
- [2]Jon Allsop, “Angry Barr and whether the press is getting played,” Columbia Journalism Review, February 14, 2020, https://www.cjr.org/the_media_today/william_barr_roger_stone_trump.php↩
- [3]Jon Allsop, “Angry Barr and whether the press is getting played,” Columbia Journalism Review, February 14, 2020, https://www.cjr.org/the_media_today/william_barr_roger_stone_trump.php↩