Thank you, Michelle Goldberg, for using your platform and seat at the table to wonder aloud how Gary Cohn could resign over tariffs but not over Charlottesville.
It's high time everyone in media stopped pretending that "news cycle" is over. It will never be over that this so-called president called Nazis and white supremacists "fine people."
As Driftglass noted, Michelle Goldberg "shocked the dust right off the mortal remains of Tom Brokaw" -- and his adoration of Goldman Sachs connections in the Gary Cohn brand. Which he mentions more than once.
Tom Brokaw's "reporting" indicates that Gary Cohn was getting his career advice from Goldman Sachs. Which is perfectly acceptable to Tom Brokaw -- it makes Cohn a "heavyweight."
Transcript:
MICHELLE GOLDBERG: I mean I am maybe a very naive person because I just cannot get my head around the psychology that there are good people among the white supremacists is not a bridge too far, but tariffs are, right? And that I can kind of suck up the white supremacy for a tax cut, but this is my red line. I mean I just -- you know, I will go to my grave not understanding the mentality not just of the Gary Cohn but all the people that collaborate with these people.
TOM BROKAW: I don't think that's being fair to Gary Cohn.
GOLDBERG: What? You think Gary Cohn has collaborated with this foul, disgusting government for a tax cut?
JOHN PODHORETZ Yeah. He is the economics person. He's not the Charlottesville person. And he could say to himself, you know, "I'm trying to serve the country. I think this is a good thing to do, to do the tax cut." He did the tax cut and then the policy that's in his bailiwick, that's in his portfolio, comes down the pike that is indefensible. I'm not arguing that people who would have resigned over Charlottesville wouldn't have been doing a noble thing, it's just, you know, he thought -- you know, do you want people who are able to work in a White House?
CHUCK TODD: I want to take this, what's the message the world economy is going to say to this? The message world leaders are going to get from this? They notably did wait until after the stock market closed because they knew the markets are going to hate this.
TOM BROKAW: Gary Cohn is a heavyweight. He came out of Goldman Sachs.
CHUCK TODD: This would have been like Bill Clinton losing Bob Reuben six months after they passed their tax hike.
BROKAW: Yeah. He is an extraordinarily important figure. He was a Democrat, for one thing. I saw him early on. He was very uncomfortable with not being able to get the president to play he thought. He said I get about 50% and lose him on the second 50%. So it's been very thin for him for a long time. A lot of people have been on the phone with him saying how long can you stay down there with all of this? He came out of the Goldman Sachs culture. The Goldman Sachs culture is about the economy and about strong fiscal policy. I'm sure that that's what they were talking to him about. And he couldn't go here.
CHUCK TODD: You know what's interesting, Michelle, is that the people that were supposed to be the small "g" governors to the president, whether it was Gary Cohn on the economy, HR McMaster on national security, Reince Priebus arguably was picked, John Kelly, these people are either on the outs, gone, or have capitulated. There is no corralling Trump. I think that's people are learning.
MICHELLE GOLDBERG: All the people sort of presented themselves or were presented like the committee to save America. The people who were going to go in there and be the adults in the room and protect us from this catastrophic madman who has somehow become president. You know, I think that either some of them were just -- were just kind of -- I don't know, humoring us, or if they were kind of lying to themselves about their own motivations because it's just been astonishing --
CHUCK TODD: They genuinely believed the office would change Donald Trump.
GOLDBERG: Yeah, but it's been pretty clear --
TODD: It changed everybody else.
GOLDBERG: It's been pretty clear for a while that if it was going to change Donald Trump, it was only going to change him for the worse. So to me the thing that's really disappointing is not just that they stayed is that the people that leave then don't speak out. Dina Powell was reportedly part of the Gary Cohn faction, somebody who was very disenchanted with what she saw there, but she sort of came out quietly and isn't telling the world about what's going on there. These people have a duty to the country, to speak out.
TODD: Omarosa spoke out.
GOLDBERG: Yeah, right. That Omarosa did the patriotic thing ...
[end transcript]
Chuck Todd and John Podhoretz and of course Tom Brokaw have the beltway media insider way
...of compartmentalizing the Nazi thing
...while watching their pharma stocks soar
...as Donald Trump and the Republicans take away my health insurance.
No one at the great Goldman Sachs will ever worry about lack of health insurance happening to them. They're so "about the economy and fiscal policy" and being heavyweights that being not white or not rich or not insured? Hey being troubled about the so-called president in political bed with actual Nazis was just not in Gary Cohn's portfolio. What do you want, EVERYONE in the White Houseto quit when Trump cuddles up to white supremacists?
Yes, yes we do.
But Gary Cohn quit over aluminum and steel tariffs. How are your war stocks doing, Tom Brokaw?
Michelle Goldberg gets it.
