Trump’s bizarre NY Times interview: the key lowlights, and what they mean

Where to start?

Why not with Trump having whined about Attprney General Jeff Sessions’s recusal from Russiagate being “unfair” to him:

Trump said on Wednesday that he would not have picked Jeff Sessions as his attorney general had he known Sessions would recuse himself from the investigations into Russian election meddling.

That Sessions would recuse himself from overseeing the probe, Trump told The New York Times in an interview, is “very unfair to the president.”

“Sessions should have never recused himself, and if he was going to recuse himself, he should have told me before he took the job and I would have picked somebody else,” Trump said.

“How do you take a job and then recuse yourself? If he would have recused himself before the job, I would have said ‘thanks, Jeff, but I’m not going to take you,” he continued. “It’s extremely unfair – and that’s a mild word – to the president.”

The takeaway: look for Sessions to quit or be fired in the next several days.

Trump also claimed, in contradiction to multiple eyewitnesses, that his recently revealed impromptu meeting with Putin lasted only 15 minutes, contradicting multiple witnesses:

TRUMP: Melania was sitting on the other side of the table, way down on the other end, very far away. She was sitting next to Putin and somebody else, I don’t know. She was sitting next to Putin.

HABERMAN: She had been the whole time?

TRUMP: Yes. She was sitting next to Putin.

BAKER: Does she speak Russian at all?

TRUMP: No. She speaks other languages.

TRUMP: She was sitting next to Putin and somebody else, and that’s the way it is. So the meal was going, and toward dessert I went down just to say hello to Melania, and while I was there I said hello to Putin. Really, pleasantries more than anything else. It was not a long conversation, but it was, you know, could be 15 minutes. Just talked about — things. Actually, it was very interesting, we talked about adoption.

HABERMAN: You did?

TRUMP: We talked about Russian adoption. Yeah. I always found that interesting. Because, you know, he ended that years ago. And I actually talked about Russian adoption with him, which is interesting because it was a part of the conversation that Don [Jr., Mr. Trump’s son] had in that meeting.

We believe that by “adoption”, Trump was referring to that file of dirt handed to Trump Jr. by a Russian intelligence asset during a meeting at Trump Tower on June 9, 2016.

Trump is still miffed at former FBI Director James Comey – and his latest talking point is that Comey was blackmailing him:

TRUMP: When he [James B. Comey] brought it [the dossier] to me, I said this is really made-up junk. I didn’t think about anything. I just thought about, man, this is such a phony deal.

HABERMAN: You said that to him?

TRUMP: Yeah, don’t forget——

…

TRUMP: I said, this is — honestly, it was so wrong, and they didn’t know I was just there for a very short period of time. It was so wrong, and I was with groups of people. It was so wrong that I really didn’t, I didn’t think about motive. I didn’t know what to think other than, this is really phony stuff.

SCHMIDT: Why do you think — why do you think he shared it?

TRUMP: I think he shared it so that I would — because the other three people left, and he showed it to me.

…

TRUMP: So anyway, in my opinion, he shared it so that I would think he had it out there.

SCHMIDT: As leverage?

TRUMP: Yeah, I think so. In retrospect. In retrospect. You know, when he wrote me the letter, he said, “You have every right to fire me,” blah blah blah. Right? He said, “You have every right to fire me.” I said, that’s a very strange — you know, over the years, I’ve hired a lot of people, I’ve fired a lot of people. Nobody has ever written me a letter back that you have every right to fire me.

Trump also took a swipe at Acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe:

TRUMP: I mean, look at what we have now. We have a director of the F.B.I., acting, who received $700,000, whose wife received $700,000 from, essentially, Hillary Clinton. ’Cause it was through Terry. Which is Hillary Clinton.

HABERMAN: This is [Andrew] McCabe’s wife, you mean?

TRUMP: McCabe’s wife. She got $700,000, and he’s at the F.B.I.

The lowest of the lowlights, of course, was that obstruction of justice moment: Trump essentially threatening to fire Bob Mueller if he looks into Trump money not related to Russiagate:

TRUMP: I have done nothing wrong. A special counsel should never have been appointed in this case.

BAKER: Can we put that on the record?

TRUMP: Because so far, the only — yeah, you can put it down.

…

SCHMIDT: Last thing, if Mueller was looking at your finances and your family finances, unrelated to Russia — is that a red line?

HABERMAN: Would that be a breach of what his actual charge is?

TRUMP: I would say yeah. I would say yes. By the way, I would say, I don’t — I don’t — I mean, it’s possible there’s a condo or something, so, you know, I sell a lot of condo units, and somebody from Russia buys a condo, who knows? I don’t make money from Russia. In fact, I put out a letter saying that I don’t make — from one of the most highly respected law firms, accounting firms. I don’t have buildings in Russia. They said I own buildings in Russia. I don’t. They said I made money from Russia. I don’t. It’s not my thing. I don’t, I don’t do that. Over the years, I’ve looked at maybe doing a deal in Russia, but I never did one. Other than I held the Miss Universe pageant there eight, nine years [crosstalk].

SCHMIDT: But if he was outside that lane, would that mean he’d have to go?

[crosstalk]

HABERMAN: Would you consider——

TRUMP: No, I think that’s a violation. Look, this is about Russia. So I think if he wants to go, my finances are extremely good, my company is an unbelievably successful company. And actually, when I do my filings, peoples say, “Man.” People have no idea how successful this is. It’s a great company. But I don’t even think about the company anymore. I think about this. ’Cause one thing, when you do this, companies seem very trivial. O.K.? I really mean that. They seem very trivial. But I have no income from Russia. I don’t do business with Russia. The gentleman that you mentioned, with his son, two nice people. But basically, they brought the Miss Universe pageant to Russia to open up, you know, one of their jobs. Perhaps the convention center where it was held. It was a nice evening, and I left. I left, you know, I left Moscow. It wasn’t Moscow, it was outside of Moscow.

HABERMAN: Would you fire Mueller if he went outside of certain parameters of what his charge is? [crosstalk]

SCHMIDT: What would you do?

[crosstalk]

TRUMP: I can’t, I can’t answer that question because I don’t think it’s going to happen.

And let’s talk about Russian hacking…

BAKER: This is why I want to come back to that email, because, like — does it concern you? Let’s say that the election didn’t change because of anything Russia did, which has been your point, right? You point —

TRUMP: By the way, it’s everybody.

BAKER: Right, your point is that Democrats are trying to use this as an excuse, fine. But did that email concern you, that the Russian government was trying something to compromise——

TRUMP: You know, Peter, I didn’t look into it very closely, to be honest with you.

BAKER: O.K.

By now I’m sure you see a pattern here.

Collusion is a non-issue, and everybody is out to get Trump, especially top law enforcement officials. They’re all disloyal, and Donald Trump demands loyalty from all of his appointees.

Worse yet, says Judd Legum of Think Progress:

Donald Trump unleashed an avalanche of caustic attacks on American’s top law enforcement officers, some of whom he had personally appointed.

In each case, the source of Trump’s ire was related to the ongoing investigation into his campaign and potential collusion with Russia.

Trump dismissed the entire notion of FBI independence, saying that the FBI Director only reports to the Justice Department “out of courtesy,” blaming the practice on Richard Nixon.

Taken together, Trump’s comments amount to a full scale assault on the rule of law from an increasingly paranoid president.

D.B. Hirsch

D.B. Hirsch is a political activist, news junkie, and retired ad copy writer and spin doctor. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.