During a press opportunity with Norway's Prime Minister, Trump went off about collusion with Russia, Democrats, and his expectation that he won't submit to an interview with Robert Mueller.
Nicolle Wallace played the video at the top of her show this afternoon, with this intro:
"It seems sneaky Dianne Feinstein who released the transcripts from the founders of the firm behind the dossier in the interest of transparency and to stem the smear campaign against the FBI is getting under Donald Trump's skin, or at the very least, earning herself a nickname. The president used his executive time this morning to tweet this:"
"On day two of the White House's effort to show a president hard at work doing normal presidential stuff, the president re-upped the witch hunt in another tweet dispatched during executive time."
Wallace reminded Trump that Republicans are in control of everything right now, in case Trump overdosed on cheeseburgers and Diet Coke during his tweeting and TV time, aka "executive time."
Then she played this remarkable moment during a press conference with Trump and Norway's Prime Minister, where he repeated the same phrase over and over again. I suppose it would be too much for us to tell him that collusion is probably not the issue. It's more likely obstruction of justice or money laundering or other crimes. And we still don't know whether he's being blackmailed by the Russians, right?
Here was the question:
"Your legal team, sources have told us, believes in the next few weeks, the special counsel Robert Mueller will ask for some sort of an interview with you, your legal team believes, as part of wrapping up his investigation. Are you open to meeting with him? Would you be willing to meet with him without condition or would you demand that a strict set of parameters be placed?"
Off to the races we went.
CHORUS: "Again, there has been no collusion between the Trump campaign and Russians or Trump and Russians. No collusion. "
It could, of course, be something far more criminal and also mundane. Like money laundering. Or lying to the FBI. Who really knows?
BLAME: Dems are mean
"When I watch you interviewing all the people leaving their committees, I mean, the Democrats are all running for office and they're trying to say this, that."
SING THE CHORUS: "But bottom line, they say there's no collusion. And there is no collusion."
BLAME: Hillary and the Emails!
"And when you talk about interviews, Hillary Clinton had an interview where she wasn't sworn in. She wasn't given the oath. They didn't take notes. They didn't record, and it was done on the Fourth of July weekend. That's, perhaps, ridiculous and a lot of people looked upon that as being a very serious breach, and it really was."
SING THE CHORUS: "But I'll speak to attorneys. I can only say this it was absolutely no collusion. Everybody knows it.
BLAME: Democrat hoax
"Every committee -- I've been in office now for 11 months. For 11 months, they've had this phony cloud over this administration, over our government. And it has hurt our government. It does hurt our government. It's a Democrat hoax that was brought up as an excuse for an election that frankly the Democrats should have won because they have such an advantage in the electoral college. So it was brought up for that reason.
SING IT WITH ME NOW: "But it's been determined there is no collusion and by virtually everybody. So we'll see what happens."
WHAT ABOUT THE INTERVIEW?
"We'll see what happens. Certainly i'll see what happens. but when they have no collusion and nobody has found any collusion, at any level, it seems unlikely that you'd even have an interview."
Well, duh! That last part was the punch line. Trump doesn't want an interview with Robert Mueller because it is fraught with peril. He doesn't know what Mueller knows or doesn't know, and would just as soon fire the special counsel as be interviewed by him.
While it's true that collusion isn't actually a crime and hasn't been proven beyond any reasonable doubt, it's also true that everyone doesn't say there has been "no collusion." That's just Trump's soft shoe for the base.
On the other hand, some money laundering, some conspiracy, some obstruction of justice...They have found evidence of those. Yeah, they have. So he can sing the No Collusion Chorus all day long, and his base will lap it up. In the end, his shady, tawdry, narcissistic ways will be his undoing.
